Location is Relative

Location is Relative

Lançado o “call for participation” para o Where 2.0 Conference 2008, cujo tema será “Location is Relative”. O evento será em Burlingame, Califórnia, de 12 a 14 de maio. No cardápio questões interessantes sobre mapeamentos, localizações, geotags, games…Vejam abaixo em detalhes:

“Local Search and Advertising: Mappam and Lat49 are competing with Google to be the ad platform of choice for the over 100,000 mash-ups out there. Are companies ready to advertise on maps? Will consumers notice? Is this the business model that will support the huge cost of data acquisition?

Mobile: The carriers are finally allowing new business models that support location-based services. Will this lead to more mobile ads? What are the privacy and social implications? What are you doing with it? What should be done?

GeoIndex: There is geographic information scattered across the Web and has been since its inception. However, now parts of it are being collected together into a geoindex which can be searched via geographic terms. This is opening up a new groundswell in content, which currently is only being used to supplement the yellow pages and to make mash-ups. What else should this content be used for?

Permissions: Your location used to be private. Now it can be acquired via a subpoena. This same technology can also be used for social purposes. Who has the ability to know where you are? What services do you trust to meter this information? What dream service would get you to reveal your location 24/7?

GeoTagged Life: It is now possible to geotag your life. This opens up new area of applications, but how many are just making sure your cat photos are properly located versus changing the way you live and share?

DIY Data Platforms: It has always been possible to capture geographic data on your own, but without the ability to combine it with others’ it was a novelty. There are now community-built platforms for aggregating this data together. Open Aerial Map takes imagery generated from hobbyists and aggregates it together; Open Street Map has been doing this with GPS traces for a while. Can a smaller company like Everyscape build a business on its users’ work?

Crowd Sourced Data: Tele Atlas and NAVTEQ map the streets in vans equipped with LIDAR, multi-angle, high-resolution cameras, and massive hard drives for storing the data. However, Tomtom GPS owners are going to start contributing to Tele Atlas’ data, potentially making it the most complete and accurate on the market. Nokia handset owners will be updating NAVTEQ’s data in the coming years. Google is sending out GPSs to people in India to generate maps. It’s still undetermined how and if this data will be used. Help us explore this area closely.

Realtime Data: Realtime data is coming to the Web and to mapping applications via an expanding network of sensors and cameras. We’re used to having traffic on our maps—what else will we want and have?

Open Source GeoStack: FOSS4G continues to grow and show the latest in the ever-expanding open source geostack. One excellent addition is a focus on geo-specific web application frameworks. What part of the geostack are you building on your own or getting from Google Code?

Disaster Relief/Environment/NGOs: The new web platforms that many use for finding a restaurant are also used for political purposes. Mapping the locations of prisons, dictator’s excesses, and genocide massacres have put pressures on the offending governments. Accurate maps have also saved lives. How are you changing the world for the better with a geo-application?

Sensorweb: Cheap sensors have become ubiquitous and increasingly web-based. Right now they are being used to track traffic, give out speeding tickets, detect the weather, and turn on the music in our homes. Where else are they going and how will they affect our lives?

Geotargeting: Accurately knowing where your users are is important, as is knowing what locations they care about. How do you do this? IP? Wifi? Search terms? GPS? AGPS? What are the limitations and how are you getting around them?

Space: Space has come to the private sector. Microsoft and Google have both produced products that let us look at the stars. Are these just educational tools/publicity gambits or is this a new business venture that they are both exploring? What else is being done in this area?

Virtual Worlds: Virtual worlds have become simulation playgrounds. Where are they going? Will Google Earth expand beyond their new flight simulator to go after Second Life? Will Metaplace become a platform for geodata?

Games: With the knowledge of location and realtime data comes games. This trend has been emerging for a while, but hasn’t taken off. Perhaps with the release of the PSP GPS and location on the handset it will. But where exactly will it go?”