Awesome news from the Google Geo Developers Blog. Can’t wait to see the spring, summer, autumn and winter maps that will be created. And I even know someone who always wanted Heavy Metal maps - no more need to wait for this to happen. Dive into the Google Maps API V3 and make it happen.
The metaphor “dive into the map” was never more applicable than today, given the seamless integration of 360 panorama imagery with earth viewer technologies from Google, Microsoft & Co. Dive into the map and explore thea area around to discover all the fascinating things that places have to offer. Discovering geographic information through different user interfaces and user interface metaphors is a topic I have been interested in for a long time. Users have their individual cognitive styles and a user interface that may be well suited to some of us may be tedious to use for others. Some explore and discover by reading text. Others prefer browsing image galleries or watching videos. And some of us prefer to explore the area - explore places - through a map. A map is a neat way to understand geography and it provides an exploration experience that can can be heaps of fun - especially when the concepts of information scent are integrated into the mapping experience.
Check out this awesome Google Home View “making of” via Google Maps Mania. Thanks for this. That made my day.
Recently, Google has announced a new Data Mining tool that provides “statistics for a changing world“, as Google phrased it. The Google Public Data Explorer provides access to some huge piles of data and even enables non expert users to dive into a great data mining experience - something that is usually left to the pros from the statistics department. Then, a few days later, the Google Apps Marketplace was announced. The marketplace enables people to sell and buy apps. We know how this works from the iPhone App Store and the Android Market. And this got me thinking about the Google Data Marketplace. That, however, hasn’t been announced (just yet?). Since I am all Geo, I am most interested in the Geo Apps Marketplace - and the upcoming Geo Data Marketplace, of course 
There are enormous amounts of geodata rotting away on hard drives all over the world. So far businesses like GeoCommons, WeoGeo or Koordinates (affiliated) have started to organise some of these data, make them findable, accessible, and even shoppable through their cloud based infrastructure solutions. However, in think-big mode, there is nothing like an iTunes of geodata out there yet. Where do you go to shop for geo apps or geodata? - Amazon? iTunes? eBay? I don’t think so. Spatial Data Infrastructures are being built up worldwide. Remember that Google, as well, is already working hard on the Google Spatial Data Infrastructure. Today, finding geo apps or geodata when you actually need them, is still cumbersome. But is there actually something like a “market” for geodata? Geodata appears to be free everywhere. Open Street Map provides free mapping data - Google, Microsoft & Co provide free maps. Even self-announced GIS market leader ESRI - or shall we better call it the new GeoDesign market leader - provides loads of free geodata. Geodata increasingly appears to become part of the enabling fundament for a broad range of business models. In order to support their advertising business models, Google, Microsoft & Co have disrupted the GIS market in many aspects. Free geodata and free geo apps from the big players have made many “geo-magic” business model from “the time before” superfluous. The latest disruption in the navigation market nicely shows how “…the candy they give away to you…” - as Paul nicely put it in an argument about how even ESRI is using geodata to support their software business, often is “geo-candy” - geodata or geo apps that are available for free. Nonetheless, Apple’s App Store proved that there is a sound business model in selling Apps -So I am excited to see how the geo-corner of the Google’s new Apps Marketplace will do. And since geo apps are only fun when fuelled with geodata I would be surprised if there wasn’t a solid business case for a Google Data Marketplace selling geodata. At least for professional geo apps and geodata, there should be some beef left.
The latest post on the Google Lat Long Blog presents a neat new way to visualise big piles of data on a map. Pretty cool that they chose an example with bike trails to explain what can be done with Google Fusion Tables. The MTBGuru blog has more details along with maps and screenshots on their site. I think that we will give this a try at work and see if it may be an alternative to a more traditional clustering approach that we are using for visualising many thousand trails on a Google Map at the moment.
One problem I see with the approach of simply drawing all the tracks on a map is that there are many sections, where you will have overlapping tracks. Most of the tracks are GPS tracks that are not snapped to a network and you end up with tracks on top of tracks on top of tracks. A spaghetti trail map. If the trails were modelled as a network, then it would be cool though if you could just click on a part of the track network and have suggested tours come up that pass the section of the network you just clicked on.
If you are planning to climb the highest mountain in Germany this summer and if you happen to own an iPhone, you can download a new hiking app that we submitted to the App Store a few days ago - for free! Our outdooractive.com marketing team decided to only include one tour in the app - but this is the most popular and also the easiest route to climb the Zugspitze. From Garmisch via Reintal onto the top of Germany. However, the real highlight is that the app also includes the best outdoor map of the Zugspitze-Wetterstein area that is available at the moment. You have a great level of detail, including contours, hiking tracks, rock formations, ski lifts and heaps of other cartographic goodies. And needless to say that you can also use this app to go mountain biking in the Zugpspitze area. The app will show your current position and if you plan out where you want to go before, you can refer to the map to find out if you’re on the right track. So all you need to do now is wait for the snow to melt. Usually in June or July the conditions are good enough already. Enjoy!
Far from perfect snow conditions, but nevertheless - A great skitour early in the morning.
Who needs GPS to tell you how high up you are, when you have signs that tell you right on the spot.
Skitour trail data, including ski lifts and runs, as well as a gradient layer, that shows steep danger zones.
Old Economy:
New Economy:
Yesterday, we released another cool feature for all our outdooractive.com users. Our platform already features a few thousand top-notch tours - no matter what kind of outdoor sports you are into -there are plenty of hiking tours, bike trails, skitours and many more things to explore and discover. At this stage, we only offer a German user interface, but we’re already working on supporting an English UI as well. The platform already enables users to publish their favourite outdoor tours in a very professional way, including an interactive tour map, an elevation profile, descriptions and an image gallery. For skitours, there is even a layer, which shows steep slope angles as potential danger zones with a red coloured map overlay. Now, users can also grab an IFrame and integrate it on their own website or blog. People can then check out a summary of the tour and even switch to a Google Earth 3D view to get a better idea about what to expect from the tour. The following example shows a skitour from Scharnitz to Pleisenspitze. Also note the outdoor cartography, which fills in all the white spots that you find in Google Maps when it comes to the Great Outdoors.
While projects like Google Building Maker or Google Map Maker enable people to contribute bricks for Google’s Digital Earth, other tools like a new Points of Interest Collector facilitate map data collection for the Open Street Map project. Hey, there is probably nothing wrong with people working on different map data silos - may not be ideal and may take twice as long, but maybe there is something else to map making than commercially motivated backgrounds - for whatever commercial reasons that may be. Most often, because no one really wants to pay for map data, right?
So it is quite interesting to see yet another approach to crowdsourced map-building. Waze, which labels itself as a “social mobile application” provides free of charge turn by turn navigation based on data that Wazers have already collected and are collecting right now. Starting from a blank map, the road network and Points of Interest are growing minute by minute as people contribute their traits and mappings. The Waze map emerges. I have yet to try this myself, but it must almost feel like the early days of the Open Street Map project. I am not sure about the initial idea and motivation behind Waze - but I enjoyed reading this bit on the Waze blog : “In fact, in certain countries with no base map, users will literally be building maps from scratch - paving the roads entirely themselves, as they drive…”
To me that sounds like a call for wakening the explorer inside ourselves. And it works. I do feel like going out exploring today! Maybe not so much on the road - but wouldn’t it be great to waze the Great Outdoors? Map the trails you have walked, the walls you have climbed, the streams you have mastered and the slopes you have skied. Make it an exploration game - creating your personal Digital Earth. Your private universe.
Imagine, having your personal discovery map - a map that basically puts you back in time to give you a terra incognita experience, but customised for the 21st century. The map would just show the roads and tracks that you have already explored solely by yourself. Personal exploration by direct experience that is. No virtual exploration and discovery tools like Google Earth or Bing Maps allowed. In fact, these virtual globes should be banned since they take away all the fun of direct personal exploration if you can’t resist having a look. Statistics would provide your total life-kilometres, a spatio-temporal lifeline and your personal exploration road and track network. Boldly going where …. you have not been before.