Gary Gale

Posts about geohipster

Geo Prognostications for 2015

predictions for the then coming year for the geo industry. As far as crystal ball gazing is concerned I didn't think I did too badly, though some people disagreed. This year GeoHipster has done it again and I've made some more predictions. The whole list of predictions is online and it's well worth reading.

This is what the crystal globe divulged once I'd dusted it off.

In 2014 I made some GeoHipster predictions for the then coming year for the geo industry. As far as crystal ball gazing is concerned I didn't think I did too badly, though some people disagreed. This year GeoHipster has done it again and I've made some more predictions. The whole list of predictions is online and it's well worth reading.

This is what the crystal globe divulged once I'd dusted it off.

More Geospatial Visualisations, Maybe Less Maps

One of the great things about having a wife who understands and accepts that you're a map nerd is getting great Christmas gifts such as London: The Information Capital by James Cheshire and Oliver Uberti. The book is subtitled 100 maps and graphics that will change how you view the city. Reading this book made me realise that there were as many maps as there were visualisations with spatial data and that I also realised that this book wasn't an isolated instance. More and more geospatial information is being visualised, both online and elsewhere. This means lots of maps but not just maps. This is a trend that will continue into 2015 and beyond as people who aren't used to maps still want to visualise mapping data.

More Tangible Maps

At home I've got gift wrap with maps on it, a notebook covered in maps and even a map on the case of my phone. Walking through our local bookstore at the weekend, I was struck by just how many maps there were in so many shapes, sizes and forms and with not a single digital map to be seen. Maybe the public has fallen back in love with tangible maps as digital maps become more and more part of our daily lives? Take a brief search through Etsy and you can get a map on all you ever wanted and a lot more besides. Maybe the public has fallen back in love with tangible maps as digital maps become more and more part of our daily lives? Whatever the reason, maps are here to stay.

More Bad Maps

Both of the previous two predictions means we're going to continue seeing a lot more maps. But that also widens the scope for a lot more bad maps. There's even a Twitter hashtag for this. Take a search for #badmaps if you want your eyes to bleed and whatever cartographic skill you possess to shriek out in anguish. This is not going to get any better. Now, because anymore can make a map means anyone will make a map, regardless of whether they should or not.

More Doing GIS, Without Knowing You're Doing GIS

Coupled with the news of the forthcoming demise of Google Maps Engine and existing customers looking to take their web-based geographic visualisations onto another platform or toolset, more people will end up doing GIS, or at least the lower end of the GIS spectrum, blissfully unaware of the fact that what they’re doing is in any way connected with something called GIS. Expect ESRI to make ArcGIS online much less GIS-like and Mapbox’s Turf and CartoDB to pick up lots of Google Maps emigres. Meanwhile people who are used to Javascript and web maps will look at toolkits like Polymaps or Leaflet and end up accidentally doing GIS, and free GIS tools such as QGIS will also reap the benefits of GME power users.

OSM Will Explode

It's a sweeping generalisation and probably a controversial one too, but OpenStreetMap seems to be divided into 4 tribes. Firstly there's the utopian tribe, truly believe that OSM is the only way forward for mapping data, that it will dominate across all forms of mapping data and that if only everyone else would embrace the ODbL and its' sharealike clause everything would be so much easier. Then there's the community tribe, who use and contribute to OSM because they like the community aspect first and the mapping aspect second. Thirdly there's the map tribe who just want to get on with mapping the world. Finally there's the pragmatic tribe who want to see OSM flourish in the current business world and realise that something probably has to change in order for that to happen.

Each tribe wants something different from OSM and although there's overlaps and blurring the lines, the OSM community is a divided one. I have to ask if this is sustainable in its' current form.

All of which means that 2015 might be the year OSM explodes. Sadly this doesn't mean uptake and contributions will explode, but my fearful prediction is that OSM itself will explode and fragment, with the possibility of OSM forking looming on the horizon.

How Did 2014's Geo Predictions Actually Work Out?

some predictions about where the maps, location and geo industry would go during the course of the year. That year has now passed, so I think it's time to revisit those predictions and see how inaccurate my crystal ball gazing really was.

In January of 2014, Atanas Entchev from GeoHipster asked me to make some predictions about where the maps, location and geo industry would go during the course of the year. That year has now passed, so I think it's time to revisit those predictions and see how inaccurate my crystal ball gazing really was.

Raster web map tiles aren’t going to go anywhere in 2014, but expect to see much more use of vector maps, both in consumer front ends, in open data sources and in development toolkits. The winning combination of Leaflet and D3 is but the beginning.

A successful prediction for vector maps I think. Yes, vectors are behind almost all the mobile map clients you see for reasons of speed and ease of customisation. But they're now appearing in mobile SDKs as well, such as HERE's, while MapBox have gone for a vector only approach with MapBox Studio, the successor to TileMill for designing custom cartographic styles.

Due to ever increasing licensing costs for base map data and corresponding reduced terms of use, at least one major maps destination site will either throw in the towel or go for a white labelled map platform deal; MapQuest I’m looking at you here.

If I'm feeling generous, I consider this a partial success. While MapQuest is still very much alive and kicking, over in the mobile world Samsung is a fully paid up member of the enemy of my enemy is my friend school of thought and in September 2014 joined forces with HERE Maps to try and show that maps on an Android phone don't have to be Google's maps.

We’re already seeing the stratification of the geo industry. We already have data-as-a-service (think Open Cage Data and GeoFabrik) and maps-as-a-service (hello MapBox). Next up will be imagery-as-a-service as companies such as Planet Labs and Skybox Imaging disrupt Digital Globe’s imaging hegemony.

Definitely a successful prediction. Skybox were acquired by Google in the middle of 2014 for a figure around the $500M mark. Meanwhile Planet Labs continues to grow. Despite loosing 26 imaging micro satellites in October of 2014, it managed to get a further 67 into orbit during the course of the year and rounded things off with a Series C round of funding to the tune of $95M.

More people will end up doing web-based GIS without actually knowing they’re doing web-based GIS. Think less of Esri’s ArcGIS Online and MapInfo’s Web GIS and much more of CartoDB.

Again, this prediction came to pass. Not content with going all in with vector based maps, MapBox also announced Turf, their GIS for web maps system just as 2014 was coming to a close.

Web based map re-workings of Harry Beck’s iconic London Underground map will die out and Ken Field will be a happy man.

A complete and utter failure of a prediction. It turns out that making your own version of the Tube map continues to be a popular pass time. A cursory search on Twitter for tube map shows 6 different Tube map variants before I got bored with scrolling downwards through the search results. The one saving grace is that Ken's own End of the Line Tube Map of Tube Maps shows no sign of getting stale for want of a lack of updates.

So by my reckoning, out of 5 predictions my end of year report card stands at 3.5 out of 5 .. 3 correct predictions, 1 abject failure of a prediction and 1 which is half right and so it's also half wrong.

I wonder if that score can be beaten for 2015 ... ? Which is fitting segue into my next post.

Old Globe by Kenneth Lu, CC-BY

Forget Neo-geographers, We're Now Geo-hipsters

I don't grow my own organic vertices. Nor do I use gluten-free technology. At least not that I'm aware. But I have been known to geocode by hand, in small batches and I do follow the @geohipster Twitter account. According to a new map put together by Ralph Straumann, that's enough to make me a #geohipster.

Who am I to argue with a map?

It's a simple and neat affair. All followers of the @geohipster Twitter account with a location in their profile have that location geocoded and then shown on a map.

geohipster-null-island

Of course, not everyone has a location that can be successfully geocoded. Either that or a lot of people really do live on Null Island. These seems to be the only way to explain the cluster of people allegedly located somewhere off of the coast of North West Africa, South of Ghana and West of Equatorial Guinea, which just so happens to coincide with where you'll find latitude 0 and longitude 0.

Thankfully, whatever geocoder Ralph is using works properly and places me in the Teddington that's a suburb of South West London and not the Teddington that's near Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire.

geohipster

Which makes me happy and also seems to makes me a Geo-hipster. Nothing in the vaguely defined and nebulous industry that is the geo industry should surprise me anymore.

Gazing Into The Geo Crystal Ball For 2014

Atanas Entchev, who together with Glenn Letham are the duo behind the intriguing GeoHipster, got in touch to ask me to do some crystal ball gazing and predict what's in store for the geo industry in 2014.

You can and should read all of the 10 other predictions as part of what will be HOT in geo in 2014 — predictions from the GeoHipster crowd, but here's what the geo crystal ball divulged to my gazing ...

Predictions are easy to get right. After all, look at DEC’s Ken Olsen when he said in 1977 that “there’s no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home”.

In the closing days of 2013, Atanas Entchev, who together with Glenn Letham are the duo behind the intriguing GeoHipster, got in touch to ask me to do some crystal ball gazing and predict what's in store for the geo industry in 2014.

You can and should read all of the 10 other predictions as part of what will be HOT in geo in 2014 — predictions from the GeoHipster crowd, but here's what the geo crystal ball divulged to my gazing ...

Predictions are easy to get right. After all, look at DEC’s Ken Olsen when he said in 1977 that “there’s no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home”.

539w

No. Wait. Predictions are hard. But throwing caution and any shred of professional integrity I have to the wind, here’s my predictions for the geo industry in 2014.

Raster web map tiles aren’t going to go anywhere in 2014, but expect to see much more use of vector maps, both in consumer front ends, in open data sources and in development toolkits. The winning combination of Leaflet and D3 is but the beginning.

Due to ever increasing licensing costs for base map data and corresponding reduced terms of use, at least one major maps destination site will either throw in the towel or go for a white labelled map platform deal; MapQuest I’m looking at you here.

We’re already seeing the stratification of the geo industry. We already have data-as-a-service (think Open Cage Data - [disclaimer; I'm an advisor to Open Cage Data] and GeoFabrik) and maps-as-a-service (hello MapBox). Next up will be imagery-as-a-service as companies such as Planet Labs and Skybox Imaging disrupt Digital Globe’s imaging hegemony.

4768742274_9125effc71_b

More people will end up doing web-based GIS without actually knowing they’re doing web-based GIS. Think less of Esri’s ArcGIS Online and MapInfo’s Web GIS and much more of CartoDB.

Web based map re-workings of Harry Beck’s iconic London Underground map will die out and Ken Field will be a happy man.

Finally, this is less of a prediction and more of a plea. Will someone please please bring to market a low powered, always on GPS unit that I can fit in my pocket and that has sufficient onboard storage to carry at least a day’s worth of GPS traces. It can’t be that difficult can it?

Ken Olsen picture courtesy of the Boston Globe, Crystal Ball image by Scott Kublin.