Massive online activity - all is not as it appears - More

[Update: another thorough review and insider's view of same on LinkedIn Pulse
Update2: and a follow-on Pulse post also, prompted by a comment on yet another]

This is one more follow-on to the Pokémon Go series, which suggested we cool our jets. In my previous post, I compared Pokémon Go to sandbox video game MineCraft, online game Foldit that helped crowd-source the resolution of complex protein structure and Sim City the granddad of virtual worlds. Here are juxtaposed in Google Trends their search hits as a measure of interest in these.

A question of business models in webmap offerings

Eighteen months ago, Google quietly deprecated its Maps API, and ESRI offered and alternative with ArcGIS Earth, then Mapbox and Carto in quick succession: I blogged then Esri, Google and if the shoe fits... Part 1 and Part 2, mirrored on LinkedIn here and here, respectively. Safe Software, LINQ Ltd. and I basically saw it as the next phase in the battle for The Internet of Things (IoT), which has been gaining traction of late.

Massive online activity - all is not as it appears - Fin

[Update: interesting tweet exchange w @0mgould at bottom]

I wrote over the past weeks why Pokémon Go is not what it seems:

• from being hailed as the next big thing in geospatial (neither open nor intended to be)
• to hiding the access / marketing in&outs its hosts indulge in (internet privacy anyone?)

Massive online activity - all is not as it appears - Cont.

[Update: Caveat emptor, lawsuits already started on Pokémon Go trespassing - BBC
Update 2: follow-on posts here & here on geo-ramifications to virtual reality mapping]

I posted last week re: spatial ownership issues Pokémon Go raised, from the personal (visiting family the weekend it was released in France)

Simple Feature or Full Feature Specification for OGC?

The issue of how to write-to and read-from geographic databases has been around for quite some time. Esri shapefiles were a runaway success partly because of their open specification. As we moved onto spatial databases, the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) offered the simple feature specification (SFS) that all the players could read to or write from. This came in especially handy for consuming web mapping services (those and many other specifications have grown since). But it gets trickier when it comes to reading from and writing to spatial databases generically. By that I mean not from the native application but from others', like with shape files.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Time for reflection coming up to the anniversary of reconnecting with my current business partner David Lloyd to help oilelefant to market.

Fun with Maps

I had planned a GIS Day project, but my schedule got way ahead of me, so here it is instead. I twittered a few spatially-related jokes to ask for some more, and I post here its beginnings on my website (click on the image). It combines a feed-back form to send suggestions, and a map to post the country, the joke if it's appropriate, and the author if given.