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

Privacy?

[Anonymous Coward]

How many people on the internet do you *really* want to know your real location?

Ok... now what if I told you that "she" is really a "he", and that the picture "she" game you was off some amateur porn site. Anyone else you'd like to know your real location?

I see this only becoming a privacy issue -- it's removing one of the greatest parts of the internet -- it's anonymity. I've known people like "her" who can express themselves in ways heretofore impossible were it not for the (at least percieved) absolute anonymity of the internet. It would be a shame to see that go, at least from a standpoint of creative expression.

-d

Reducing anonymity a bit more

[nurb432]

Doesn't anyone realize the goal is tracking *everything* you do? One more step to total governmental domination of all content, movement, thought....

This is just one more major step in that direction.

Come on people, wake the hell up.. before its too late ( or is it already... i wonder sometimes )

Interesting concept, but...

[Noryungi]

Geo-stamping data published on the www?

Why not? And, by the way, make cows fly while you are at it, will you? Thanks.

Case in point: I publish data on a web site located somewhere in North America, using computers based in Europe, through the magic of OpenSSH. And my European ISP does not keep a log of my activities.

Most of the data I publish come from, for example, from web sites published in South-East Asia and China, which is translated by a friend who spends half his time in Taiwan and half his time in Japan, with an occasional stay in Korea.

Now, where on earth is my info created? In Asia, where my friend is, in Europe, where I do most of the web design, or in Northern America, where the web site is officially hosted?

Oh, and I forgot: the information is created using open-source products and a reasonable amount of paranoia, which means all data is anonymized before being posted.

Now, where does my data comes from?

And to those who think this is a silly example: it's actually close to the truth... ;-)