GIScussions

Google wants your geodata

2009-11-23T07:48:00.004Z

Last week Google Maps Mania had a post about a soon to be launched feature in the Google Maps API.

Google have announced that in a few weeks time they will be adding new functionality to the Google Maps API v2 that allows Google to log the location and content of the markers and/or infowindows that are displayed in Google Maps mashups. Google then plans to use the gathered data created by Google Maps developers within the main Google Maps site.

Can you see where this is going? If Google are building their own map of the world as they phase out Tele Atlas then all of the mashedup content provides an additional source of information and content to add to that gleaned from collecting StreetView and whatever other smart collection techniques Google have in plan.

This takes crowd sourcing to another level or is it the ultimate in Derived Data?

I would be fascinated to know how Google will extract features and infer information from the mashed up points and info windows?

Of course if you don't want your geodata to be absorbed by Google there is a way to stop them by switching off indexing in your API settings (but I guess that means that less people will find your app when they search for it).

You can sort of understand why OS lawyers were getting a little heated about the "perpetual rights" clause in Google's T&C's a few months back.

The end of dodgy offside decisions

2009-11-16T18:30:00.005Z

I was chatting with Mike Sanderson of 1spatial last week at Where2.0Now about the potential of geo-rules in his company's Radius Studio.

Somehow (can't think how) the conversation managed to get to football and he said that it would be easy to write the offside rules into Radius if only you knew where the players are at any point in time (and where the ball was). Ubisense's real time location tracking would seem to be the answer to that offering sub second tracking at high accuracy.

So it could be that two veterans of the geospatial industry could hold the answer to all of those disputed offside decisions. Just need an enlightened football authority to run some tests.

And a happy 40th birthday to 1spatial (formerly Laser-Scan).

Vermeer 3 - iPhone 3

2009-11-12T08:27:00.009Z

Yes it was a draw at AGI Northern's Where2.0Now event in Harrogate on Tuesday! In a great day of geoweb presentations and conversation the audience were treated to 3 pictures of Vermeer's "The Geographer" as a token paleo and surprisingly only 3 pictures of an iPhone breaking the apparent trend that every presentation has to have a picture of an iPhone and a reference to OSM.

The attendees seemed to enjoy the event although there were some baffled faces when John McKerrell was showing how he tracked his location history on mapme.at and linked it to his Weasley Clock. Surprisingly the academic contingent of the audience were most sceptical about the value of tracking personal location history which seems strange to me considering some of the topics that academics chose to research.

The presentation of the day (IMHO) was Tim Waters on a community powered project to take the New York Public Library's collection of scanned historic maps and rectify and warp them over OpenStreetMap and then to digitise features from the maps. Defying the demo gods Tim did a great demo of the tools that are used and finished with a spectacular display of ancirent maps draped over a Google Earth globe. You can play with the warping application and view the maps, or even participate, here. What use? Well Landmark have built a very substantial business deriving previous land use data and inferring potential environmental contamination from historic maps for a start.

John Fagan of Microsoft talked about the dangers of taking a too simplistic approach to thematic mapping in web applications and came up with one of the quotes of the day "Do we really want web developers carrying out spatial analysis? It could all go wrong!" as he illustrated how John Snow could have got his famous identification of the contaminated water pump wrong if he had use the wrong boundaries. It got a bit technical for me but the academics seemed to be nodding with approval when he mentioned MAUP, the slides are here.

Ed Parsons closed the event with a presentation entitled "Lessons from a Blind MapMaker" not sure that I understood the title but the presentation was good particularly Ed reassuring us that there was no Google plan for world domination!

Rollo Home and his helpers are to be congratulated on putting together this event. Joking aside, the Geoplan offices and the towns of Harrogate and Knaresborough made a wonderful setting for the event.

Oh and attending a GeoCommunity offshoot event without having to speak, organise or promote was a new and very enjoyable experience. It gave me plenty of time to tweet and even if you are not a twitterer you can follow the back channel of conversation in this tweetdoc.

Not a good week for Geowebbers in London

2009-11-10T06:46:00.003Z

Just as the northern geoweb folk gather in Harrogate for AGI's Where2.0Now, comes news/rumours of layoffs at Microsoft and Cloudmade's London based engineering teams.

For Microsoft this is probably an inevitable part of the gradual absorption (aka disappearance) of the Multimap acquisition although it may not feel like that for any of the remaining long term mutimappers. For Cloudmade the layoffs follow the departure of a CEO and previous layoffs of community ambassadors - it looks like they are battening down the hatches to ensure that they manage costs until revenues start to pick up (or the next round of funding).

So there are going to be quite a few very clever geopeople looking for an opportunity in London. The germ of an idea is forming ..... multimappers and cloudmaders you KnowWhere to find me.

Norf London

2009-11-02T11:49:00.002Z

Well it's a matter of place really - which side of Norf London do you come from? Red or White?

One can apply all sorts of socio-economic and geo-demographic analysis to the regional distribution of excessive proclaimers (sometimes referred to as Keanites or Redknappers) within the northern reaches of London but it does appear this morning that they all seem to be concentrated around N17. Whilst the quietly confident and sometimes gloating will be found in N5.

It would be good to measure the "bragging index" between N5 and N17 but as a substitute I have used the tweetometer to show that at least in the twittersphere it is another win for the Arsenal.

It has been a good weekend

Goodbye PND

2009-10-29T07:53:00.004Z

Google announced the beta of their mobile navigation application yesterday.

It looks like a pretty fully featured navigation application, with voice recognition, plain English search, satellite imagery, streetview, POI's on your route, live traffic feeds and of course no need to download map upgrades. Downsides - what happens when you lose internet connectivity which seems to happen every few minutes with my mobile service (perhaps service is a misnomer) and a few questions at this early stage about how accurate and up to date Google will be able to keep its own maps. It's currently only available on Android and for North America but no doubt wider coverage and phone support will follow. Can't wait for the iPhone UK version.

I guess this has been waiting for Google to phase out TeleAtlas who had prevented them offering a mobile nav service to protect their lucrative contracts with PND manufacturers (one of whom ultimately bought TA and are now sitting on a turkey). It won't be long before Google extends their coverage - think StreetView vehicles driving round Europe photographing and quietly mapping as they go. Not sure that many people saw this coming, I certainly didn't.

So what is the future of Personal Navigation Devices? Somehow I can't see Google wiping them all out but the manufacturers are certainly going to have to dramatically step up the pace of innovation and deliver some much more compelling interfaces and applications if they are going to convince people to spend ca £100 plus service charges. At the very least we will see some pretty intense price competition over the next few years. How Nokia are going to make a return on their massive purchase of Navteq was always a mystery to me (business as usual was never going to do it) now it looks like maps and navigation will be a costly to maintain low to no revenue must have feature for them.

Respect to Navteq and TeleAtlas CEO's - looks like you sold at just the right time.

GI MSc on the way out

2009-10-27T07:40:00.002Z

At last week's AGI Foresight workshop Muki Haklay made the provocative statement that he expected Masters programs in pure GI to disappear within a few years and for GI to increasingly be taught as modules within other programs. Quite a few of the participants including several academics seemed to agree with him. When I tweeted this it prompted some rebuttal from my friends at Kingston pointing out that being able to drive a GIS package did not imply an understanding of geographic analysis.

A couple of days later and Peter Batty pointed out this post by Don Meltz comparing GIS to word processing. You probably would not want to take a Masters in word processing but you might want an MA in creative writing or journalism (especially if you fancy a career as an unpaid blogger).

It seems that the geography bit is going to come to the fore again.

Augmented Reality? A bit more reality please

2009-10-23T07:55:00.007Z

Simon and Tony at mashupevents ran an evening of debate and discussion on Augmented Reality on Thursday night.

I hadn't planned to go to this evening because I didn't think I would find much of interest but a couple of days ago I helped to facilitate an AGI Forsesight study (more on that soon) in which the subject of AR came up and I was struck by the opportunity for AR to supercede cartographic displays in presenting a lot of information in close up situations.

The impression that I got from the evangelists of AR was of a collection of technologies that had come together in the new iPhone and Android platforms which enabled location sensitive information feeds over the current camera view. Maybe it is AR but it didn't appear to be in anyway context sensitive or particularly intelligent. I don't think I want to walk around London holding my phone up and reading tweets from people who were nearby in the last hour or so nor do I want to navigate to the nearest tube by following little arrows in the view of my camera. As some wag pointed out loads of people walking round London with their eyes glued to their phone displays is a recipe for disaster - either collision with lamp posts (painful) or vehicles (worse)!

What got people excited was a description of this aid to a BMW service engineer, shame we didn't have the video at the event.

There will be real value in AR when for example it can be used to present underground asset info (pipes and cables) to someone about to start digging up the road. Prediction - we will see something like this within 5 years.

There were a lot of people asking whether AR was just the new wow factor and someone pointed out that wow was just what marketing campaigns needed. Good point.

The demo that blew all the others away was from Total Immersion who are doing some very neat things. Worth a look and definitely wow.

I pitched for a minute about the GeoVation Awards and the Ideas Forum we are running on 2nd November. I wonder whether we will see any Geo-AR apps submitted for the Awards?

Where do all the Manchester United fans live?

2009-10-13T02:36:00.002Z

Nothing makes me happier than being able to link geography and football.

As a Londoner I am stunned by the number of Liverpool and Man U fans who live in London (and they didn't all move here).

So if there is a football mad hacker out there maybe you can help me to put together www.wheredoallthemanufanslive.com (good URL?). You can make suggestions or offer help at the GeoVation Challenge

Any guesses which team has the lowest proportion of fans living within 30 miles of the ground?

£21,000 for GeoVators

2009-10-11T11:31:00.002Z

So we are off and running with the GeoVation Awards Program.

If you have an idea or know someone who has an idea that has been simmering for a while or was drawn on a beermat or the back of a cigarette packet then now is the time to enter the GAP and you could win an award of up to £10,000

You can find details of how to participate at Mind the Gap - it is easy to register and you will get the chance to share your idea with others who may be able to help you turn it into a venture and possibly an award winner.

We will be running an ideas evening on 2nd November at the RSA from 6.30 to about 9.30. Come along, meet some other GeoVators, eat some nibbles, share some ideas, drink some beer and learn more about the GAP. Just let us know that you are coming by registering here as places are limited.

Please Mind the GAP

Legible London

2009-10-10T16:23:00.004Z

Great evening at BCS this week listening Tim Fendley talk about the Legible London project.

On behalf of TfL his team have been looking at how to coordinate the signs and directions available to pedestrians to encourage people to walk around London rather than use the underground because they don't know the way. In London we have all sorts of people putting up signs which offer conflicting and confusing advice to pedestrians. They have done some great research into wayfinding and how people navigate using visual cues and have produced the new miniliths that are being piloted around Bond Street

They have also produced some stunning cartography which really makes pedestrian navigation easier. If you have an iPhone you can download a copy of their early app for Brighton from the App Store, it is called WalkBrighton (says what it does on the can). At the moment they are just a set of georeferenced raster images that you can pan, no search or navigation but it gives you an idea of what pedestrian mapping should/could be.

It would be nice if we could get something similar for the whole of London but that will take a load more tech than a few rasters. Anyone?

The party is over .... or is it?

2009-10-03T10:34:00.007Z

A week and a bit has flown by since the end GeoCommunity and I have gone through post conference elation, slump and a stinking cold (possibly related). Jo Cook, Ed Parsons, Gary Gale, Martin Daly and others have written some great summaries of the event and their impressions of it – you can also view masses of content from and about the conference at www.geocommunitylive.com (we will need to work out what we do with this site between now and next year, polite suggestions welcome). The presentations can be found here, the papers are here and all of the video is here and that in itself is a big first for GeoCommunity getting all that stuff up so quickly (we hope to be able to add the video of the 3 plenaries and some other stuff over the next few weeks)

So before it all disappears into the mists of my increasingly forgetful mind here is my view of what happened and whether it mattered.

Before commenting on this year’s event I want to look back 4 years to the end of the AGI conference in 2006. Declining numbers of delegates, a separation between the conference and the industry, a London venue that made attendance unaffordable for many in the public sector and an agenda that seemed to have limited relevance to those outside of it. Add to that an industry that had been coasting, to some extent, on the back of the flood of funding from transformational government initiatives and that was not delivering the innovation that customers were craving. That’s a slightly harsh view which is purely mine and not AGI’s or anyone else’s (before the how dare you’s come flying in). I was of the opinion that the event did not any longer serve the AGI, the wider community or its sponsors (I had decided that my company would not exhibit at a future event under the same format) and perhaps foolishly told the AGI in my forthright manner.

Some wackos (aka far sighted people) in AGI then entrusted their flagship event to me and a largely new conference team (fortunately moderated by the common sense of the then new AGI Director, the outstanding Chris Holcroft). At our first team meeting I outlined to a somewhat stunned team my vision for an event that would be the base for building a community of people who use, research and earn their livings from geography – somewhat unoriginally we called it a GeoCommunity. Moving out of London, going residential, reducing to 2 days, not having a free walk in exhibition (“wow you can put dots on maps, can I buy some?” really wasn’t working anyway), limiting the number of sponsors, not giving away free passes, tough rules on sales pushes in presentations and big reductions in delegate fees and sponsor costs were just some of the changes that we took on (to be honest with some hesitation/reservation).

3 events on what have we learnt? Clearly we got more right than wrong, the numbers have grown to nearly double those in Islington, even in a very challenging financial climate delegates and sponsors see real value in supporting GeoCommunity.

The excitement building up to this year’s GeoCommunity and the number of returning delegates suggests that our aspiration to create a community has at least to some extent been realised. GeoCommunity was an unashamed celebration of all things geo with over 620 delegates spanning practitioners in local government, central government, utilities, business, education/academia, policy makers and the geoindustry.

Much has been made of the paleo meets neo sessions and dialogue – in my opinion we are moving beyond the mutual misunderstanding and distrust towards a recognition that we are all engaged in aspects of doing geography. It’s not that we do the same things, anymore than UI designers, web services architects and database people who all work in IT do the same things (and that is not suggesting that any technique or skill set is in any way more important than another) just that we all do geography. The geosolutions of the future will rely upon neo, paleo and a whole lot more. I think Ian Painter (winner of the Steven Feldman Georanter 2009 Award) just about summed it up in his brilliant 5 minute slot at the Soapbox which is worth a pause to watch

Although the Soapbox may have grabbed a lot of attention (next year we will need to find a bigger space and a wealthy geobeer sponsor) it was not the only new idea that we introduced at this year’s GeoCommunity. Probably the most significant change was the introduction of a geoweb stream that ran through the whole event. Watching so called “paleos” squeezing into these packed sessions validated Christopher Osborne’s and my belief that we could bring relevant and stimulating new content to the conference. I am not going to pretend that we are in the mutual love and admiration phase, I imagine that there are some who are horrified by the arrival of the “free data, free software” generation (nb “free stuff” still needs paid services or premium versions to support it) but there were also many potential users who were excited by the possibilities that geoweb offers them to deliver better services to their clients.

A big change this year compared to previous years was the online channel to the conference. The twitter tag #geocom was fizzing throughout the conference and continued for at least a week afterwards, the dialogue was both informative and at times critical of presenters, next year it would be great if the back channel could be visible on screens around the conference rather than just on the iPhones and Blackberries. We also ran the GeoCommunityLive blog which scooped up other bloggers pieces, the videos posted on youtube and the slide presentations went live within a couple of hours. I think it ran pretty smoothly despite the somewhat erratic wifi at the hotel (have to do better next year) and it enabled people who couldn’t get to the conference to track what was going on and hopefully decide to come to GeoCommunity next year.

So 2 days of love and maps came to a close with (in my opinion) an inspirational presentation from the Grammar School at Leeds which had all of the delegates on their feet applauding the 3 students (15,17 &17!) who had stunned most of us with their GI and presentational skills.

Was it a success? I think so. The early feedback certainly says so. After 3 years I think we have built a GeoCommunity that is vibrant and has the momentum to grow and flourish even in the difficult economic times that we are going through. With the digital channel, the hashtag and smaller events like the AGI Northern Where2Now event on November 10^th there is the potential for the GeoCommunity to become a year round series of gatherings of varying degrees of formality and structure.

Does it matter? I think so. Geography has a massive potential to solve problems and realise opportunities, we all know this and some of us preach it regularly. Those of us who enjoy this stuff and work with it need a GeoCommunity to nurture us, teach us, give us a voice and to showcase our successes. We also need a place to look for a new job, a new customer, launch a product or company and catch up with old friends.

So 3 years after “mouthing off” at Islington I can say “Job done”.

A few people noted that I looked “quite emotional” as I gave my final address as chair to the conference – that was an understatement! It felt like when I was saying goodbye to my teenage son as he set off on his gap year travels around South America, a mixture of pride that he was ready to go off on his own and anxiety about whether he would be safe. It’s time for me to handover GeoCommunity to a new chair and team and to ask them to take good care of my kid.

So for me the party is over or at least as the fussing host it is. Next year I will be back at GeoCommunity as a guest and will be lapping up the hospitality.

See you there?

WiFi, Blogs & Video at GeoCommunity

2009-09-22T11:14:00.002Z

I am sitting here uploading video instructions about getting connected at GeoCommunity. If you have a look at www.GeoCommunityLive.com you should be able to find the instructions.

If the technology and the bandwidth hold up we want to post video interview clips with the delegates and of course we hope to get some georants up there as well.

Bag stuffing is now underway. See you later

My name is Steven, I am a geoholic

2009-09-21T08:47:00.003Z

Yes it is true, I am a geoholic. I love things geo and probably go a bit over the top (well maybe a lot over the top) in trying to preach geo as the answer to everything. Geo has kept me twittering, blogging and consumes much time and has from time to time even generated a bit of income.

For the last year since leaving MapInfo (or Pitney Towers as I affectionately call it) I have been suffering from a touch of withdrawal. Life has been good and I am working on some interesting projects but where has the hardcore geo been?

So thank you to AGI for inviting me to chair this year's GeoCommunity for the third and last time (yes this really is my last year, I have to kick the habit) - I am off to Stratford for 3 days of giscussions, geonetworking, georants, geobeers (or geolagavulins if that is your preference) and geofun. Hopefully this major fix of geo will not result in an overdose or even a geohangover and I will come back from Stratford cured and a reformed character (some chance).

Anyone else in the GeoCommunity got a confession they want to share?

You can follow GeoCommunity at www.GeoCommunityLive.com and on twitter by searching for #geocom (on Wednesday evening at 5.30 the georanters will be throwing digital tomatoes at #geosoap)

Free geobeers to lubricate georants at GeoCommunity

2009-09-17T14:12:00.003Z

The generosity of AGI seems to be unlimited (well almost).

We have now got a load of chilled beers for the first people to turn up for the georants at the Soapbox, so make sure you get there early. The soapbox has a full program of speakers who will range from funny to thoughtful to outrageous (well that may be a matter of opinion in all three cases) add to that some geobeers and the opportunity to throw some digital tomatoes (twitter enabled mobile device needed) and it should be a great way to end the first day.

Don't think that the conference is only about georants - there will be over 70 presentations from distinguished figures in our community that will cover the issues of the day, the trends and possibilities that GI opens up and some of the best applications and case studies.

We will be live blogging and hopefully will have some videos being posted during the conference so even if you can't make it you should be able to follow what is going on. If you tweet search for the conference tag #GeoCom.

If you are coming to the conference I look forward to geochatting with you over a geobeer or even my personal favourite (please note) a geolagavulin.

See you in Stratford

Hopefully I will have written my welcome presentation and even put together my georant!

Bloggers are looking forward to GeoCommunity

2009-09-07T07:22:00.006Z

Well at least the bloggers who are presenting are all looking forward to it.

Peter Batty is getting misty eyed at the thought of returning to the UK and speaking in the Bard's birthplace. Ed Parsons after flaming us a bit last year for being too introspective (possibly a little harsh but understandable) is coming back for another dose of GeoCommunity because of the GeoWeb stream that Chris Osborne is coordinating. Talking about Chris Osborne, he has a great offer on some of the remaining day tickets for #geomob members. Martin Daly author of the best titled paper of the year offers us a public service announcement Directions mag ran this article by me on the conference. John Fagan at Multimap couldn't resist giving us a plug as he is on the conference team and the Bing people joined in with this plug for the opportunity to win an XBox at the conference.

If you are coming to GeoCommunity I look forward to drinking a geobeer with you while having a GIScussion with you or even a georant (georants tend to take over after a few geobeers or even geolagavulins). If you haven't signed up yet, what are you waiting for? Get over to Chris Osborne's blog, join the #geomob and get a deal on a day pass or two.

Calling all georanters

2009-09-04T16:02:00.003Z

There are still a couple of slots left on the GeoCommunity Soapbox for georanters.

Got something you want to get off your chest? Got a product or service you want to pitch? Got an idea that you want to test on a geoaudience?

If so you need to get on the Soapbox - 15 slides, 20 seconds each on autocue and an audience feeding back their approval and constructive suggestions online as you go - not for the faint hearted but it will be a lot of beer fuelled fun and a great warm up for the Black & White Party later that evening. Oh and we will film the whole thing and upload to youtube after the event.

Fancy it? Mail us at Soapbox

GeoCommunity is getting close

2009-09-04T15:36:00.002Z

There are only 18 days left until we kick off GeoCommunity 09.

All of the residential passes have been sold but there are still some day passes available here and there are great deals on B&B if you want to stay over and come to the party.

Listening to the buzz that is building about the event I know we are going to have a great conference. The Geoweb stream will be outstanding if its chair Christopher Osborne can be believed and I know that several of the presenters are frantically honing their presentations as we speak and some experienced hands are getting a little edgy as they hype themselves up for their big moment.

I am trying not to think about needing to write my welcome address, plan the chairing of the plenaries, the keynotes and leading the panel discussion on "Privacy - Where do you care?" plus build my 15 slide deck for my georant on the soapbox entitled "My name is Steven and I am a Geoholic" (a good title - now I just need to fit some content to it). Don't worry there are over 70 other presenters at GeoCommunity so you wont have to listen to me if you don't want to.

There is a whole range of activity going on before the event if you are planning to come up on the Tuesday, geocaching, standards, environment, possibly some open street mapping, an oracle user group and of course the ice breaker, quiz and comedy.

If you haven't been to a GeoCommunity before - you don't know what you are missing. Come up to Stratford for a day or two, learn something, network with close to 600 geopeeps, have a few geobeers, throw a digital tomato at the georanters and have a geolly good time.

And here is a promise from me - If you haven't been to GeoCommunity before and you sign up between now and the 15th September and you are not convinced that it is the best geoevent in the UK come up to me at the conference and claim your free compensatory geobeer.

Don't leave it until the last minute though or you could be disappointed.

National address database back on the agenda?

2009-08-13T12:40:00.002Z

Thanks to Graham Hyde for pointing to this letter from Sir Michael Scholar, Chair of the UK Statistics Authority to John Healey, Minister for housing and a selection of other ministers.

In a rebuttal of frequent assertions by both NLPG and OS that they already offer comprehensive national coverage he says

The main reason behind the decision that ONS should invest a substantial budget in the development of a special one-off register of addresses was that it needed it for the Census: the existing sources of address data were some way short of the comprehensive and accurate coverage that was required for Census purposes.

He also questions the claim by CLG that government departments can undertake their duties without a national address database.

For an intragovernmental letter this seems quite strong stuff.

Only the parties to the failed NSAI initiative know the real reasons that it fell through at the eleventh hour. Is it time to try to resuscitate NSAI?

Has the US Air Force not heard of OGC?

2009-08-12T09:46:00.003Z

Andrew Turner pointed to this announcement by USAF Academy of a sole sourcing opt out of competitive tender for GI software here

This bit got my attention. "Software standardization between the 10th CES, DFEG, and the entire USAFA is extremely critical. Compatibility allows GIS data sharing between all agencies on the USAFA will continue to support GIS development in the future. Award of this contract to another contractor would jeopardize the performance of our mission by making all of the existing GIS data non-usable."

And I thought ESRI were a platinum corporate super supporter of OGC and interoperability standards!

The contract is rated at up to $25m. Vendor lockin can be very profitable.

From Ordnance Survey to Philip K Dick

2009-08-03T12:21:00.002Z

Sometimes the web can take you on a strange journey.

This letter from Mark Serwotka, the General Secretary of the PCS Union about creeping privatisation happened to mention OS as a potential candidate for a governemnt sell off along with Land Registry, Met Office and Hydrographic Office. Nothing new there really as the possibility has been touted in the FT and elsewhere.

The letter was in response to an article entitled "We are outsourcing the future, to be built by Thatcher and Philip K Dick" and that in turn offered a link to the Guardian's biography of my life long scifi hero

So there you go from OS to PK Dick in just 3 clicks

Probably need to get back to work now

Whose map is it anyway?

2009-08-01T17:41:00.001Z

A couple of tweets from GeoWeb yesterday got me thinking.

Apparently Michael Jones of Google was somewhat contradictory saying that what you put into Google you should be able to get out and then confirming that you could not get the content out of MapMaker. Does that matter? The data is free to view and to use (if you don't need to access the vectors) through the Google Maps API or the Maps site.

TA & Navteq provide opportunities for user contributed QA but no way of retrieving or use let alone reuse.

At the other end of the scale (excuse pun) is an open data product like OSM where with very limited licensing conditions anyone regardless of whether they have contributed to building the dataset can access the data and use, reuse etc.

If you contribute data to a project should you be able to get it back? Either to withdraw your contribution, to extract a copy of what you contributed or to extract other peoples contributions?

Makes you wonder why people volunteer geographic information.

Who cares about the Togonator?

2009-07-28T19:20:00.002Z

Only days after the Premier League's self styled greatest striker and most famous citizen of Togo chose to pursue trophies (and money) outside of London by moving to Manchester and weeks after a certain slick haired Portugese left the same city for Madrid it is gratifying to see the Tweetometer showing the balance of interest between the two.

Note the mutiple geo references in this post

Winners and losers

2009-07-28T19:00:00.002Z

Peter Batty has an interesting post on his geothought blog about how neogeography is moving into the traditional GIS space and predicting major disruption in the next 5 years. No need to recap the ideas because you should go and read them.

Suffice it to say that I think Peter has it spot on but may be understating the speed with which the changes are taking place.

If there is major disruption which organisations are most likely to be the losers? Yes I know that many of you may think that the organisation I consult for may be one of them and I understand why you might think that, now move on from that and think which others may be impacted and why? I have been asked to participate in a foresight study on the UK geo industry and I am interested to gather your views either by commenting on this blog or mailing me directly through the link.

Peter Batty is one of the plenary speakers on the opening day of GeoCommunity '09. If you haven't heard him speak before he is well worth the visit to beautiful Shakespeare country as is Andrew Turner, the other plenary on that day plus over 70 other speakers workshops etc over the 2 days of geobabble that is GeoCommunity. We secured another block of hotel rooms a couple of weeks ago, there are still a few left at great rates you can book here.

The digital paper divide

2009-07-25T10:14:00.001Z

Last night my brother asked me "what was that stuff mentioning you in the Guardian the other week?" I explained about the elusive internationally renowned expert and he agreed it couldn't possibly be me. Sibling humour.

Then the conversation got interesting when he questioned why the Guardian had been banging on about this stuff for over 2 years? I tried to explain the issues and potential importance. Did anyone read this stuff he asked? Apparently he reads the Thursday tech section of the paper but just skips the Free Our Data pieces. Perhaps there is a big difference between the people who read the Guardian online and those who read the printed version?

A couple of weeks ago a survey of UK brand recognition placed Ordnance Survey in the top 20 UK brands. Just a thought but I bet most of the people who recognise the OS brand and relate positively to it associate the company with paper maps, boy scouts and rambling not GPS and online services. Maybe the strong views in the digital world aren't reflected in the world of paper maps users and lovers.

If there is a digital vs paper divide, what does that mean for discussions about geodata access and use? There are other groups of map users out there that we need to reach whether in the cause of Freeing Our Data or GeoVating.