Spatially Adjusted

Category: Thoughts

  • Is Google Overextending Itself?

    Link – Has Google Peaked? – via Jeremy Bartley

    For a company that depends so much on a single type of revenue, Google has stretched itself awfully thin. In the last two years, the company has released a dizzying array of products: Gmail, the Google Toolbar, Google Maps, Google Earth, Google Blog search, and an instant messaging/Internet phone service called Google Talk. There’s also the Google Print Library Project (a plan to scan and make searchable the contents of entire libraries), a video search engine that’s in beta testing, and a recent bid to provide free Wi-Fi to all of San Francisco. Things are so frantic at corporate headquarters, a Google PR rep recently told me, that he didn’t have time to answer questions; he did ask if I knew of anyone who wanted a PR job. As Search Engine Watch editor Danny Sullivan puts it, the fact that Google is getting into everything means that they run the risk of not doing some things well. If Google had invested more in blog search over the last few years, for example, it could have controlled the industry rather than playing catchup.

    I think we are beginning to see signs that Google is starting to sag under its own weight. If anyone has given Google’s new RSS Reader a spin can tell that it should have never seen the light of day. In the rush to be all things to everyone, they are starting miss the little things that people notice. I have been a big supporter of using Google Earth as an GIS viewer, but given the data shift issues, I’m starting to rethink that position. Of course some of this is backlash against Google, much like we’ve seen aimed at Microsoft and Apple, but if one is to rely on these products one needs to hold Google accountable. The words “beta” and “free” don’t absolve them from mistakes and poor product decisions.

  • Glenn Letham Restates His Opinions about Google vs. ESRI

    Link – More on Google vs ESRI Pricing

    FYI, for the record, I should have stated earlier (regarding my post about price comparison of ESRI vs Google Earth – see below) that I was simply relaying some material from the Keyhole BBS that was sent to me from a colleague.

    Glenn clarifies his position about Google vs ESRI. Glenn’s posting style lends itself to confusion in regards to what is his thoughts vs what he is “reporting”. I always put the link to a referenced article first in my posts and use > tags to make sure that what I’m quoting is separated from my own thoughts.

  • Dave Bouwman on the GIS Long Tail

    Link – The GIS Longtail – Google, MSN, Yahoo and ESRI

    The idea that Google/MSN/Yahoo is bad news for ESRI is based solely on the whiz-bang-flash of the new mass awakening to the fact that things can be put on a map. Anyone who thinks that Google is going to extend Google Earth to the point of enabling a city to manage it’s parcel base is delirious. Apart from the fact that it’s very difficult, there is no benefit to them. While Google does have a staff of geniuses, this does not mean they can simply whip up a full fledged professional GIS system. As for ESRI – I think they can only benefit from the increased attention paid to mapping in general, and GIS in particular. Once the public really starts to “get” maps, ESRI will be well positioned to facilitate “doing” something with the map – besides just plotting a point location.

    Bouwman longtail

    Dave Bouwman has just written a great article on the relationship between Google/Microsoft, ESRI and GIS as a whole. Dave hits it right on the head with ArcGIS vs Google Earth (or similar “consumer GIS” programs). Some have said that ArcGIS is the world’s largest software application built with Microsoft’s COM and while that may or may not be true, the plain fact is that ArcGIS has so many tools at the ready and these tools have decades of development behind them, that Google/Microsoft would be very hard pressed to compete. Now at the consumer end, that is a different story and it may be that GE and MapPoint eventually close the gap toward being a low end GIS tool, but even then you have to wonder about the quality of analysis that these tools may give the user given the lack of experience with GIS.

    Time will tell, but as Dave points out so well in his post, Google Earth and ArcGIS are aimed at two very different markets and there is almost no overlap between them.

  • Virtual Earth + Shapefile Reader + MSN Messenger

    I was just thinking about a couple things today while watching my laptop struggle to execute Kriging.

    How cool would it be if someone took the Virtual Earth Shapefile Reader and mashed it up with the MSN Messenger Virtual Earth plugin? Then anyone could send a shapefile to anyone else via an instant message and have it already viewable inside a small browser window. Sounds cool to me. ESRI’s GeoChat seems to be similar to this, but I believe that one requires ArcGIS to work.

  • ESRI Posts Videos on EDN

    Link – EDN Videos

    Brian Goldin has posted to let us know that ESRI has posted some really interesting videos up on EDN. If you’ve ever seen a video on Microsoft’s Channel 9 you’ll have an idea about how Brian did these. I love them because they are raw, just ESRI employees talking about what they love. There are times that ESRI feels like such a closed environment, but with videos you get to see behind the scenes on the ESRI campus in Redlands. Don’t let the EDN site scare you because one of the new videos is with Corey Tucker who is lead product specialist for the geoprocessing analysis team so even GIS analysts will get value from these videos. If you are new to GIS and want to know more about what GIS analysts do, you should check out that video with Corey Tucker also as he gets into building models to perform analysis. On top of all this, Brian is soliciting feedback on his blog and he’s open suggestions for new videos.

    How about an ArcExplorer video?

  • OPML Blogroll List Updated

    Just as the blogroll is now dynamically updated, so is my OPML file for that list. If you ever want to download it, just click on the little orange link just to the right of the ESRI Bloggers or GIS Blogs titles.

    I’ll probably be cleaning out a couple blogs that haven’t been updated in the past few months so expect the list to go down somewhat.

  • My Highlighter vs Mapquest

    Link – Better Directions – via John Banning

    …the most powerful maps can actually make it easier to get lost. Dazzled by their features – immersed in topographic information and GPS coordinates – we forget just to look around. In his book Between Meals: An Appetite for Paris, A. J. Liebling blamed a decline in French cuisine, starting in the 1920s, on the Michelin Guide. Prior to its publication, he argued, anyone brave enough to open a restaurant had to face the scrutiny of repeat customers. With the advent of this book, however, day-trippers would blithely follow its recommendations – once, and they’d never return. The fact that you can now download Michelin’s Paris guide to a PDA would probably have horrified Liebling. ChicagoCrime.org should worry any urban planner looking to revitalize a historic district. That’s the SimCity trap, emphasizing spatial relationships over more intimate, human considerations.

    I used to carry a Pocket PC and a GPS CF card everywhere I went so I could tell exactly where I was but no longer. The excitement of just driving around and discovering new things has become lost as we’ve optimized our lives to make our travel as quick as possible. Give me a AAA road map and I’ll map out my route myself with a highlighter rather than let Google or Yahoo! decide what route I should go. Believe me, the scenery outside the car is much more enjoyable than a printout for your ink-jet.

  • Putting Shapefies into Virtual Earth

    Link – Virtual Earth Shapefile Viewer – via Virtual Earth Blog

    Interesting and it works pretty well. Upload any shapefile to the Internet and then just paste the URL into the form and submit. There isn’t any description yet on how this is done or what you need to do to your shapefiles to get them ready to inclusion into Virtual Earth, but it is impressive non the less. Hover over the centroid to get a pop-up id of each record. The GIS community has pretty much ignored Virtual Earth since day one, but maybe this is the start of something new.

    Ve shapefile

    Update – Brian Flood post the following in the comments.

    pretty slick. for the record:

    1. background transfer of XML encoded point,polyline,polygon shapefile data. I’m not sure if its GML or just some quick and dirty xml
    2. javascript (js) parses the xml and either uses a custom class MPolyline to create VML (IE only) for polylines/polygons. For points, it just uses the VE AddPin method. Translation between the XML coords to map coords is handled with VE GetX()/GetY() methods
    3. local javascript from the site adds prototype handlers to the main VE_MapControl that handle the VML placed on top of it
    4. Looks like some symbology is randomly generated.

    nice work, whoever they are 😉

  • Glenn Letham tries to stir the pot with FUD

    Link – Will Google Earth Replace the need for costly GIS software and license fees?

    This was a recent topic of discussion on the Google BBS… no doubt you’ve also been wondering… why invest deeply in a pricey IMS, GIS site license and support costs etc… “Lets take a look how much ArcGIS software we would need on one desktop to replicate the functionality of Google Earth. First you would need ArcView for $1,500, then add a license of 3D Analyst for $2,500. So now we are at $4,000 dollars just for software and don’t forget to add the yearly $1,300 dollar maintenance fee also. Now you need to pay for ArcWeb services so that you have data (which there aren’t even prices on website). Add in ArcIMS and ArcSDE servers and your talking the GNP of some third world countries.”

    First off Glenn, lets try and include links with your posts. For those who want to see the reference post in Glenn’s blog entry click here.

    I won’t spend too much time responding here to this charge that to get the functionality of Google Earth, you need to spend $4,000. One doesn’t buy a backhoe to dig a hole for a plant in your front yard, but this is what the writer above is proposing. The best response to people who post information like this above is, “To get the functionality of ArcView and 3D Analyst in Google Earth, you’d have to buy ArcView and 3D Analyst. Google Earth is nothing more than a 3D Map Viewer. ArcGIS is a professional GIS suite. Has Photoshop been hurt by Picasa since Google released the free version? Probably not any more than ESRI will be affected by Google Earth in its current state. ArcView is overkill for many, and Google Earth probably fits the bill for them, but to expect GE to replace the scientific quality analysis that ArcGIS provides is laughable considering how they can’t even get the alignment of their data correct. Maybe in the future Google Earth will add more data support, but the years of experience that ESRI has with spatial analysis will be hard to compete with. Many of us long time GIS professionals remember the press all said ArcView was dead the day that Microsoft released MapPoint. That didn’t happen and I just don’t see Google Earth making any dent into ESRI’s core business.

    Oh and the writer of that post above that Glenn linked to? He posted this in the same thread.

    As a side note ESRI is now saying that the free viewer ArcExplorer will include ArcScene, their 3D environment. Not sure if Google Earth had anything to do with it but competition is nice.

    Seems that even he realizes that ESRI is still a force to be reckoned with even if Glenn doesn’t.

  • Updated GIS blogroll again

    I’ve updated my blogroll again and I’m going to try using the Newsgator service again. The last time I did this it didn’t work, but it seems like all the kinks are out of the system. What is cool is that rather than me manually adding and deleting feeds, this will automatically be updated as my Newsgator Outlook and FeedDemon readers change. I’ve been testing it on the side and it seems to be fine. Let me know if anything seems out of wack. I’ll try and get the OPML files for the ESRI bloggers and the GIS bloggers as a download by the end of the week (also dynamic) so if you want to just import them you can.