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

[Larson, T. E. <TEL...@we...>]

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=3Dgeorss. In short, RSS items are
> geolocated, meaning they can be mapped or queried by the user.
> Example:   =20
> 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 :-)   =20
[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.  =20

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.

So this only applies to RSS, and you won't notice anything when visiting
the site otherwise?  If the story has location info, I'd want to see it
in the story somewhere.

> 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! :-)  =20

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.  But like I alluded to, I don't know how difficult it would be
to piggyback the general on top of the specific.

Tim
--=20
Tim Larson
West Corporation, Interactive TeleServices
Eschew obfuscation!