Comments on: Neo, Geo, GIS and Innovation

By: Andrew Zolnai

Andrew Zolnai — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 06:26:13 +0000

Great post, retwitted it in fact, but who’s the dude in the pic?

By: My latest lesson in GIS — Don Meltz’s Blog

My latest lesson in GIS — Don Meltz’s Blog — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 02:02:56 +0000

[...] Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neogeography Peter Batty’s blog posts about NeoGeography: http://geothought.blogspot.com/search/label/neogeography James Fee’s blog post on Neo, Geo, GIS and Innovation: http://www.spatiallyadjusted.com/2009/07/28/neo-geo-gis-and-innovation [...]

By: Michalis

Michalis — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 21:01:04 +0000

For me the confusion always came from these terms: geo-web, web mapping and web GIS. The confusion unfortunately doesn’t come from the words these terms use, but rather the way people interpret them.

For me, the geo-web is far too encompassing. It is all the spatially enabled web applications out there. In that regard, Akamai is probably one of the leaders, as is Google, in the sense that they discover the geography of the network and find shortest routes from your computer to their server, without you even realizing that is a geographic problem solved real-time. Isn’t that geo-web, or as an amazing accomplishment as me being able to find a service that allows me to upload shapefiles and get KML files back?

And then come the arguments about web mapping killing desktop GIS and that web mapping is the future of GIS. Yet mapping is exactly that, creating maps. It is not the complete toolbox of spatial analysis that GIS allows. Yes, I can find a route on web mapping tools, but that’s about it. Where is my viewshed analysis? Flow traces? All the other cool stuff GIS can do?

Even more confusing for me is when people use web GIS as a descriptive term for something like Google Maps. Why, from all the definitions of GIS, would anyone think that web GIS is anything other than the medium connecting the many components of GIS? If the internet and the web are an information highway, why would GIS use it differently? Web GIS for me is GIS implemented to use the web as a communications mechanism between components. If we ever manage to get interoperability between the components from different vendors we can perhaps have a mashable GIS, but lacking components and using one component over the web a GIS does not make in my book.

Now if you bring neo-geography into the mix, then I am lost. Is neo-geography new because tools are available? GRASS has been GPL’ed since 1999. And don’t forget, Google Maps was bought out in 2004. It was already around before that. What is neo- then about neo-geography? Is the user-provided data new? But even OSM is 2004. Wikimapia is 2006 if I am not mistaken. And even if it is the user-generated data, how does it differ from what Goodchild framed as VGI (Volunteered Geographic Information), a term focusing on the data rather than geography as a whole?

What I am trying to say is that there is a lot of naming going around lately, and to me it seems like an attempt for ownership. Remember, if you get to name something, you own it. This seems like a classic example of this, valuable as it may be.

By: Michalis

Michalis — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 20:38:29 +0000

Teresa,

You sound a lot like a Geographer to me than anything. I feel that the neo- paleo- labels are just means for people to sell their product. And interestingly enough, these polemics are always binary and never allow for the fuzzy boundaries we so much discuss in Geography in general.

For me, a person that does what you do, is simply an applied geographer. Using the right tools and data for the right job and avoiding the blind-faith some exhibit in their work. Some things are better suited for ArcGIS, some need SmallWorld, GRASS can do wonders, and so can QGIS, always depending on what you need. Similarly, TeleAtlas data are perfect in some situations, in others OSM may be better. Why choose a camp?

By: Brett

Brett — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 17:39:55 +0000

Here’s something interesting I’d like to point out…
I don’t know how many of you attended the advances in GIScience sessions at the ESRI UC, but there were two things largely lacking from the sessions.
GIS Software and Maps.
Sure, both were there in most presentations, but both were rarely a focus of those presentations.
Big emphasis? Building spatial data from other data types, especially from temporal data (both explicit and implicit spatial temporal data).
You really want to see the next thing? Check out what Texas State put up. Or look at Hornsby’s and Li’s dynamic path modeling from natural language expressions.
Next realm for mashups? Check out VDCmp’s three dimensional social exchange model, and try to classify that work as neo or paleo.

By: Brett

Brett — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 17:28:35 +0000

Reminds me of an interesting issue we had here. Several local cities are pushing out their crime data in online mapping. The maps neatly show, through pushpin locations, all the areas where crime was declining. They did it spending a small amount of money with “neo” vendors using mashup methods.
We started working on a similar map. We went “paleo” in our backend with some pretty extensive work on time of day, geocoding, geomasking, etc.
Making the initial application took hardly any time, less if we had used a mashup. Performance was abysmal though. We kept tweaking performance. But then data was the real problem, especially deciding how to classify and how to geocode.
That’s when we saw it… data holes in the other cities’ data, data quality problems, projection issues, heavy rounding in time of day, a problematic geomasking “algorithm”, and most importantly, the web services were cutting off the number of reports to get performance (rarely returning 100% and often returning less than 10%).
Those crime declines? They weren’t declines, they were missing data. A fast and nifty “neo” mashup for cheap was failing for lack of effort on the expensive “paleo” side. Worse part? The public still hasn’t noticed, and we already know that the vendors will take the blame when they do.

By: KoS

KoS — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 15:00:41 +0000

Sorry to disappoint…don’t have the energy. The subject matter isn’t that interesting. Who or what is called x or y. *shrugs*

By: ChrisW

ChrisW — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 10:32:57 +0000

krigo, ergo sum?

By: Shrek

Shrek — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 07:58:45 +0000

@Shrek

The above comment by was made by an imposter.

By: Archie Belaney

Archie Belaney — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 02:25:21 +0000

Nah. Git y’all a stick an’ whup on it.

Your usually good for a pithy trope or two, KoS – how ’bout it?