Comments on: The (Geo) Data Dichotomy Dilemma http://www.vicchi.org/2009/11/16/the-geo-data-dichotomy-dilemma/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-geo-data-dichotomy-dilemma Geo-blogging, geo-talking and geo-tweeting, these are the occasional ramblings of a self professed "geek with a life" Sat, 21 Jan 2012 09:44:52 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Andrew Zolnai http://www.vicchi.org/2009/11/16/the-geo-data-dichotomy-dilemma/comment-page-1/#comment-267 Andrew Zolnai Tue, 17 Nov 2009 11:45:39 +0000 http://www.vicchi.org/2009/11/16/the-geo-data-dichotomy-dilemma/#comment-267 This is a great synopsis Gary, and blame it on my background as a geologist, but I'd expand your argument to trichotomy (is that English?) and include guv data. You allude to it, and it's a storm of controversy perhaps best discussed elsewhere, but it's a key component IMHO. A blog I lost track of even suggested how the US guv missed an opportunity, when stateside @ least it may have opened data to the likes of Google, who may well outflank them with crowdsourcing for example parcel data. Come to think of it actually, is that "the story behind the story", that guv data may become irrelevant over time? That keeps Dangermond up at night, the same way Google docs kept Gates then and now Allen up at night... This is a great synopsis Gary, and blame it on my background as a geologist, but I’d expand your argument to trichotomy (is that English?) and include guv data. You allude to it, and it’s a storm of controversy perhaps best discussed elsewhere, but it’s a key component IMHO. A blog I lost track of even suggested how the US guv missed an opportunity, when stateside @ least it may have opened data to the likes of Google, who may well outflank them with crowdsourcing for example parcel data. Come to think of it actually, is that “the story behind the story”, that guv data may become irrelevant over time? That keeps Dangermond up at night, the same way Google docs kept Gates then and now Allen up at night…

]]> By: James C http://www.vicchi.org/2009/11/16/the-geo-data-dichotomy-dilemma/comment-page-1/#comment-266 James C Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:31:07 +0000 http://www.vicchi.org/2009/11/16/the-geo-data-dichotomy-dilemma/#comment-266 Interesting loop between your opening thrust regarding the arcane world of GIS professionals and their rarified use of GI to produce the users' map, the remaining reach of your analysis that is primarily focused on creating value from what have been until very recently "PND data" and your closing ideas on granularity. It may be small beer in the multi-billion dollar world of the major search engines, let alone TomTom and Nokia, and their battle for differentiation but it certainly won't be a revelation to most that there are people willing to pay directly for high quality geographic content! The perhaps uncomfortable dichotomy will I think persist; for many of these users, the in the main 'professionals', have demands that for the time being are not met by PND type data. No surprise there really. I know "I would say that"! The continuing acceleration in the volumes of n-dimensional geodata predicated among other things by Google's terrestrial LIDAR sensors, their SketchUp building maker development and a flurry of other technologies will of course change this perspective a little, or even a lot! Though last time I looked Google's UTOS don't look to give much back to their contributors so the control sentiment may well persist. The atomic provenance model in some ways rebrands metadata as a mechanism by which all parts of the GI value chain from initial capture through to complex derivation and analysis can be recognised (though I am note sure this would overcome the derivation prohibitions so readily). Much of this capacity exists (such is the nature of GI data capture, validation, storage etc) and while it has proven a 'dry' area it is rife with some of the nomenclature of an open future. However the data collectors choose to play this out, it is evident already that some recognise the validity of extending the implications of the provenance/metadata approach to a freemium model. I would hazard that the coming years will see considerably more play in this area both in terms of data liberation at one end and the evolution of a variety of willingly paid for, indirectly and perhaps even directly, products and services at the other. As you suggest, and as with current geo products, there will have to be some basis for differentiating these. Traditionally this has taken place through the lens or proxy of scale but enhanced, atomic attribution and open metadata open up non-scale based possibilities.... Interesting loop between your opening thrust regarding the arcane world of GIS professionals and their rarified use of GI to produce the users’ map, the remaining reach of your analysis that is primarily focused on creating value from what have been until very recently “PND data” and your closing ideas on granularity.

It may be small beer in the multi-billion dollar world of the major search engines, let alone TomTom and Nokia, and their battle for differentiation but it certainly won’t be a revelation to most that there are people willing to pay directly for high quality geographic content!

The perhaps uncomfortable dichotomy will I think persist; for many of these users, the in the main ‘professionals’, have demands that for the time being are not met by PND type data. No surprise there really. I know “I would say that”!

The continuing acceleration in the volumes of n-dimensional geodata predicated among other things by Google’s terrestrial LIDAR sensors, their SketchUp building maker development and a flurry of other technologies will of course change this perspective a little, or even a lot! Though last time I looked Google’s UTOS don’t look to give much back to their contributors so the control sentiment may well persist.

The atomic provenance model in some ways rebrands metadata as a mechanism by which all parts of the GI value chain from initial capture through to complex derivation and analysis can be recognised (though I am note sure this would overcome the derivation prohibitions so readily). Much of this capacity exists (such is the nature of GI data capture, validation, storage etc) and while it has proven a ‘dry’ area it is rife with some of the nomenclature of an open future.

However the data collectors choose to play this out, it is evident already that some recognise the validity of extending the implications of the provenance/metadata approach to a freemium model. I would hazard that the coming years will see considerably more play in this area both in terms of data liberation at one end and the evolution of a variety of willingly paid for, indirectly and perhaps even directly, products and services at the other. As you suggest, and as with current geo products, there will have to be some basis for differentiating these. Traditionally this has taken place through the lens or proxy of scale but enhanced, atomic attribution and open metadata open up non-scale based possibilities….

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