Spatially Adjusted

Tag: esri

  • Google Maps API is the entry into GIS that ESRI should take advantage of

    The more I look at the Google Maps API and see the wide array of sites users are creating I can’t help but think of the opportunity that ESRI has to grow their ArcWeb Services. There are quite a bit of bright programmers who are using Google Maps as their introduction to “GIS” and they seem to love it. These programmers can do so much more with the more robust ArcWeb Services, but I’ve seen no out reach from ESRI on how to help these new GIS programmers get involved with ESRI GIS. Many of them are in school and most likely already have ESRI site license that they can tap into and learn how to program with the ESRI software suite. When they graduate, they’ll be available to the GIS marketplace and with some great ideas to help push ArcGIS beyond just a tool used by government agencies. ESRI can easily offer up a simple map to allow users to hook into it and learn how to create ArcWeb Services programs.

    I can’t imagine this would be too much of a cost to ESRI, but the benefit of all the new ArcWeb Services on the Internet would only fuel increased ESRI profits in the future. ESRI can sit and watch the Google Maps API revolution or take it upon them to be part of it. Google Maps isn’t open source and it has been embraced by the open source programmer crowd. ESRI products run on open source and use some open source programming languages so it seems a natural fit for these uses to flock to ESRI. All they want is an easy to use way of creating these web applications and the years of experience that ESRI has with web-based GIS will make the jump much easier than the Google Maps method that doesn’t understand much of what users have created.

    Opening ArcWeb to more users makes sense to me.

  • Like Gmaps Pedometer? Try ArcWeb powered Sportsim

    Gmaps Pedometer has gotten a ton of posts in the blogosphere (dead link) over the past week. Basically what it does is tell you how far you’ve walked/ran over the course of a workout. It is nice, but the interface isn’t that easy to use and you can’t use your GPS with it.

    Sportsimarcweb

    Well there is a product that does what you’d expect a service such as this to do called Sportsim. Unlike Gmaps Pedometer, Sportsim lets you save and catalog all your GPS activities, save background maps to your tracks, analyze your achievements, compare with heart rate data, get cumulative statistics of your training and replay simultaneously activities from same route. Even better, Sportsim is a community where you can create your own race, compete in races, share your recommended activity and explore and discover new places to train. I when ahead and downloaded the small client to see what was available in my area and right away I saw someone had a track from the Arizona Ironman. I was able to see their speed, heart rate and the elevation of the route. You can also search using the type of activity. If I’m interesting in cycling around the country and can see where users are biking, the route, the elevation changes and how long it may take me.

    Gmaps Pedometer is really simple and many people might like that, but given how many weblogs have mentioned how impressive it is, you’d think here would be some love or Sportsim. Well I went to ESRI’s since Sportsim is build using ArcWeb Services to see if it was in their Showcase area. Unfortunately it wasn’t there. I clicked on Learn More About ArcWeb Services and was taken to the product page. Buried in a link on the right is information about the ArcWeb Services Challenge winners where Sportsim is featured. If you want to see some very impressive implementations of ArcWeb Services you really should check that out, but why ESRI isn’t pushing this more on the web is a shame. The Google Map API is nothing compared to what ArcWeb Services, but time and time again you get posts about how bloggers are very impressed with Google Map applications that are very similar to what ESRI was doing 5 years ago.

    I’m looking forward to seeing what ArcWeb Services are featured during the ESRI User Conference, but I suspect none of them be blogged about as much as Gmaps Pedometer.

  • GIS blogger meetup is scheduled

    Link: So let it be written so let it be done.

    The blogger meetup at the UC will be on Wed @ 6pm at Dicks Last resort. Be there or be somewhere else

    I’ll be there and hopefully so will you. Let Steve know on his blog.

  • ArcGIS .NET Special Interest Group @ ESRI UC

    Link: ArcGIS .NET Special Interest Group @ ESRI UC (dead link).

    Art Haddad will be hosting the ArcGIS .NET Special Interest Group at the ESRI User Conference later this month. Art is looking for any ideas to discuss during the session. This might be the first real test (no pressure Art!) on how ESRI bloggers will handle the User Conference. Hopefully he’ll use it to post items from the discussion so users won’t have to wait months for that ESRI UC CD to arrive. But remember this is a two way street, so if you have .NET items for discussion, you’ll have to let him know.

  • Users debate costs of Google Earth vs. ArcGIS

    Konquest Online posts about their thoughts on Google Earth (dead link):

    “I think that GIS producers should be humbled by the work that has been done at
    Google and Keyhole. It’s not perfect yet, but it was developped in about one
    year, has a great interface and is free. I’ve only downloaded Google Earth, but
    they also offer the software in two other flavours: Google Earth Plus (which features GPS integration, higher print resolution and more powerful annotation features) and Google Earth
    Pro     (with a ton of features and can be compared with commercial GIS) But the Pro version is still priced only 400 US$/year, compared to the 10 000+ $ needed to acquire ESRI’s ArcGIS.”

    While I too am quite impressed at the ease of use that Google Earth brings to desktop GIS, lets not lose site of the fact that is is only a viewer of GIS. ArcGIS, while more expensive allows GIS analysis as well as viewing the same and more GIS datasets that Google Earth does. Also ArcView is “only” about $1,500 and the 3D Analyst extension is about “$2,500”, much less that the $10,000+ figure quoted above. To compare Google Earth with ArcGIS is about the same as comparing Word Pad with Microsoft Word. To even list all the functions that ArcView does beyond Google Earth would take pages on pages of this blog. Don’t lose sight of the purpose of Google Earth, nor what ArcGIS is about.

  • New ESRI Blogger

    Looks like there is a new blogger at ESRI. Art’s Place (dead link) has its first blog post and I hope he continues to post. Art asks (dead link):

    “Within the walls of ESRI, I keep hearing that C++ based clients that
    require a download of 60+ mb is ok – just look at iTunes (BTW, iTunes is a 21 mb
    download) and that web based GIS is not as important to our users. Well, I do
    not believe this to be the case and feel that we need to reinvent GIS on the Web
    with a rich web based version of ArcGIS. Does anyone have any comments towards
    this? What are your opinions? I would like to hear them and maybe bring that
    back to ESRI.”

    I wrote my theory on the subject a couple weeks ago. While I still believe in web based GIS, the costs involved at least using ESRI technology is very hard for some of our clients to overcome. They have embraced ArcPublisher and ArcReader which makes sense in a workgroup environment. I can’t imagine the cost of an ArcServer type of application that would allow web ArcGIS (ArcView/ArcEditor) to run.

  • ESRI is losing the blog PR battle

    It is pretty hard these days not to see daily news of Google Maps, Google Earth or MSN Virtual Earth. Click on any one of those links to see all the blog posts about them in Technorati. Bloggers can’t get enough of these services, but us long time GIS folks know that we’ve been doing this stuff for years with and without ESRI’s help. Google Earth is pretty much the same as a demo I saw Jack Dangermond give a couple years ago. Of course while we all know this, what about the average user who is now interested in these kinds of geospatial products. Go ahead and click on the Technorati ESRI tag link below.

    Technorati Tag: ESRI

    A whole bunch of my posts appear. That is it. People are finding my blog by using that tag, but they aren’t being directed to any ESRI blogger sites. Currently there are a couple of ESRI bloggers, but none of them are able to make the kinds of posts that would be required to get the ESRI name and their services in the blogosphere more. I’d love to see someone take every new Google Maps API website and show how ESRI has been doing this for years. When someone posts about how Google Earth is going to be the end of ESRI, a nice history of the immense task it was moving from ArcInfo 7.x/ArcView 3.x to ArcGIS 8 and how successful ESRI has been since then would be perfect.

    When you currently find stories about ESRI in the blogosphere, usually they are just “reprints” of ESRI press releases similar to the ones that Directions Magazine posts. Sure there is good content out there, but it gets lost because there is so much noise. ESRI has begun to offer RSS feeds, but again it is only on their press releases. Hearing about how some city in the mid-west saved millions of dollars because they used ArcGIS is nice, but people want to read about the Northrop Grumman Touch Table that was demonstrated at last years conference. That was impressive, maybe not practical for most people, but it got everyone excited. These kinds of implementations of ESRI technology occur every day of the year, but we only get to read about them in ArcNews or ArcUser and by that time it is old news.

    So what should ESRI do? First they need to find a PR blogger. Someone like Robert Scoble or Jeremy Zawodny who can help bloggers learn about ESRI and show the world what they are doing. It doesn’t have to be a “professional” blogger such as them, but it should be someone who knows how the weblogs interact and can leverage tools such as PubSub, Technorati and Feedster. Second, they need to get their project managers and staff blogging. It is easy to look at Microsoft to see how they have grown doing so, but companies such as General Motors are jumping on the bandwagon and you can see the results with the amount of bloggers that are commenting about their posts. Third, they need to offer up more RSS feeds of their existing content. I’m sure there are plans to do so, but the latest support documents and ESRI Developer code samples are difficult to find.

    I went to BlogPulse to see how the keywords “ESRI”, “ArcGIS” and “Google Earth” rated over the past month. You can see on the graph below that there is almost no blip for ESRI, even with the increased focus on GIS brought out by Google Earth.

    Esri google blogpulse1

    As the 25th ESRI International User Conference is upon us, I also thought it would be nice to see how they keyword ESRI compared against the Where 2.0 conference. I wonder if ESRI will see a similar spike later this month. With the lack of bloggers talking about ESRI these days, I sincerely doubt it. To ignore the blogosphere is ignoring your customers.

    Esri where blogpulse1

  • GIS Users Can’t Get Enough Google Earth

    Link: G-town Love: Look Out ESRI (dead link).

    Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) is the microsoft of GIS… their the top dawgs in GIS software and in turn everyone use’s their file formats and forms of analysis. Overall they have some good stuff. However, google just launched google earth. Now I’m sure google’s software isn’t as robust as ArcGIS and doesn’t really support a wide variety of data types. However, there are a ton of small businesses and people that could benefit from a “light-weight” GIS that is easy to use and requires little training.

    While I agree that ESRI should have a consumer product, I don’t think Google Earth is close to being that product. The amount of press that Google Maps has been getting in both the traditional media and the blogsphere has been huge, but in the end all you have is a product that is much more similar to TOPO! (think DRGs rather than satellite photos) than ESRI ArcGIS. If one looks at what has happened with Picasa since Google bought them, you’d see that Adobe hasn’t been hurt too much by their sales of Photoshop Elements. I think when the press dies down and users begin to see what Google Earth offers them, they’ll enjoy the eye candy and move on to the next great Google offering. The rest of us will be enjoying ArcGIS 9.2, or so we hope.

  • Blogger Meet-up Planned for the ESRI UC

    Link: My Own Little World – Blogger meet-up for the UC.

    Steve and Brian (dead link) are trying to set up a meet-up at the ESRI User Conference later this month. If you are intersted, navigate over to Steve’s site and let him know what you think.

  • ESRI Posts “Top Ten Reasons Why You Should Use ArcGIS 9.1”

    Doesn’t that sound like a blog entry? ESRI gets so close to actually blogging it just hurts to think about it. Come on guys, blog this stuff!

    http://www.esri.com/software/arcgis/about/whats-new.html