Comments on: GeoCommons Maker! – the next day http://spatiallyadjusted.com/2008/10/02/geocommons-maker-the-next-day/ Geospatial Technology, Web Mapping and Spatial Services Fri, 10 Feb 2012 19:09:18 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: sean gorman http://spatiallyadjusted.com/2008/10/02/geocommons-maker-the-next-day/#comment-10325 Sat, 04 Oct 2008 17:11:41 +0000 http://www.spatiallyadjusted.com/?p=2184#comment-10325 Hi Timmy

There must have been a traffic spike. Checked it out looked to be running well. QA is looking into it let me know of the problem persists.

Thanks
Sean

]]> By: timmy http://spatiallyadjusted.com/2008/10/02/geocommons-maker-the-next-day/#comment-10324 Sat, 04 Oct 2008 13:58:08 +0000 http://www.spatiallyadjusted.com/?p=2184#comment-10324 I tested the maker site saturday morning but it didn’t seem to be working (I couldn’t add layers to a map, I couldn’t preview the authored maps, couldn’t change basemap layers, refresh rate very slow). I checked my bandwidth to make sure that wasn’t the problem; the pipe was wide open. Perhaps they are victims of their own success. Interesting concept none the less; I’ll revisit soon.

]]> By: Sean Gorman http://spatiallyadjusted.com/2008/10/02/geocommons-maker-the-next-day/#comment-10323 Fri, 03 Oct 2008 21:11:39 +0000 http://www.spatiallyadjusted.com/?p=2184#comment-10323 This is true and the logo and copyright are going up later today. Hopefully folks are checking out the application and super cool GeoMonkey maps as well.

]]> By: Giasen http://spatiallyadjusted.com/2008/10/02/geocommons-maker-the-next-day/#comment-10322 Fri, 03 Oct 2008 21:09:29 +0000 http://www.spatiallyadjusted.com/?p=2184#comment-10322 I think an RSS feed for new data added would benefit all.

]]> By: Patrick Weber http://spatiallyadjusted.com/2008/10/02/geocommons-maker-the-next-day/#comment-10321 Fri, 03 Oct 2008 14:29:55 +0000 http://www.spatiallyadjusted.com/?p=2184#comment-10321 Well better the Google “Police” than the Google Lawyers.

]]> By: Sean Gorman http://spatiallyadjusted.com/2008/10/02/geocommons-maker-the-next-day/#comment-10320 Fri, 03 Oct 2008 14:10:27 +0000 http://www.spatiallyadjusted.com/?p=2184#comment-10320 Small oversight in the launch craziness it is being added and tested today. Good to know the Google police remain vigilant ;-)

]]> By: Patrick Weber http://spatiallyadjusted.com/2008/10/02/geocommons-maker-the-next-day/#comment-10319 Fri, 03 Oct 2008 10:13:10 +0000 http://www.spatiallyadjusted.com/?p=2184#comment-10319 One thing that intrigues me is the fact that I cant see the usual copyright notice anywhere regarding the Google Maps base map layer? Is that an oversight, or did Google waive any requirements regarding copyright notices ? (very unlikely?)

]]> By: James Fee http://spatiallyadjusted.com/2008/10/02/geocommons-maker-the-next-day/#comment-10318 Thu, 02 Oct 2008 23:00:05 +0000 http://www.spatiallyadjusted.com/?p=2184#comment-10318 Hilarious Sean!

]]> By: Sean Gorman http://spatiallyadjusted.com/2008/10/02/geocommons-maker-the-next-day/#comment-10317 Thu, 02 Oct 2008 22:41:24 +0000 http://www.spatiallyadjusted.com/?p=2184#comment-10317 James – the GeoMonkey is officially represented:

http://maker.geocommons.com/maps/560

http://finder.geocommons.com/overlays/4960

No more will “monkey” return no results ;-)

]]> By: Sean Gorman http://spatiallyadjusted.com/2008/10/02/geocommons-maker-the-next-day/#comment-10316 Thu, 02 Oct 2008 21:49:22 +0000 http://www.spatiallyadjusted.com/?p=2184#comment-10316 Thanks for the coverage and we will work on cutting down the teasing on the next release. We plan on adding additional metadata support in the future like being able to upload a .shp.xml with a full specification, but hopefully have the bare bones in place for now.

Agree that the functionality in Maker for GIS type analysis is simple – just thematic mapping. We had a lot of internal debates over how much functionality we could expose to non-technical users. The goal was not to create a full web-based GIS but instead a simple application that anyone could use and later be extended as users become more educated.

When we first did heat maps (kernel density functions) on GeoCommons version one lots of users misinterpreted the maps thinking it was a data visualization and instead of a data analysis.

Users would think the brightest spot on the heat map was the highest value on the map instead of it being the highest concentration of high value points close to each other. It was a hard lesson in educating non technical users to use the tool appropriately.

I think in order to let the rest of the world know what GIS is and the value of it we need to take baby steps – otherwise they are going to be overwhelmed and run for the hill IMHO

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