Geocoding All Content

martin dodge writes "What happens when all content is automatically tagged with the geographical location of its production? We are all used to having a date stamp on documents, but I think adding a location stamp opens up lots of new possibilities. Two recent articles look at many of the interesting possible apps/services which are made possible when you ground cyberspace with location. 'Get Caught Mapping' from Guardian Online and 'The Revenge of Geography' by Tom (writer of The Victorian Internet) Standage in the Economist. I think one of the most exciting is for locating online conversations by geographic proximity. Taking Waldo Tobler's First Law of Geography ("Everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things"), often nearby conversations are most relevant and interesting. See UpMyStreet's Conversations for an example."

Comments

Re:Is this a good idea? -Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

90% of the online community will be proven to live in Antarctica.

Think of the economic and status benifits to Antarctician society

Re:merely adding more meta data

[Directrix1]

I think the only thing this crap would accomplish is invasion of privacy issues becoming rampant. You can say this document was made in Helsinki if you want, but that does not necessarily imply its relevancy. I find very little interesting about where I live (Oklahoma). I guess this could be kind of good then, maybe I can filter out everything coming from here.