Web2.0 and Mashups are hip. Most of the applications are not very compelling / or interesting too me. But if you watched my del.icious account in the last weeks you may have seen that i show a certain interest in all things mapping, geocoding, gazetteering.
The reason for this is that one of the web 2.0 applications that i like to see are newsmaps based on geonews. Geonews is a short term i use for news enhanced by geographical metadata. There are already a couple of proposals for formats out there, as well as quite a number of applications in that area.
Unfortunately, the applications don’t stand up to my needs. Whereas the geocoders, maps etc. are at least faily sufficient if not good or even excellent, the main problem i see right now lies in the insufficient support of geographical metadata within (or attached to the original news items).
I have blogged about some of my thoughts about this at this mini-series (with some pending articles that are unfinished since over a year :-( ).
In 2008 i also gave a lightning talk about this at wherecamp. The slides can be found on Slideshare.
