GeoRSS Weblog

minimap is a Firefox extension that adds a very feature rich geo-sidebar to your Firefox browser (also available as a Flock plugin).

The extension offers incredible integration with online mapping and search services. When you first open the extension, you see a Google Map to which you can add locations or just explore. You can also drag and drop addresses, plain text or Microformats - minimap also offers Operator support - which show up on your map as saved locations. At any of these locations you can get directions, view in other mapping services, find books or services at the location, or general local search Google, Platial, Tagzania, and hopefully more soon via OpenSearch-geo.

The newest release, 0.1.4.7, adds GeoRSS and KML support. You can drag and drop (or use the menus to add) any GeoRSS or KML link and the markers will show up in the sidebar map.

So now you can view your feeds from services like Mapufacture or your Yahoo Pipes mashups within your browser and mix it with content you’re viewing on a site.

In this recent interview with Michael Jones at GCN, he was asked his opinion on GeoRSS,  and he’s positive, but unfortunately gives some wrong information.

JONES: I think GeoRSS is fabulous. We’re totally supportive of that. The only issue — and it’s not a problem — is that RSS is a very simple mechanism. It says here’s a fact and there’s a Web page that holds the information about that. It’s not the actual page itself. It doesn’t really have enough information to, say, draw a line around the toxic spill. You can imagine the questions that a program like Google Earth is going to need answered to draw the scene properly. We support GeoRSS and support KML, but we’d like a richer discourse, like a word processor where you could change the font.

GeoRSS supports four geometries: points, lines, polygons, boxes. It is most definitely possible to describe a toxic spill area in GeoRSS (or more summer-positively, a pretty field of wild berries).

The question about GeoRSS vs KML is a more subtle one. Yes, GeoRSS aims for simplicity, and KML allows richer descriptions. But really, it doesn’t matter to the GeoWeb; as long as the information is out there in a machine readable format, the GeoWeb is enriched. But certainly there are cases when GeoRSS or KML is more appropriate, and it depends on the publisher and the purpose.

Andrew has some thoughts on how GeoRSS and KML could work together. He simply sums it up as HTML : RSS :: KML : GeoRSS, which seems like a useful departure point for discussion.

Sean Gillies has been experimenting with a web service, Mush. It takes two GeoRSS feeds and calculates the “sphere of influence”, or spatial intersection, of the two feeds.

Perhaps it’s part of a trend (hopefully) for more “analytical” services in “neogeography”.

The Planning Alerts GeoRSS API was used as a clever example. In combination with a GeoRSS feed of Celtic coins, it shows areas where development activities might unearth more coins — actually sounds useful!

If you’re on the fence about picking up a new iPhone, consider that it supports GeoRSS out of the box!

Sorry for the long delay in getting the GeoRSS site back up. We had an unforseen (as they tend to be) loss of the original host, and recovering the data led to problems. But thanks to the heroic efforts of many, the site is restored on a new host (and backups).

We’ll be updating the content of the site soon to make it easier to introduce GeoRSS to visitors, and also make finding examples, answers to questions, and links to upcoming changes easier.

I need some pretty basic GeoRSS GML export functionality from ArcMap. Beta quality is fine. Has anyone done this or can it be whipped up in a week? I’d be happy to take a stab at maintaining it as open source, but there’s always ArcScripts for this as well.

Who would’ve imagined the day when GeoRSS is part of the job description.

Domain expertise in GIS, photogrammetry and geospatial service oriented architecture (SOA) technologies (WMS, WFS, geoRSS) is highly desirable.

After discussion in the GeoRSS community, and based on feedback of consistency across pages, we’ve migrated the GeoRSS site to a Drupal-based CMS. Also, if you walk in web-design rings, you may know that May 1st is CSSReboot.

What does this mean to you? First, the pages will be much easier to maintain for accuracy and consistency. It will also allow people to add more examples, link to software, use cases, and clarify any issues.

We’re also encouraging the GeoRSS community to maintain an active commitment in supporting and developing the standard. If you have a request or desire for GeoRSS, create a proposal and elicit feedback. We’ll be putting up votes on proposals as they begin to solidify and find general community consensus.

Why Drupal? For one, it’s easy to setup and maintain. But more importantly, Drupal has gotten excellent geospatial modules, especially GeoRSS support (and KML) both for importing (incoming RSS feed entries can become first-class citizens in your CMS) as well as output (publish GeoRSS from your CMS) through the hard work of Dan Karran. We wanted to support that effort by showcasing it on georss.org.

Please let us know what you think, if you find any orphaned-pages or dead-links, and create an account and join the community.

Since Google’s and Microsoft’s GeoRSS announcements last month, there’s been a big jump in interest. Just look at the GeoRSS hits graph from Technorati.

Well more than anyone here can keep up with. One thing that’s jumped out at me is that among the recent batch of Google Summer of Code 2007 project approvals, there’s three projects focused on GeoRSS!

Geo-component for Joomla! Mickael Maison will add GeoRSS and KML support to the Joomla! CMS.

Sahana GIS Catalogue Administration Module Mifan Careem will build out GeoRSS and WMS services for Sahana, the inspiring open source disaster management system.

Implementation of An Interactive GeoRSS tool in uDig Rui Li will be adding GeoRSS authoring to uDig, an OSGeo project.

Congrats to the students .. have an awesome summer!

Jason Birch has a nice little tutorial on building a GeoRSS feed to show current housing starts with a feed of new construction building permits. He’s using Safe Software’s FME, but even if you don’t have that, he also shows the output on Google Reader and Google Maps. Very nice!