Handbook of Research on Social Interaction Technologies and Collaboration Software: Concepts and Trends Tatyana Dumova Montclair State University, USA Richard Fiordo University of North Dakota, USA Volume II INFORMATION SCIENCE REFERENCE Hershey • New York Director of Editorial Content: Kristin Klinger Senior Managing Editor: Jamie Snavely Assistant Managing Editor: Michael Brehm Publishing Assistant: Sean Woznicki Cover Design: Lisa Tosheff Printed at: Yurchak Printing Inc. Published in the United States of America by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global) 701 E. Chocolate Avenue Hershey PA 17033 Tel: 717-533-8845 Fax: 717-533-8661 E-mail: [email protected] Web site: http://www.igi-global.com/reference Copyright © 2010 by IGI Global. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or distributed in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without written permission from the publisher. Product or company names used in this set are for identification purposes only. Inclusion of the names of the products or companies does not indicate a claim of ownership by IGI Global of the trademark or registered trademark. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Handbook of research on social interaction technologies and collaboration software : concepts and trends / Tatyana Dumova and Richard Fiordo, editors. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. Summary: "This book explores the origin, structure, purpose, and function of socially interactive technologies known as social software"--Provided by publisher. ISBN 978-1-60566-368-5 (hbk.) -- ISBN 978-1-60566-369-2 (ebook) 1. Information technology--Social aspects. 2. Online social networks. 3. Internet--Social aspects. 4. Groupware (Computer software)--Social aspects. I. Dumova, Tatyana, 1962- II. Fiordo, Richard, 1945- HM851.H3486 2009 303.48'33--dc22 2008054205 British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. All work contributed to this book is new, previously-unpublished material. The views expressed in this book are those of the authors, but not necessarily of the publisher. 439 Chapter 39 Neogeography Judith Gelernter Carnegie Mellon University, USA ABSTRACT Neogeography refers to geography in the Web 2.0 style. The practice of neogeography shares the char- acteristics of other social interactive technologies as it represents a collaborative effort by the general public rather than professionals. Volunteer-supplied geographic tags may assume informational value beyond entertainment. Their potential is tempered by problems stemming from its novelty. For instance, neogeography-related websites provide different ways for people to contribute tags, photographs, lo- cations, and commentary. More serious concerns are whether data and commentary are accurate and whether photographs can be an invasion of privacy. Assuming we come to terms with these concerns and there is a future for neogeography, the next generation of applications might change in appearance, mode of access, and the sorts of layered geographical information that might be added above a map. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND studied from many angles: namely, the identity of the active creators of the data, their “free time”, Neogeography refers to geography in the new, the nature of their data, and the identity of passive Web 2.0 style—a collaborative technology from users of that data. the public rather than from those in the profession. Neogeography might be considered a subset The practice of neogeography1 shares the character- of cybercartography or interactive, web-based istics of other social interactive web technologies: spatially referenced data. Interest in geographical a group of people (many unknown to one another) or geospatial websites as distinct from the page who volunteer to contribute data about a topic— websites has lead to the term Geospatial Web or the in this case, mapping. The phenomenon could be GeoWeb (Sharl & Tochtermann, 2007). Any sort of data that conveys place can qualify as geographical DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-368-5.ch039 data, including for example, zip codes, area codes, Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. Neogeography images of a place, census data or place names. A Mapping applications allow geo-coded data to be variety of technologies are used to integrate and uploaded and positioned above a map, and pre- display geospatial information. The Open Geo- existing websites, such as Flickr for photographs spatial Consortium is a group of several hundred that have added location-sensitive functionality to countries, universities and government agencies open geography to the enthusiast. Google Earth working to create and advocate standard geospa- is one such application. Their chief technologist tial techniques and formats. One such format is reported that, as of October 2007, the basic free the XML format for geographic data known as version of Google Earth has been downloaded over GML (Geography Markup Language). The hope 250 million times (GeoWeb, 2007, p. 16). is that, by supporting certain technologies and A Global Positioning System (GPS) device formats over others, these will become the most lets the user determine location, which can then widespread, and so more systems can interoperate. be uploaded to a neogeography application. The The use of open source software also encourages GPS device triangulates measurements from interoperability. several earth-orbiting satellites to record a loca- The “real” geographic techniques referred to tion that is generally precise to within about 15 in the quote come from Geographic Information meters, barring weather and other conditions that Systems (GIS). The difference is that GIS provides hinder signal transmission. Those whose mobile a framework to capture and store data located by phones conform to the Global System for Mo- latitude and longitude coordinates, whereas in bile Communications (GSM) standard can pick neogeography, the coordinate grid of the base is up location WiFi. Those who own a GSM cell secondary to the annotations above. Some aca- phone may use GSM localization that measures demics call participant mapping projects GIS/2 the relative strength of signals from the broadcast (Miller, 2006, p. 191). Others see an overlap be- points. Some digital cameras also are equipped tween traditional geospatial and neogeography in to record location, which is then encoded in the terms of the raster or vector basemaps, geocoding, photographs. Unless the camera is close to the GeoRSS and KML file formats and visualization object of the image, however, the coordinates (Satyaprakash, 2008). of the image only approximate the coordinates A basemap may follow a raster or vector model. of the camera, making the image coordinates Raster models show the earth’s surface continu- imprecise. Location coordinates automatically ously as in an aerial photograph, satellite image, assigned to pictures makes it easy to add those or elevation surface. Vector models represent the pictures to maps. surface of the earth by means of discrete points, lines and polygons, and are useful for storing data that have discrete boundaries, such as streets and NEOGEOGRAPHY TECHNOLOGIES country borders. Raster models in 3D show the earth’s surface in relief, and vector models in 3D Different neogeography technologies allow people show a bird’s eye view. Hybrid models of either to contribute variously. There are companies that dimension show both a continuous surface and specialize in basemaps; others, such as Google overlay lines. and Microsoft, have ventured into the market Geography has been opened to the neo, new and financed their own large-scale topological geographer, that is, the non-expert, with the falling photographing efforts. Smaller companies spe- prices of instruments that measure latitude and cialize in the neogeography application only, longitude automatically and with the creation of asking for the addition of locations, photographs, easy-to-use, freely-accessible map applications. sound or video over their basemap. Complex 440 Neogeography data analyses, once the domain of GIS experts, add photos and/or brief descriptions. Loc.alize. now are performed also by plotting events such us allows photographs to be set on raster, vector, as criminal disturbances over maps. “What if” or hybrid basemap. GeoCommons uses a raster visualizations for urban planning, for example, base, and Mapufacture, a vector base, each along have been uploaded for general comment in what with a choice of data sources, so that users can is called Public Participatory GIS (PPGIS). An create an end product mashup from two or more overview of basemaps and the different sorts sources. of neogeography contributions follow a list of neogeo-related websites at the end of this chapter. Adding Descriptive Information Those looking for a discussion of neogeography applications might consult Turner (2006). Users may add descriptive keyword and latitude and longitude via geotags. A common theme of Basemaps neogeography projects is to invite different users to geotag the same map. Casual users may explore Basemaps are the maps showing the earth’s surface Platial2 maps, but a login in needed for full access or boundaries above which other sorts of thematic to site features. Figure 1 displays a map of shark information can be