Where the semantic web stumbled, linked data will succeed
In the same way that the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy nor Roman, Facebook’s OpenGraph Protocol is neither open nor a protocol. It is, however, an extremely straightforward and applicable standard...
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Big Data: An opportunity in search of a metaphor
The crowd at the Strata Conference could be divided into two broad contingents: Those attending to learn more about data, having recently discovered its potential. Long-time data enthusiasts watching...
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Snap to the graph, not the grid
About 10 years ago, “geo” and “local” were two very distinct product verticals in most Internet companies. This was in part because what we now think of as local arose out of a Yellow Pages market,...
View ArticleThat’s it — I’m taking my data and going home
Russia’s railway gauge is different from Western Europe’s. At the border of the former Soviet states, the Russian gauge of 1.524m meets the European & American ‘Standard’ gauge of 1.435m. The...
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The Four Frictions
Incorporating third-party data into your business is always a headache. Issues of format, price, rights, format, and accessibility consistently introduce inefficiency, slow things down, and generate...
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Check out C3 cities: your eyes will thank you
The practicality of 3D content is often overstated; I’ve not yet found an example in the geo world where 3D genuinely compliments, rather than hinders, usability. The high-resolution city models...
View ArticleAPIs launched at Where 2.0: a pocket guide
Where 2.0 has become a launch-pad for new geo products. As a sign of the times, these announcements focus on APIs rather than the usual feature-increments or partnership propaganda (we geo folk always...
View ArticleWhy check-ins and like buttons will change the local landscape
Notable advancements in the geo sector — GIS, GPS, slippy maps — punctuate an otherwise steady equilibrium; progress in the geo world is subtle, and tends to sneak up on us without our at first knowing...
View ArticleToward a local syzygy: aligning deals, check-ins and places
Three significant trends in the local sector — deals, check-ins, and place pages — are on a bender and headed for an exciting convergence. When they meet we will see one of three things: a train wreck...
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Ten years of OpenStreetMap
Next to GPS, the most significant development in the Open Geo Data movement is OpenStreetMap (OSM), a community-driven mapping project whose goal is to create the most detailed, correct, and current...
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