Mike, putting to one side the pros and cons of feeding an authoritative set of data to Google, I think you're seeing Google geo data a little narrowly. The point about it is that it isn't just users of Googe Earth that see that data - they, as you say, may be wise to the vagaries of the data they see - but that Gmaps and KML from Google can turn up in myriad other places, ones where people don't realise that they need to be cautious about its accuracy. I'm amazed the you, of all people, think about Google's geographical data purely in the context of the direct, knowing use of Google's own branded products!
Incidentally I've just discovered we come nowhere in a map search for "Museum of London" (page 2 is no good). We used to, but in the recent redesign our location details were dropped from the page footer. I had used microformats in the address - geotag and vcard - and we were showing up just fine at that point. Whether that was simply down to the address or to Google doing something with the microformats I don't know, though I think probably the former. It's going back in the footer!
Cheers, Jeremy
Jeremy Ottevanger
Web Developer, Museum Systems Team
Museum of London
46 Eagle Wharf Road
London. N1 7ED
Tel: 020 7410 2207
Fax: 020 7600 1058
Email: [log in to unmask]
www.museumoflondon.org.uk
Museum of London is changing. Visit www.museumoflondon.org.uk to find out more.
Explore how the Great Fire shaped the city www.museumoflondon.org.uk/londonsburning
Before printing, please think about the environment
-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Mike Ellis
Sent: 13 March 2009 10:17
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [MCG] Further to Problem with Google Earth
Jon
I swore to myself that I wouldn't get tied up in this conversation, and then, well, did :-)
I can't help but thinking that the "centralised pot of trusted information" is a pretty disastrous step in the wrong direction. Surely much better to do as Frankie et al say and encourage use of an open format (for now, the <meta> tag) for each institution in as many places as you can?
At the end of the day, the wave of UGC has always come with the disclaimer "hey, some of this might be inaccurate", and relies to a certain extent on 1) people (both the producers and consumers) being sensible, 2) quantities of "right" data overcoming the odd bit of "wrong" data. (See also: Wikipedia, Google search ranking, folksonomies, Amazon reviews, etc)
Google Earth as an example is a relatively young piece of technology, and I'm pretty sure that the people using it know very well that layers of information can come from a multitude of different sources, some of which are accurate, and some of which aren't. I don't think anyone is likely to turn up at the wrong address because of it.
At the end of the day, is Google going to talk to us / care / change an entire infrastructure and strategy which is currently entirely based around "democratic UGC"? I suspect not.
Cheers
Mike
PS. Jim - you guys are doing a LOT of very cool stuff - would be great to try and find ways of surfacing it some more...YQL/geodata/google sitemaps/OpenSearch....
Mike Ellis
Professional Services Group
Eduserv
[log in to unmask]
tel: 01225 470522
mob: 07017 031522
fax: 01225 474301
www.eduserv.org.uk
-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jon Pratty
Sent: 12 March 2009 23:58
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Further to Problem with Google Earth
Frankie
My point is this; in real life ugc-land, 'unofficial' enthusiasts, (ie not
members of staff or volunteers of a museum) often very helpfully, but
inaccurately, add venue info or location data to info sources like Google
maps, wikipedia and so on. Kathy's original question and the Google Earth
example cited neatly showed this. (Of course, in other ways this is great,
and there are lots of neat things that will be done with user generated
mapping and crowdsourcing of geo-data as we get into all this.)
Google, with the best intentions, blends sources, mixes display options and
offers nice ways to add even more stuff. Trouble is, they're offering this
to everyone, and they don't know who has put the correct geo loc stats up
and so everything goes into the pot, hence the Gmaps conundrum of museums
appearing in many places at once.
I agree it'd be cool if people in museums could add their X and Y co-ords
into the code of their pages, assuming they have someone who could do that.
Geo-info in the source code would be nice, but Google would still display
all the other incorrect co-ords too, because there'd be no-one to say
otherwise. As far as they're concerned, they aren't going to hire a room
full of location data checkers to make sure all the museums on Google are in
the right place. They'd say it's someone else's job to make sure the data's
right; just like everyone else does.
So I say the buck needs to stop somewhere: I still argue that the one org
that knows where all the venues are, and in most cases knows all their
postcodes and addresses, should simply talk to Google as the one trusted
source of simple venue data and give them the low down. Preferably in live
data form.
Info is equity; correct info in a database is a valuable commodity; niche
orgs that have the chance to cluster data and wholesale it to others in
machine readable form are building sustainable forms of future income or
commodities they can use as leverage in partnerships/business models.
I'm off to bed
Jon
Jon Pratty
Digital publishing consultant, culture sector
Journalism: arts, technology and society
[log in to unmask]
http://machineculture.wordpress.com
Terrestrial: 01273 277396
Mobile: 07739 287392
-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Frankie Roberto
Sent: 12 March 2009 20:36
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Further to Problem with Google Earth
Kathy Harman wrote:
> I'm also really interested in the call for a centralised listing of
> core data that Jon talked about, so I will be keeping my eye out for
> developments of this type! It could have saved me a lot of time!
>
I'm not quite sure what is meant by 'centralised' here or how that'd work -
it's probably just best to expose geo data for museums in as many places as
possible in as many formats as possible.
Google collates geo data from wherever it can find it, in the same way that
it builds its regular search index. Only this morning, they announced that
they're 'blending' in even more user-generated data:
http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2009/03/will-it-blend-yes.html. The
drop-down options on their search also includes 'mapped web pages' and
'related maps'
One quick way of publishing the location of your museum is to include <meta
name="geo.position" content="50.167958;-97.133185"> in your web pages.
Frankie
--
Frankie Roberto
Experience Designer, Rattle
0114 2706977
http://www.rattlecentral.com
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