Re: [Slashcode-development] [Slashcode-general] GeoRSS and Google Maps API Plugins for Slash

[shane <sh...@lo...>]

On Aug 25, 2006, at 4:59 PM, Larson, Timothy E. wrote:

> Alexandre Leroux wrote:
>> The first feature is adding GeoRSS tags to the RSS feed of the slash
>> site. You can learn more about on http://georss.org and
>> http://slashgeo.org/search.pl?query=georss. In short, RSS items are
>> geolocated, meaning they can be mapped or queried by the user.
>> Example:
>> show me RSS story items that are within 50 miles of my state. My goal
>> was simply to have an automated map my slash stories. It works :-) (I
>> can't show you a map of slashgeo.org's mapped georss feed since I
>> stopped geocoding stories until feature #2 below stops showing errors
>> for geolocated stories :-)
> [snip]
>> My slash site, slashgeo.org, will definitely use the plugin and
>> geolocate every story whenever appropriate. Ultimately, people  
>> will be
>> able to browse stories by location, say, stories that relates to the
>> UK.
>
> Hmmm...
>
> Slash - Low-Priority Feature Requests, 699051, story regionalization
>
> I'd've been happy with a even a list of regions/countries to choose  
> from
> when submitting stories.  How hard is it to reliably map any given
> coordinate pair to a city/country/state/area?  I can certainly see the
> utility in finding local postings (i.e. "within 200 km of <coord>")  
> but
> more likely (for my needs) I'd want to focus on "Canada" or  
> "Manhattan"
> or "Middle East".  It certainly would be easier (for non-geography
> buffs) to submit something like this (i.e. picking from a list,  
> clicking
> a map region) with stories rather than coordinate pairs.

Where would one obtain such data?

>
> So this only applies to RSS, and you won't notice anything when  
> visiting
> the site otherwise?

No. If a story has geo-data associated with it, it'll show a map.  
Example:

http://industry.slashgeo.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/27/1337233

It will also add tags into the html such as

<meta name="geo.position" content="51.5;-0.1">

For more info on the tags: http://www.lottadot.com/projman.pl? 
op=viewissue&id=5

> If the story has location info, I'd want to see it
> in the story somewhere.

Where? And what? That's been the big question.

>
>> What's the overhead? Not much. You simply need to specify a location
>> (latitude / longitude coordinates) for your stories. Does it generate
>> added-value? Well, to my readers, yes, since we're geospatial
>> professionals. To your slashsite? You're the judge! :-)
>
> I think it would be a huge value-add, and very useful, especially were
> it given the ability to use "general" location as well as "specific"
> location.

In what way? To search the stories? To filter them on an index view  
(as you could filter by author, or by topic?)

  Shane