january 2007 archives

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Here and now

Yesterday, the Dutch newspaper Trouw launched a website with local news. Regarded as a newspaper for a conservative and elderly audience, this new website shows, however, that Trouw is well aware of the latest online trends: web 2.0 and civic-journalism. First, Trouw in de buurt is a mash-up of Google Maps and various news feeds from national and regional newspapers and news websites. Second, the website invites user-generated content (UGC): visitors can send in news items that matter to the local community. Visitors may furthermore rate the news using the (+) and (-) icons. This rating defines the order of the news items in the list to the right of the map.

Coloured pins indicate the news categories (General, Economic, Sports, Gossip, and Your News). A bar over the pin tells you there are more news items at that location, for example news items that are about a particular town, but that do not have a specific location within that town. There does not seem to be any link between the coloured pins on the map and the news items in the list. Hovering the mouse over either the pins on the map or the news items in the list shows the full news article below the map.

Users change the map scale using the vertical, stepped zooming widget. Entering an address in the input box, users can quickly navigate to a particular location. Also, the magnifying glass next to the title in the list to the right of the map quickly changes the map view to the location of that particular news item. The overview map helps users in their orientation.

Interestingly, at PICNIC '06: Cross Media Week last year, Dutch internet publisher Ilse Media announced the Hier.nl website for local, user-generated news to complement and benefit from their already successful news website Nu.nl. Currently, visitors can only sign up to become a news reporter, but the launch is imminent and will show the news for just Amsterdam. It would seem that Trouw has beaten them to it, especially as Nu.nl is just one of the feeds on the Trouw in de buurt website. On the other hand, Hier.nl will certainly benefit from the strong connection with Nu.nl, the number one news website in the Netherlands.

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Testing the waters

The overview map of major maintenance works on waterways is a recently launched mapping application commissioned by the Dutch Directorate for Public Works and Water Management. Since this Directorate is a fervent advocate of Open Source GIS technology, it is no surprise this mapping application makes use of OpenLayers.

OpenLayers implements a (still-developing) JavaScript API for building rich web-based geographic applications, similar to the Google Maps and MSN Virtual Earth APIs, with one important difference — OpenLayers is Free Software, developed for and by the Open Source software community.

While MapServer, GeoServer, and Chameleon have underpinned their intranet Geoservices for some years, this is one of the first public-facing applications using Open Source GIS technology. The overview map of major maintenance works on waterways is only a small part of the From A to B(etter) website that informs the Dutch public about major infrastructural maintenance works. The main application is the Flash-based overview map of major road works. Is the new JavaScript-based mapping application therefore just a way for the Directorate to test the waters?

The overview map shows all the current (yellow icons) and planned (grey icons) major maintenance works on the waterways. Besides the overview map, users can zoom in on a particular province. To the right of the map, a list appears with the major maintenance works in the selected province so users can drill down further to an individual project. The tabs across the top of the map hide and show current or planned maintenance works, but this is not reflected in the list to the right of the map. Also, there is no identifying link between the icons on the map and the projects in the list. Finally, the list and project details push the navigation below the page fold. Thus, users may find it hard to navigate back to the listing per province or to the default overview map.

Instead of using the Directorate's proprietary base maps, the OpenLayers client actually pulls in Google Maps! Why bother with OpenLayers if you are using the Google Maps API anyway? With this setup, at least they don't expose their proprietary base maps to any Dutch map hackers, but browsers now have to pull in both the OpenLayers and Google Maps JavaScript libraries! All in all, there is still quite some usability work to be done. Nevertheless, I hope this is a small herald of more public-facing Open Source mapping applications!

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Online maps in 2007: mobile and community

With Google Maps and iPhone's Maps application, you can view maps and satellite images, get directions and traffic information. The main question is: does the new Apple iPhone, launched only a few days ago, come with GPS, just like the new Nokia N95? Apple and Nokia being new to the market, MapQuest — a mapping dinosaur — started 2007 with the announcement of MapQuest Mobile v.2.5. MapQuest Mobile was the top revenue generating downloadable mobile application in the US in the first quarter of 2006. Already, MapQuest Mobile is available through 12 wireless carriers, and on 250 mobile phones. Furthermore, the MapQuest Navigator product is now available on the BlackBerry too!

Whereas the market share of yellow pages sites grew only slightly between August 2005 and August 2006, the market share of user-generated content directories grew by 44% over the same period, according to Hitwise Intelligence. This trend seems be reinforced as collaborative mapping, in the sense that communities virtually annotate locations in space, has become integral to Yahoo! Local. It now takes user-generated content (UGC) to keep the local listings up-to-date. This social feature allows users to submit new listings, suggest changes to existing business information, and let others know when a business has moved or closed. Actually, these changes appear as notes. Others in the local community can then review these notes, so little by little a consensus on the accuracy of the information is built. Already in 2005, visitors of the Yahoo! Japan Maps website were asked to submit information on their neighbourhoods to help updating the online mapping service.

Efforts such as Smalltown (San Mateo/Burlington) and CityChat (Amsterdam) had better stop navel-gazing? Actually, smaller, local initiatives may pull in more active visitors that post ratings or reviews, as local communities are likely to identify themselves much more easily with a local brand. In a recent poll commissioned by Yahoo, 67 percent of respondents said they would be likely to post a review and 79 percent of respondents said they'd be likely to be influenced by a rating or review on Yahoo Local. But I wonder whether these percentages would be similar for a non-US audience. That's exactly where local websites come in. One caveat, however: listings should be easily accessible using open standards such as GeoRSS, for example.