GeoWeb, GIS & Neogeography notices

There has been a lot of very interesting "buzz" on the internet about the announcements made last week at the Where 2.0 Conference. Here is a link to the Where 2.0 Web site where you can find links to highlights from the show at the top of the page under the site menu and a very good short description of the conference.

John Henke, head of Google Maps and Google Earth and Jack Dangermond, founder and Chief Executive of ESRI announced the upcoming opportunity to merge GIS Map server information with other neogeographic services that are becoming popular. Here is a link to a video of this presentation.

I found this video on the May 13, Google Earth Blog--here the author Frank Taylor summarized the presentation as follows: "The other interesting thing that happened during John's talk was his strategy to get more GIS data into the Where 2.0 type applications world. John went and spoke to Jack Dangermond, CEO of ESRI, to see if he could convince him to work on ways to better enable access to GIS data. He invited Jack up to the stage and Jack quite enthusiastically described his shared vision with Google to get GIS data more accessible. Apparently ESRI will be intorducing new features in the applications to facilitate KML output of GIS data. Jack said the new features will start rolling out in about 4 weeks. The implication was that it would be possible to create mashups between GIS databases and neogeography databases and tools. They discussed a bit the issues that might crop up between crowdsourced data vs. professional GIS data, but that in the long run it could be for the best. Emergency situations like the California fires was given as an example where both data types proved useful."

Another Blog (GeoScrum) written by Chris Spagnuolo also posted an article titled: "Where 2.0: Overall impressions and a Desparate Plea." Chris notes that "What I am excited about is the rise of numerous crowd sourced data projects. It has always been my contention that local geography and micro/personal geography was missing from most standard"geographies". These localized, micro-geographies can't be built by just anybody, they have to built by the people who live, work, and play in those locales if they are to have any meaning and relevance. So, I'm very psyched to see lots of local crowd sourced projects encouraging exactly this sort of behavior. I think in the past two decades, people have lost their sense of "place" and their connection with their own geographies and these efforts are breathing new life into communities by helping people reconnect with their local geography. I know this sounds very touchy-feelie, but it's important and I'm glad to see it happening.
Finally, I'm really excited about some of the Open Source platforms and frameworks being developed for "GeoWeb" applications. I think that the growth in this area will help fuel serious innovation and advancement in web-based mapping applications."

Another related Where 2.0 article was written on May 13, in the CNetNews.com blog was titled "GIS exec works to unlock hidden geographic data." Stephan Shankland wrote this article and noted "The new version 9.3 of the dominant geographic information system (GIS) software, sold by a company called ESRI, now makes it a relatively simple matter to expose that data for easy consumption over the Internet." Jack Dangermond provided example projects in Portland Oregon and the recent San Diego Forest fires. "We are engineering it so it plugs in. It becomes effectively a support mechanism to the geoweb,"

National Geographic Interactive Google Earth Quiz

On November 12, 2007 both the Google Earth Blog and the Google Lat Long Blog featured articles (and Google Earth kml file links) about a new and very interesting Interactive Google Earth tour and Quiz related to the continent of Asia. The project is named "My Wonderful World."

Kathy Tang, project lead with Google, notes that they have teamed up with this "National Geographic-led campaign for geographic literacy, to give students, parents and geography enthusiasts a look at "Asia: Continent of Contrasts" during Geography Awareness Week. Held annually during the third week of November, Geography Awareness Week is an initiative to create awareness of the people, places and diversity of a specific world region.

I found the tour questions to be very basic but interesting. Once I chose a correct answer Google Earth would fly me to another part of Asia and I was provided with more information about the answer. I found myself turning border layers on and off and tilting and flying closer to look at some of the political boundaries and geographic features nearby. Turning on additional layers such as Global Awareness, Geographic Web and others led me to a lot of interesting information about Asia way beyond the My Wonderful World Quiz itself.

Then I looked more closely at the Geography Awareness Week 2007 web page, and found several other multimedia tours and videos related to Asia topics such as Natural Wonders, Tastes, Views from Artists, Wildlife, Festivals and Celebrations and other resources in Google Earth. Content contributions like these from National Geographic and others really makes the Google Earth program an educational learning pleasure and a great way new to explore our "Wonderful World."

Live Earth Concerts 7.7.07 & Google Earth

It is already 7.7.07 in Australia and Live Earth - The Concerts for a Climate in Crisis - are about to begin. This one day hopefully will lead to years of new social networking on global climate issues and will change the way humans think about the real and total cost of greenhouse gases we are producing.

Today, Frank Taylor (Google Earth Blog) posted a Google Earth KMZ file of the locations for each of the concerts. I was curious about the places where the events would be held and after doing some research I added some additional links to more information and created another

KML file that I uploaded to the Google Earth Community - Environment and Conservation topic. Here is a link to the page where you can download the file and use it in Google Earth to fly to, and explore, these places on every continent, including a special event in Antarctica.

I saw Al Gore on the Larry King Live show last night and he commented that the Live Earth Concerts are only one event to raise Global Awareness to billions of people. He has a plan to work with The Alliance for Climate Protection to keep education, information and public involvement going strong for at least three more years. One of these efforts includes inviting climate related video submissions from the public that, when approved, could be available on Current TV.

I will write more about these plans as I find information about them.

Google Earth Outreach - Conservation Networking opportunities

On June 26, Frank Taylor wrote on his Google Earth Blog that "Today Google has announced a new initiative called Google Earth Outreach designed to help nonprofit organizations around the world leverage the power of Google Earth to illustrate and advocate for the important work that they do." You can find more information on the new Google Earth Outreach web page.

Frank also posted a You Tube video Google recorded of the announcement and noted "I especially enjoyed the part where Jane Goodall was speaking to us via satellite and especially when she shared the chimpanzee greeting to us all."




As I have mentioned in earlier posts, I believe Google Earth (and similar programs) will play an increasing role in helping conservation and environmental networking efforts in the future and we should be learning how to use the many features of this valuable, free and very popular application . The Google Earth Outreach page contains a Showcase, Case Studies, Tutorials, Help, and Google Earth Professional Grant Application to enhance these learning opportunities for anyone interested.

Another Google Earth post on June 27, notes a new article in Wired Magazine. Frank titles his post "Google Earth/Maps is Changing the Way We See the World," and notes that Author Evan Ratliff Wired who wrote the article Google Maps is Changing the Way We See the World should have also included Google Earth in the title. Frank provided the following summary. "This article is a good summary of how Google Maps and Google Earth have had a significant impact in many ways on individuals, organizations, governments, politics, the environment and many other perspectives. It covers topics such as censorship, KML standardization, StreetView privacy issues, mapping politics, and user-generated maps.

Very Good Google Earth Environmental Projects

Matt Fox has put together a project where some of the best Google Earth projects submitted to the Google Earth Community have been collected. This is called the Google Earth Library.

I found a reference to this project in the April 9, 2007 post on Frank Taylor's Google Earth Blog. Frank explains that "His new web site is kind of a blog focused on Google Earth content (not news, or simple placemarks), with an emphasis on education, environment, or science visualizations.... It is definitely worth browsing through his posts over the last two weeks. He has picked some really good examples of Google Earth content."

Interestingly, on April 1, among other projects, Matt chose to highlight the Jamaica Protected Areas Panorama project I had submitted the the Google Earth Community last summer and the Salmon Migration from the Pacific Ocean to Salmon River in Idaho project I submitted this winter.

Google Earth Blogs

Here is a short list of Google Earth Blogs that I watch frequently.
Google Earth Blog, Ogle Earth, and Juicy Geography's Google Earth page.
(Note - The image links to my Google Earth video on Blip.tv>>)

Almost every day there are very interesting posts on the Google Earth Blog by Frank Taylor. It "is dedicated to Google Earth (GE) news, features, tips, technology and applications."

Today, for example there is a post identifying a new feature that the Digital Urban is developing to allow Google Earth users a way to view high resolution360 degree panoramas directly within Google Earth. On the Digital Urban Blog they have made a stand alone video demonstration available to show how his will work.

On December 19, Frank Taylor created a list of the "Top 25 Stories from Google Earth Blog for 2006." Out of nearly 600 blog entries these are the ones that were "pivotal points in the development of Google Earth, others were significant illustrations of some important event or place, and others were just fun things someone found or did in Google Earth."

The Ogle Earth Blog about Google Earth is published by Stefan Geens in Stockholm, Sweden. He posts information that is often similar, but also different than the Google Earth Blog.

Noel Jenkins in the UK has created the Juicy Geography web site to share ideas and resources especially related to teaching and education. The Juicy Geography's Google Earth Page is now a blog.