Sometimes you start in one direction and go in another, only to come back to where you started: MetaCarta is a company that originally had ideas back in the dot-com boom for relating content to geographic locations for major consumer portals, but some research funds from the U.S. government's DARPA defense research arm helped them to nurture their capabilities by focusing on more strategic needs. After numerous successful governmental installations, it appears as if their capabilities have matured to the point where it may be time for them to take a stab at the consumer market again. Directions Magazine provides some compelling examples of MetaCarta's ability to relate search terms to specific geographic coordinates using their own language processing algorithms and Web services-based search modules. Certainly useful for tracking down bad guys in obscure places and finding reports and research that relate to oil exploration sites, but how about for tracking down hard-to-find-widgets in Manhattan or pumping in Krispy Kreme coordinates automatically into a GPS-equipped PDA? Geographic context has been exploited in broad terms already in Web formats and with handhelds via online news outlets, directories and guides, but pinning down content to contexts that define the intersection of very broad content sets and very specific locations is still a growing opportunity in content markets. Getting content down to very finely defined geographic contexts is one key avenue for vContent aspirants, one of many "war benefits" from government-funded efforts that's benefitting both individuals and institutions in the private sector.