february 2005 archives

Saturday, February 26, 2005

GeoURL, the resurrection

Many people have been looking forward to this moment: GeoURL.org is back! Thanks to Ask Bjørn Hansen you can all start adding ICBM tags to your web pages again and looking for other websites that are published from locations near you.

Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Web mapping value chain

Amid the enthusiastic reactions following the launch of Google Maps concerning the ground-breaking user interface, I kept wondering: “who is doing the mapping in the background?”. Indeed, the team at Google did a great job taking web mapping to a new level of user experience. However, what renders the maps so quickly and so nicely? Furthermore, the cartographic quality of the maps is almost un-American. As one editor put it:

The resulting maps are very colorful and remind me more of a typical European style product rather than the boring “stick” maps where roads are displayed as single line entities... I like this much better!

Well, not surprisingly, the Telcontar Drill Down Server platform powers both Google Maps and Google Local. The same platform that underpins Yahoo maps after they changed from MapQuest. In the web mapping industry, Telcontar is an interesting player as they do not have a background in GIS. Just like one of the directors at Multimap once put it nicely: we are not a GIS company. So what does the web mapping value chain look like?

Map data suppliers (e.g. AND, NavTEQ, TeleAtlas)
Software developers
1. GIS background (ESRI, MapInfo, GeoConcept)
2. IT background (NetSolut, Telcontar)
Mapping websites
1. GIS background (Maporama, MapQuest, ViaMichelin)
2. IT background (Map24, Multimap)
Business customers
1. Channels (Yahoo, Vodafone, Google Maps)
2. Business websites (Shell, Ford, Sainsbury's)
Consumers, subscribers

There are interesting transitions between the data suppliers, software developers , mapping websites and business customers. For example, AND provide hosted solutions for delivering mapping and travel directions straight to business customers. Michelin used to simple maintain a road network database for its own paper products, but realised it could benefit from this asset even more through its mapping website ViaMichelin and provide hosted solutions for its customers. A very interesting industry indeed!

Monday, February 14, 2005

GeoURL is back

Under a slightly different TLD, GeoURL has resurfaced on geourl.info. This time it's not Josh running the site, but it's Daniel Schaller who set out to create the new GeoURL. You can query my neighbours in cyberspace just like before. As someone mentioned in the comments of Daniel's website, I wonder: Just being curious. Did you try to contact Joshua?

Recently, I have been busy playing with Movable Type, in particular with the location-related plugins:

Hope to give you a round-up of the pros and cons sometime soon. The Location plugin used to work with GeoURL. That's how I found out about the new GeoURL. If you registered before, you have to go through the sign-up process again. But if you have set up your website to work with GeoURL before (i.e. added the relevant meta tags), it shouldn't take too long.

Tuesday, February 08, 2005

Look mum, no plugins!

Today, I was pointed to two new web mapping implementations. Richard Fairhust drew my attention to Google Maps. Bernhard Seefeld informed the Geowanking list of his latest accomplishment: map.search.ch.

Only launched today, users view maps, get driving directions, and search for local businesses and services. It's a natural course since the Google Local was released last year.

Maps are great for getting around, but online maps could be a lot better. So Google decided to make dynamic, interactive maps that are draggable — no clicking and waiting for graphics to reload each time you want to view the adjacent parts of a map. Since these maps are draggable, you can use your mouse or the directional arrows to pan left, right, up and down to see areas that are hidden offscreen. You can also use the slider to zoom in and zoom out.

Professional map users have had much of this functionality available for quite a few years. As they had to use maps for their day to day work, they were willing to download proprietary GIS plugins, or system administrators installed the plugins on their desktops and palmtops. But why would anyone else download an Autodesk or Geomedia plugin?

Hey, and don't forget about Map24! They deliver highly engaging map apps using a Java applet. But what makes Google Maps so cool? It's simply powered by JavaScript: no need for a proprietary GIS plugin, a Flash player, an ActiveX component, or Java applet. Currently, Google Maps only covers the US and not all browsers are supported yet.

Map.search.ch is another web mapping application with a smooth user interface. They only left IE on the Mac unsupported. Click to zoom in and right-click to zoom out! Using the browser back button, you can go back to the previous map view: We're a bunch of web geek and it bothered us to write an application that breaks basic web principles. If you're curious about further technical details, go to Bernhard Seefeld's blog.

Guys, you did a great job there! I am very happy to see web mapping becoming part of mainstream web development using simply CSS, HTML, and JavaScript. DHTML all over again? Well, not quite. This time we use the DOM.

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

Cunning PLAN

Currently at the ICA in London, the PLAN gathers for a two-day workshop. They discuss what kinds of creative, social, economic and political expression become possible when every device we carry, the fabric of the urban environment and even the contours of the Earth become a digital canvas. They have been able to bring together really interesting people to talk about really interesting topics.

Also, as a sequel to the PLAN workshop, Saul Alberts organises another Cartographic Congress tomorrow at the Limehouse Town Hall. Be there, for I am still bogged down in code here in the Netherlands...