RFC 1712
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1712.html
allows a DNS maintainer to put Lat/Long data in a DNS record. While it was a good idea, it failed to gain popularity. My guess is that the main stumbling block is that the only "contributors" are the relatively few people who maintain their own DNS and can add the special records needed.
It is not a perfect match: a big corporation with many buildings may not want to have sub-domains or whatever for their multiple buildings, and some site may only exist in someone head and at some hosting service.
It would be great to have a GIS wiki, in the style of Wikipedia.
I am trying to figure out how to make a good GIS database that simply stores URL, lat/long and maybe some extra fields for descriptive purposes. I then want to see it take off and become dominant and very detailed, including residential areas. My vision is that, where I live and work in Silicon Valley, I can browse around my neighborhoods and catch many of the URL's, both business and personal, that might have an appropriate GIS. Who knows about global, visionary efforts along this line?
One important question in editing such a database: how to easily review changes as better or worse than previous version.
The big obstacle, of course, is that it is a lot of work. Wikipedia seems to have solved that problem. Who knows of any effort that is really getting off the ground in this comprehensive-GIS vision that is dedicated to keeping the information free and collaborative?
I am told that these Placemarks show up after about a month on Google Earth for everyone who has the Keyhole Community BBS checkbox checked.
Also, I now see that Census data that translates address to lat/long is available:
http://www.melissadata.com/
and 1998 data can be downloaded here:
http://tiger.census.gov/cgi-bin/mapsurfer
it is a good start, but I want more. Ideally, a system would be integrated with instant feedback on the collaboration effort and we could quickly get interested people to map out their favorite areas in detail and get to the point where you really could browse your town and get, if you want, massive URL detail for an area. Even the relationship between web page and Lat/Long is complex because you may want a many-to-many realtionship.
I was impressed by the "Augmented Reality" article by Steven Feiner in the April 2002 issue of Scientific American. Obviously, you cannot get there until you have that big, quality database.
I was mostly thinking of just the URL rather than, say, the menus for a restaurant or the sales at a store (e.g. Hp CoolTown), with personalization and blah blah blah. I am in search of the URL's mapping first and the rest can follow.
Is Google Earth the best effort so far in this area? Are there others?
Here is I mean: I will start with my place of work:
Nouveau Systems Inc.
67 E. Evelyn Ave. Suite 375, Mountain View, CA 94041-1518
I got this data from http://www.melissadata.com/
Lat 37.3903 (N) Long. -122.0665 (W)
My using the Google Earth, I refined it to
Lat 37.3901 (N) Long. -122.0676 (W)
http://sol.nouveausystems.com/~amorrow/
I am told that these Placemark files will show up after about a month on Google Earth for everyone who has the Keyhole Community BBS checkbox checked.
When I browse the BBS data via Google Earth, I want to clean up entries and get more serious about quality. Will you guys ever get to that level of collaboration?
