I find it a bit ironic that the cloud is the buzz in much of geospatial (see Atanas' post on this) but today Pictometry announced the ability of its customers to self-host its online options for the first time. That organization has always marched to the beat of its own drummer.

(1) You really want your client/its customers out in front of the press, right? So, are you signed up for HARO? The free Help a Reporter Out e-mail service links up reporters and sources. I've not used it to find sources, but I'm on the 3x daily e-mail list of reporters looking to speak to people about various topics. Sometimes they want experts, sometimes they want regular people. I'm told many PR folks use it to help get visibility for their clients, but the man behind the service makes it clear that he really wants respondents to be on the up and up and not pushing a products/service/company.

BTW, there's currently a bit of a kruffufle going on between the free HARO service and the pay ProfNet service (owned by PR newswire). Interesting from a Craigslist vs. newspaper classified kind of way.

(2) Did you read about the great press Comcast got from its use of Twitter via ComcastCares? If not, read about not only what they did, but the great press they received from it! For example here in the NY Times!

- For Immediate Release (Don't listen to this podcast? You should!)

The plan is to triple the head count (not noted what it is now) over the next 18 months. The center has been there for 18 months.

- ITNewsOnline

As we ponder visions for SDIs and GSDI, the geologists will launch theirs in just a few days. The OneGeology project aims to unites geological information for the entire world on the Web. Sixteen countries are already serving data and the British Geological Survey is leading the way. From the project website:

OneGeology is an international initiative of the geological surveys of the world and a flagship project of the 'International Year of Planet Earth'. Its aim is to create dynamic geological map data of the world available via the web.

So, what's the tech? No magic; just WMS. The site even offers a cookbook that details how to serve up your data in WMS via open source MapServer. And the future vision, if I understand correctly is support for GeoSciML.

The map of participants (80, the latest to join is Rwanda) and those already serving data is here.

The launch will be at the International Geological Congress (IGC) in Oslo, Norway, 6th -14th August 2008. This is the model I hope many other international (even local) "interest groups" can use to share their data. Go geologists!!

- BBC

The Rails-to-Trails Conservancy launched TrailLink.com, a nationwide interactive map of bike routes and off-road bike trails. Besides the ability to find trails by name location and use (bike, horse, ski, etc.), and surface (grass, asphalt, sand, etc.), the site is looking for visitors to contribute by GPSing trails.

The site requires login for interactive maps of the trails and provides results in list form, with no map. The national map provides point locations for one more trails, but you must zoom in manually (Google Maps mashup) to get to a scale where the route can be drawn. One other concern: at least in my world "trail" means "woods." We call our "trail" a "path," aka "The Bike Path," "the Community Path," though of course it's officially the Minuteman Bike Trail.

“We’re excited about the success of our mapping initiative to date,” said Frederick Schaedtler, RTC director of information technology. “We now have GIS coverage in all 50 states, including most high-density urban areas.”

I'm not sure what that means, exactly.

- BostonChannel.com