Monday, March 17. 2008

Why is Imperial News Reviewing Maptitude?

I really don't know why Imperial Valley News reviewed the new version of Maptitude. The review, titled "Maptitude Software - Exceeds Expectations - Product Review," gives me pause. It's quite vague and it does not sound like the reviewers did much more than open the box (to find out how many pages were in the tutorial) and read the website. Maptitude is just the third software product to be reviewed since mid-2007 and it sure doesn't sound like the "Test Bench" team knows much about GIS.

The publication has no "about" page, but does seem to be related to several local news sites. Those sites seem to re-purpose video from other sites and host Google ads.

Outside.in Uses FireEagle for "Facebook feed applied to geo"

Some interesting tidbits came out of the discussion between Stephen Johnson CEO of outside.in, a hyperlocal news site, and Henry Jenkins at SXSW (South by Southwest, the tech/music/arts event held in Austin last week) Jenkins is Co-Director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT.

"[outside.in CEO] Johnson took the opportunity to describe his recent project: “Our project, Outside.in, is trying to build out the infrastructure for the geographic web. The fear in the 1990s is that no one would want to live in a city again because of the digital revolution, but the opposite has been true. The Internet is actually an urban location enhancing device. At the level of neighborhood and community, people care passionately about what is happening. People have a lot of expertise, a great deal of interest, and that zone is completely uncovered by traditional media."

"We built Outside.in as a service to help people see those conversations and use geotagging tools to tag different aspects of neighborhoods,” Johnson expanded. “We’re about to launch ‘on my radar’, which is basically the Facebook newsfeed applied to geography. We’ve been working with Yahoo and their new location technology Fire Eagle. It lets you enter your location and get back all the conversations happening within a certain radius. You can zoom out to see the whole neighborhood, the city, etc. So new tools can amplify what local experts on the ground have been doing traditionally by word of mouth."

- Gamasutra

CBS Offers Local News to Local Bloggers

The goal is to get more eyeballs on the U.S. television network's local news content. CBS will allow bloggers and hyperlocal news websites to offer up video on their sites, along with ads. The hosting sites get a cut of the ad revenue. Three sites have signed up thus far - all all Boston focused. Their links open a new window to show video or articles from WBZ TV's website. It's unclear if the ads will necessarily be local, but you'd think they would. On the three sites banner ads accompanied the "box" of local news links. Then when you click through, you see more ads.

I wonder if the content is tagged further than "WBZ offers Boston news," so hyperlocal sites can say put it on the map? I'm thinking specifically of EveryBlock as I pose that question.

Here are the local stations CBS owns that provide content.

-Silicon Insider

Quote of the Week

"As we observe Sunshine Week, it is appropriate to explore new and different ways to lift more publicly funded data from file drawers and individual agency computers and into the light of cyberspace."

- Editorial in The Shreveport Times(Louisiana) stumping for GIS for that region

It is indeed Sunshine Week.

Sunshine Week is a national initiative to open a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information. Participants include print, broadcast and online news media, civic groups, libraries, non-profits, schools and others interested in the public's right to know.

Neighborhood Issues Challenge Boston 911 Response

A recent 911 call in Boston had responders head to the right address, but in the wrong neighborhood of the city. [Corrected to reflect that the error did not result in a fatality, as I originally suggested. 3/18] Boston has neighborhoods - they are formal, with real known boundaries - but still such things happen. So, until the whole thing is straightened out, when a "serious emergency" (crime in progress or act of violence) call comes in, responders will be dispatched to every such address in every neighborhood.

The event that triggered the change:

The caller told a 911 operator Sunday morning that the homicide occurred at 689 Washington St. Instead of sending police to Dorchester, the operator gave them the same address in Downtown Crossing. Officers ended up at a Malaysian restaurant two blocks from Boston Common and about 7 miles from the scene of the homicide.

The article in the Boston Globe suggests that the phone company did not code the wired line phone to the neighborhood and perhaps should. It further notes that ZIP Codes and exchanges (the second three numbers in the full phone number) can identify neighborhoods.

Leica Geosystems is Agile

I was listening to a Very Spatial podcast (last week's) with Mladen Stojic of Leica Geosystems. Among the many things he noted: the company's long term use of agile practices. Poking around the Web I found an agile coach's profile (pdf) that noted Leica as a client and a job announcement noting a preference for agile experience.