The announcements out of Where 2.0 from John Hanke of Google and Jack Dangermond regarding integrating neogeography with professional GIS (perhaps not the best terms, but I'm confident readers understand) are quite a lot to digest. (Video available here.) But that's ok, both companies are resetting their visions with regard to the other, to data and to services and it's certainly time for that.

Here's the substance of the relevant announcements teased out of coverage from Where 2.0, where the two geotechnologists shared the stage yesterday.

- ArcGIS Server 9.3 (available in about 4 weeks, per Dangermond) will make its metadata service "scrapable" into KML and thus findable via Google's geographic search (once known as KML search). Further, ArcGIS Server will be able to publish not only that data as streaming KML (and GeoRSS) but also related services. Dangermond showed finding data from a Portland, Oregon service, visualizing it and then performing analysis, all from Google Earth. Said another way, all data and services served by ArcGIS Server could potentially be findable and usable in any Google mashup. Further, the resultant KML can be used in app that supports the OGC standard.

That's the premise of Patrick Marshall's article in GCN. He sites high GIS use based on an April survey but offers no figures on interoperability problems. He does however cite specific interoperability problems due to how geocoding is done.

In an April GCN survey, two-thirds of respondents said their agencies already use GIS applications, and most said they expected to use more geospatial data in the next five years. Surprisingly, 67 percent of respondents also reported that their organizations were already using location-based services for tracking vehicles or other assets.

Although hundreds of geospatial applications are blossoming at the federal, state and local levels, they have been developed in large part independently, without common standards.

As a result, an application developed by one organization often can’t digest and work with data collected by another.

There's an exploration of HSIP and its limited availability to all levels of government due to licensing restrictions and query challenges. More interesting is how Sam Bacharach of OGC explains how its standards work, but are not always used.

However, just because most software supports OGC interfaces doesn’t mean that a consultant or vendor will use them. “They know [their own interfaces] better, and it’s to their competitive advantage to keep you tied up with their proprietary interfaces,” Bacharach said.
So he said he advises implementers to insist that any application be customized to use standard interfaces.

OGC in a few minutes will offer a press release noting passage of OGC KML as an approved specification (standard). C|net already announced the news. Will this change how you think about or use KML? Perhaps it will change how you think about Google, or OGC?

Wired titled it a killer mashup; I just like that it uses geoRSS and Yahoo Pipes.

Blogger Tony Hirst mixed an RSS feed from Google Calendar with some KML generated using Yahoo Pipes as a middleman, to come up with today’s best mashup: your Google Calendar plotted on a map.

Head over to Hirst’s blog for the gritty details, but the process isn’t too difficult. You'll just need to add the XML output for your calendar (it will need to be a public feed) to the Yahoo Pipe which will then extract the locations and generate a geoRSS feed. Enter that URL in the Google Maps search box and you’ll see all the events plotted out on the map.

The State of Minnesota tapped into FireWise, an organization funded by Wildland/Urban Interface Working Team (WUIWT) of the National Wildfire Coordinating Group, aimed at involving communities in preventing fires, to map areas threatened by a blowdown of trees in 1999. The project is now up and running

Of note:

"The system utilizes Spatial Oracle, UMN MapServer and Java. Javascripting builds the front end html code for Web display."

Students do analytical work - mostly high schoolers, but also junior high students.

"The Minnesota Firewise program secured a modest grant from the National Fire Plan for the system to purchase software and hardware."

"...plans are in the works to allow the data to be displayed on a standardized client such as ArcGIS, Web Mapping Service (WMS), or Web Feature Service (WFS)."

- Government Technology

The PR is here. The details here and here.

Bottom line: $500 brings access to print (I guess they use those?) and electronic docs, no voting, no cost sharing, can work on Interoperability Initiatives, working groups and TC subcommittees.

Raj Singh noted this was coming at FOSS4G in Victoria.