The State of Where 2.0

location based services

The Internet eats everything it touches. Back in2004, when “local search” was interesting butnot yet real, the O’Reilly Radar—that combinationof instinct, murmurs from the alpha geeks,and unexpected data—was picking up signals aboutthe emergence of geospatial data on the Web. Wecommitted to the first Where 2.0 Conference, held inJune 2005, and shortly before it took place, a slew ofannouncements confirmed that much was brewing innet-connected location-based systems.One year later, with Google Maps, Google Earth,Local Live, MapQuest, NASA World Wind, Yahoo!’slocal ad platform, Open Street Maps, and the enormousGIS industry rapidly moving into the area, the signal iscoming through loud and clear.The space is interesting because it’s about location,which is something tangible and real. We technologistslive much of our lives in a haze of ethereal abstractmetaphors and high-level tools, so we get a visceralreaction when we actually do something that connectsus to the real world around us. We like mapping andlocation because of this real world connection.And because it’s useful, there’s money around it.The money in the past has tended to steer the servicesaway from the useful and toward the commercial. Forexample, there was the pitch of “Wow, our phones willpoint us to competing cheaper stores on the other sideof town!” But there’s a word for that kind of incessantcommercial electronic messaging: spam. Anotherexample: the first local search applications were allabout the yellow pages data because it was easy andbecause the portals were keen to build a local searchbusiness. This premature monetization limited theiruptake. Not too many people build their lives aroundshopping, though, so the new applications revolvearound friends, social connections, and events, leavingroom for commerce when it arises but wanting theirproduct to become part of your life.There are several trends appearing in the industry now.Most obvious to consumers is the ability to view desireddata on a map and the creation of new location-aware,social data. We are also seeing a rising need for openstandards. Users are more willing to share their data ifthey know that it can be used elsewhere when they (orothers they grant rights to) desire. As this desire to pullin more data and to have it be more accurate increases,people are turning to the desktop for a richer applicationexperience and are beginning to rely on location sensingto keep their current position up-to-date.Data VisualizationGoogle Maps was where the action was in 2005, andwe’ve certainly seen it inspire a lot of mash-ups. Thesilent contender has really been Google Earth (and itsnon-commercial open source peer, NASA World Wind).Google Earth offers a rich environment for visualizationsand presentations, albeit in a desktop setting. For anexample of what Google Earth can do, check out DeclanButler’s visualization of avian flu outbreaks. Points onthe map are visually coded by how recent the outbreakwas, whether it was bird or human, and whether it wasfatal. You can see at a glance the extent of cases, andusing the annotations you can track down the sourcesand precise details for each case. Microsoft’s just releasedMapCruncher is also built for data visualization.Declan’s using Google Earth as a data visualization tool,and that’s appropriate: Google Earth is really just a puredata visualization tool. That’s all Google Maps is, too.Mashups are simply adding in their own data to Google