Where 2.0 Recap

There are plenty of great live blogging posts and recaps of Where 2.0 on the web. I just wanted to post some of my own thoughts about the conference.

Data and Open Data
This seemed to be a big theme this year. Google, Yahoo, ESRI and others announced greater access to data through API's. This is a positive move forward for the geo community as access to better data will leader to greater innovation.

Geotagging is hard (from Flickr)
I really enjoyed the Flickr presentation on geotagging photos and the difficulty associated with it. This was not the primary message they were trying to share, but that is what I took away from it. Getting down to the neighborhood level is hard enough but real value comes when geotagging occurs at the address or street level.

Monetizing Geo
Greg Sterling led an excellent panel on the challenges of monetizing the geoweb. It seemed like no one had truly figured out the Map Adsense model yet but plenty of people are trying. I liked the honesty of the panel in stating that no true model has emerged yet. I spoke briefly with Greg after the panel about the challenges we are seeing and discussed the idea of a Local Adsense from an IYP led group. Whether this happens or not, there are many newer players in the marketplace who are aiming to take over this large, very large market. Let me know if you are in the space, we would be happy to speak with you.

Streetviews and Geobrowsers
In the exhibitors room, I was surprised at the number of streetview and geobrowser companies. All the demos they had on display were very impressive and it just speaks to how far the geoweb has come.
Google, Everyscape and Mapjack were some of the companies showing off a streetview technology. And it looked like there were 4 geobrowser companies showing off impressive globes.
As we see geo data becoming more open and shared, will next year's conference have an annoucement that someone is opening up streetlevel pictures and 3D models to the community. Probably not, but we will see.

The Inside (from Mok Oh of Everyscape)
A very interesting presentation from Mok Oh, CTO of Everyscape. He talked about how Everyscape is emphasizing the inside as much as, if not more, than the outside. And with their ambassador program, they are looking for users to help them achieve this.
His demo of the Boston bar Cheers, from the TV show, was a great example of why the inside should be given more weight.
If Everyscape is able to "map" a large percentage of the inside for certain markets, this will give them a great advantage over others and the ability to license this content.
While I don't think this will happen, imagine the scene in Ocean's 11 where George Clooney and Brad Pitt are looking at the floor plans for the Bellagio. Perhaps in Ocean's 14, they will be looking at an Everyscape layout while using the tagging feature to plan their next caper.

Best Presentation - History's Best Geo-Hacks (Part Deux)
Chris Spurgeon had the most enjoyable presentation of the conference. Being an avid reader of history, this one really appealed to me, personally. Hopefully there is a video of his presentation as simply seeing the slides do not do it justice.

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