Interesting announcements from Google this morning
David Troy
As of this morning, Google's announced a new Geosearch API that can be
programatically accessed rather than just accessed visually (via
Google Maps or Google Earth).
This could go a long way towards enabling the kind of functionality
I'm envisioning. Without any insight into how their search result
rankings really work (other than the notion that they generally work
much the same as Page Rank), it seems to me that the results will
likely be the kind of irrelevant stuff we've come to expect from
GeoSearch.
Also this morning Google introduced a partnership with ESRI to make
available a large quantity of government-collected GIS data. This
could enable all kind of interesting combinations... This information
is supposed to be available in about 4 weeks and I think we'll see a
big explosion of new projects when that is available.
Last night Google introduced their Friend Connect API at an event
called Campfire One (not here). This combined with their GeoSearch
could produce some interesting results. There will be a lot of things
to play with at WhereCamp this weekend.
More updates later!
Dave