The Value of Location-based Tweets

Noam Cohen writes in the New York Times why the upcoming location API for Twitter will make the service so much more useful. Basically, it helps filter the huge number of tweets, so many of which are re-tweets, simply sending on the same information. Using the existing geofiltering to get news on the recent sad events at Fort Hood, he notes, helped tremendously, even before this API is fully available.

I think he’s right; there’s quite a lot of noise on Twitter and any further tools to find the relevant information will be a huge step forward.

- New York Times

Google Maps Glitch: Non-existent Rochester Near Henderson, NV

- Las Vegas Sun

Why are these taking so long to find?

Schmidt: Google Will Not Publish Real Time Satellite Imagery

Just in case you were wondering:

Schmidt said Google only publishes satellite data that is a month old, indicating that Google would consider it creepy to publish real-time satellite data.

Does Schmidt have a real-time satellite imagery provider lined up?

- C|net

Examiner Examines Flood Maps

The Kansas City science editor, Charles Spenser walking through how citizens in Kansas and Missouri can find and use FEMA flood maps. In the first article in the series he reviewed the challenges of viewing FIRM maps and creating a FIRMETTE (free) on the FEMA website. I agree the MSC Viewer does not feel modern.

But although these maps are full of information, the process of viewing it is not all that user-friendly. First of all, the map covers a much larger area than your neighborhood, so you must pan and zoom to reach street level. Every time you do that, or click on any other tool, the image reloads at a frustratingly slow rate (even with a fast internet connection). Another problem is that you lose the map legend as you zoom. If you don’t know, or remember, what all of the map labels and symbols mean, you have to pan back to the legend, which involves more image reloads.

In the second he give some alternative locations to access the data more easily: the state site for Missouri and several county sites for Kansas.

Next up: how to figure out what the maps mean.

Old Poll, New Poll

A few months ago, we asked: How much of your geospatial work is done using desktop GIS? 274 readers responded:

57% Nearly 100%
18% About 75%
16% 25% or less
10% About 50%

Next up: What’s your opinion of the quality of Google’s “new” U.S. dataset?