“How are mash-ups and pushpins going to actually benefit society?"
For quite some time neogeographers around the globe have been collectively harboring a radical vision: a map of the world as seen through the eyes of its inhabitants. This map would be a bottom-up, social layer of data, a richer, more democratic, less commercial, more cooperative view of the world.
Over the past several years, many of us have been mixing liberal doses of enthusiasm with the burgeoning new toolsets in an attempt to approach this vision. Despite numerous flaws, issues, concerns, and challenges, we can look back and see that collectively, we have all achieved a great milestone together - the beginning of a more diverse representation of the world around us.
Thousands of people, organizations and companies have directly contributed to the underlying fabric of the Geoweb and some of that fervor is well captured in this Open Street Maps video which shows the growing contributions to OSM in 2008.
This is only the Stage 0 Geoweb marked by Widespread Representation. We can assume that next steps will transform representation into measurable impact and meaningful action. I’ve categorized what I see to be the upcoming multiple stages of the thriving Geoweb by the types of questions which are currently unanswered- a more refined set of questions which will be addressed by future products, services and communities, many already in progress.
Stage 0: Widespread Representation*
Stage 1: Analysis & Information
Stage 2: Collaboration
Stage 3: Ambient Awareness/Viewfinder
Stage 4: Diplomacy
* This does not imply that progress will not be made continuing along the “Widespread Representation” path but that “How do we solve that problem?” has been answered.
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