I suspect other bloggers received these e-mails, which suggest some of the newer marketing techniques.

Yesterday I received an e-mail asking for a blog post on a data company in exchange for a data file.

Today my company (not Directions Media) received an e-mail noting an aerial company would be in my state (one of ten listed) and invited me to buy new aerial coverage taken from their Cessna/helicopter (obliques) for a flat fee.

Not all the geo-entrepreneurs are doing Web 2.0 stuff!

The ad for my local drugstore (CVS) includes a $119 GPS system called GPS Navigation for Dummies. It has, per the ad:

3.5" touch screen
Familiar, easy-to-use For Dummies style
Visual and voice turn-by-turn navigation
Pre loaded U.S. maps

It includes a suction cup mounting kit, car charger, SD memory card and "For Dummies" user's manual. The ad doesn't say it, but the box in the picture says "powered by MAYLONG." That company, based in Rochester, Michigan, proudly states it's behind the offering on its website. The product website notes it's "The easiest and most intuitive PND on the market!" and is appropriate for car, purse or bicycle.

There are actually a few different models; CVS sells the lowest priced ones; the more expensive ones are sold by Dell, Amazon, HSN and others. The product was announced at CES last year.

So, we have GIS for Dummies, GPS for Dummies, what's next?

I learned about those fake streets being inserted into maps so that publishers could track those who copied their data. But apparently that practice is coming to an end. Per Chris Nichols in Los Angeles magazine (quoted in the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin) Rand McNally has stopped that practice.

"The map makers claim to have stopped this practice, but they were doing it at least into the 1980s. Crafty cartographers slipped imaginary roads called map traps into the guide so that the company had solid proof in copyright infringement cases. (A fake La Taza Drive in Upland is in old editions.)

"Rand McNally bought Thomas Bros. nearly a decade ago, and chief cartographer Joel Minster tells me that today the company would never purposely insert any map errors. So if you get lost, don't blame it on them."

Well, at least software developers still add in Easter Eggs...

Clever researchers have determined that you, even without a portable device can be an effective geographic sensor. This week we explore examples of how individuals, sometimes along with their electronic gadgets, can act as effective sensors for disease or natural disaster. Our editors share some proven techniques and explore how this type of data collection might play out in the future.

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