Here are a few more notes from the 2007 Where 2.0 conference .
Google’s pride of ownership
Michael Jones, the CTO of Google Earth was a very entertaining speaker. He has a real tricorder from the original Star Trek show and isn’t afraid to use it. He reiterated Google’s aim to “…organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful…” and I couldn’t help ironically thinking that he said it with a certain pride of ownership. Just the kind of thing someone says after purchasing a valuable but rundown building – “it’s mine now and think how much nicer it will be when I clean it up.” Don’t get me wrong – I like Google (may Google be great and live forever) and use many of their products. Some of my best friends work for Google. But sometimes it is scary what they can do.
Open Map Data
I’m very impressed with Open Street Map, an initiative to make a creative commons map of the world. In the US we take for granted some of the access to cartographic data that we have. In other parts of the world (e.g. UK, China) the data is government owned and tightly regulated. These folks are using open source tools to create a community of amateur cartographers. Their goals are ambitious but their strategy is to take small steps first.
Closed Map Data
One of the most entertaining talks was by Ian White of Urban Mapping. He spoke about the difficulties in obtaining theoretically public data (such as metro stop locations) from governmental bureaucracies in the US. Hilarious but sad.
API
Everyone was showing off their web services. The new Mapquest Actionscript API for Adobe Flex looks very interesting. It allows you to quickly make very interactive mapping applications that run within the flash virtual machine. As I mentioned in my earlier post, ESRI also showed a very neat API for adding GIS like functions to maps.
Something in the air
The show had some of the feeling of those early Internet World conferences. Though it was much smaller and definitely less pompous, there was a charge in the air. There were at least a few VC’s in attendance. It feels like 1998 all over again.
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