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Industry News
It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
By Susan Smith

Anyone who as a child watched Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood on television remembers just how important neighborhoods are. A sense of community embodies a neighborhood over time and gives it personality and cultural distinction.

In November 2009, GISWeekly reported on Maponics, location-based provider, in the feature story: Record Number of ZIP Code Changes Signals Major Shift for USPS and Boundary Designation

What Maponics was plugging into was the trend of how ZIP Code boundary data shifting dramatically impacts change for the entire U.S. in terms of boundary designation. The company specializes in location-based data and information for businesses, including neighborhood, carrier route and ZIP Code boundary data.





With their Neighborhood Boundaries product line, Maponics attempts to capture elements of that cultural distinction. With its latest release of Neighborhood Boundaries, the company responds to customers' demand for more international neighborhood boundary data. This release will increase coverage to include 20 large cities in South America, Middle East, Africa and Asia. The product's domestic coverage has increased to about 90,000 neighborhoods throughout the U.S. and Canada which covers approximately 1,000 cities. On the international front, Maponics has been building out Europe for the past year, and has 10,500 neighborhoods throughout the European Union, which covers approximately 115 cities and 2500 neighborhoods. The addition of cities such as Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Moscow, Istanbul, Santiago, Nairobi, Jerusalem and Melbourne will increase the product's global geographic reach.

Social networking has latched onto the importance of neighborhoods as a way to identify place. “The way people think of neighborhoods domestically for search and to see things on maps, that is the same internationally,” said Mark Friend, vice president of sales and marketing for Maponics. “Related to social networking, more and more people want to designate their place but they don't want to designate their exact latitude and longitude as that's giving away too much. And designating by city is too little. I think what the social networkers are starting to see are neighborhoods offer a great way to designate that place. And that's what Twitter released. They were our first client to take the international component of neighborhoods for the rest of the world and they'll be getting it as we roll it out this year. We're targeting approximately 80 to 100 cities by the end of this year with the rest of the world neighborhoods and about 10,000 polygons.”

Last year, Twitter released an initial blog post that named Maponics as the sole provider for these neighborhoods internationally and domestically in a release that stated Twitter was now geoenabling their tweets.

The geoenablement of Tweets allows the user to designate in an exact location, city level or opt to designate at the neighborhood level. Twitter users can see the origin of the tweets on maps of neighborhood areas.





Neighborhood boundaries have also become important to advertisers, who seek ways of targeting their audience in terms of social and cultural frameworks. “We think this is valuable for search and display relating to maps and the social networking piece, but also for geo-advertising,” said Friend. “More and more of the advertising model has started to take hold. Obviously, if advertisers can target to a neighborhood level, more users can opt in and essentially identify where advertisers can get contextually relevant advertising to them.”

Maponics has a proprietary process to source data from many different levels, and is also locally sourced and quality checked. They use manual sourcing, “feet on the street,” leveraging local resources, in addition to proprietary tools and feedback from their existing customers, such as Google, Twitter, Realtor.com, Dominion Enterprises, Yellow Book USA and NAVTEQ. Maponics offers lat and long coordinates that comprise the boundaries, essentially a map layer.

One of the areas Maponics prides themselves on is in taking the time to draw boundaries as accurately as possible. They are aware that many people will refer to neighborhood boundaries differently. In the case of businesses, such as real estate firms, they may have a vested interest in where neighborhood boundaries lie and might want a property listed in one neighborhood as opposed to another. Maponics cuts across those perceptions and offers the neighborhood boundaries as accurately as possible.

Maponics supplies the neighborhood boundaries and centroids, and a small amount of attribution data. The customer will supply what is inside those boundaries. For example, Trulia, a customer, use Maponics boundaries to enable people to search by a neighborhood they're interested in. Trulia will supply the current listings that are available for sale to display within the neighborhood boundaries. CitySearch is a customer who licenses Neighborhood Boundaries so their users can find restaurants, entertainment venues, and CitySearch supplies the directory, in which case, they either source the directory listings or they'll buy their own business listings for the content inside those polygons.

Pricing will vary according to coverage internally and on the web, domestically or internationally. Maponics Neighborhood Boundaries is available to license in numerous GIS data formats and through its Spatial API for mashups or other online access.

Top News of the Week

Intergraph is adding four new large-format digital aerial cameras to its Z/I Imaging acquisition platform to meet the customized needs of aerial imagery providers around the world. The new cameras - RMK DX, DMC II 140, DMC II 230 and DMC II 250 - are based on the proven technology of the Intergraph DMC and RMK D.

Google renamed the Local Business Center to Google Places and added a number of new features. In addition to these new features, Google Places will continue to offer the same tools as the Local Business Center, such as helping a company verify and supplement business information including hours of operation, photos, videos, coupons and product information.

Infoterra, a wholly owned subsidiary of EADS Astrium, has announced the launch of SAFEcommand - a suite of products designed specifically to address the modern challenges faced by public safety and emergency organisations such as the police, fire and rescue services, and ambulance fleets. SAFEcommand integrates core data management, mobile and emergency response solutions to increase operational effectiveness and service delivery for both 'blue light' and homeland security organisations.

Acquisitions, Agreements, Alliances

IceWEB, Inc. announced it has partnered with Google, whose mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful, to deliver information sharing solutions to the public sector.

Users of Topcon's laser scanning solutions can now benefit from the most advanced processing and visualization technology following the addition of Topcon Europe Positioning to the Pointools European Reseller Network.

The European Union Satellite Centre ( EUSC) recently signed a multiyear enterprise license agreement (ELA) with ESRI Espana, giving the agency greater access to the latest geographic information system (GIS) technology, training, and consulting services.

The EUSC operates under the auspices of the European Union (EU) Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). The center provides imagery analysis and geospatial intelligence products and services to the EU's political and military leadership. ESRI Espana, headquartered in Madrid, Spain, is the country's distributor for California-based ESRI.

The National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education (NITLE) and ESRI have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that will promote sustainable, cross-curricular uses of geographic information system (GIS) technology throughout NITLE's network of liberal arts colleges. NITLE, a nonprofit leader in the liberal arts space, helps small colleges and universities develop mission-centric approaches that effectively integrate inquiry, pedagogy, and technology. ESRI is a market leader in GIS that provides complete technical solutions for desktop, mobile, server, and Internet platforms.

ESRI and NITLE are collaborating to determine how liberal arts colleges can better promote spatial thinking and problem solving among students and educators. Spatial Energy announced they have entered into a new strategic partnership agreement with TCarta Marine LLC to exclusively offer TCarta Marine digital geospatial data and advanced GIS services globally to the energy sector.

TCarta Marine offers commercially available bathymetric data and models, as well as high-resolution DEMs, custom vectors sets and data conversion services, to help oil and gas companies with exploration, production and maintenance initiatives.

Announcements

Everyone has been talking about the cloud of ash from Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull and its impact on air traffic. "Surveyors now need to add the scenario of a volcanic eruption in Europe to their risk and disaster management models," says Hagen Graeff, Chief Representative of DVW gGmbH, which is dealing with content-related issues for INTERGEO on 5 to 7 October 2010 in Cologne. Graeff expects the matter to be on the agenda at the world's largest conference trade fair for geodesy, geoinformation and land management - "alongside the safety of construction work for Cologne's underground system and the recent landslides in Brazil or the South Tyrol." INTERGEO

Brokers and developers promoting Nevada to potential businesses just got a new and improved tool to add to their storehouse of attractions for moving to the state. NV Energy has launched its new interactive geographic information system (GIS) building and site database, called Nevada Site Locator.

Besides making site searches easier, Nevada Site Locator generates site-specific demographic and business analysis for enhanced business recruitment, and it can search all 17 of Nevada's counties for commercial land or buildings. It is the state's most advanced and only searchable GIS site selection database that is geared towards assisting businesses, brokers and developers searching for the perfect location, and for the first time it incorporates all 17 of Nevada's counties into its database.

The European Geosciences Union (EGU) General Assembly 2010 will bring more than 8,000 geoscientists from all over the world to Vienna, Austria, 2-7 May 2010. More than 25% of member organizations in the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) represent the geosciences or the academic community, and thus OGC standards that support management and sharing of scientific data will be a topic of interest at the Assembly. http://www.opengeospatial.org/.

To introduce users to what's new in ArcMap, ESRI will host the live training seminar Using ArcMap in ArcGIS Desktop 10. It will air at www.esri.com/lts on Thursday, April 29, 2010, at 9:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m., and 3:00 p.m. Pacific daylight time.

The seminar will introduce new features in ArcMap that will reduce time spent on common mapping tasks and improve the quality of map products. The instructor will demonstrate how to use these features to speed up workflows.

People

Avineon, Inc. announced the appointment of John Tarr as a geospatial business development executive for the company's commercial division. Tarr will be responsible for identifying and securing new geospatial business opportunities in the telecommunications, utilities, and state and local government markets.

ESRI Canada presented an Award of Excellence to Domtar's Forest Products Group for its success in implementing an enterprise geographic information system (GIS) to improve forest operations management. The award was given at the 2010 ESRI Canada User Conference in Sudbury.

New Products

Cricket Communications, Inc. announced the availability of Cricket Navigator, a new premium voice-guided turn-by-turn navigation solution that will be exclusive to Cricket customers. In addition to the core navigation features, Cricket Navigator features specific functions that put time and money-saving local information at a user's fingertips.

Leica XPro, Leica Geosystems' leading line sensor workflow that provides advanced ground processing from data download to image generation, has been updated with several new features. Most importantly, users of the new version XPro 4.3 can now take advantage of the Leica HiRes orthophoto processing, which increases orthophoto productivity by reducing the number of flight lines.

Applanix introduced software version 3.0 for POSTrack, its industry-leading Direct Georeferencing and Flight Management System.

In order to perform efficient and accurate mapping over rapidly changing terrain, especially mountainous and coastline areas, software version 3.0 for POSTrack incorporates a worldwide ASTER digital elevation model (DEM) product for flight planning. The DEM is used to automatically and quickly determine the optimal flight path to fly an aircraft to best meet the acquisition requirements of photo scale, ground sample distance and image overlap, ensuring that the highest quality map products are produced from each and every flight.

James W. Sewall Company announces the release of VirtualAsset Online, an innovative, software-as-a-service solution for managing municipal infrastructure assets. With VirtualAsset Online, municipal utilities and public works departments can access the complete suite of CartêGraph asset maintenance management software over the web for a fraction of the cost it takes to install, operate, and maintain the software and support systems inhouse. VirtualAsset Online, which interfaces with desktop or mobile devices, requires only a current version of the Windows operating system and an Internet Explorer connection, allowing organizations to take advantage of CartêGraph's powerful toolset on a limited budget.

The Geographical Association has launched a brand-new series of books designed to revitalise GCSE geography teaching: the GSCE Geography Teachers' Toolkit. With themes common to most new GCSE specifications, this series is designed to help teachers take a fresh look at GCSE geography and enthuse, engage and motivate students to think and act as geographers.

Intergraph is expanding its proven utilities infrastructure management solutions with new, open standards-based spatial data infrastructure (SDI) capabilities to foster greater interoperability. Intergraph SDI capabilities enable secure, fast and seamless access to geospatial data published by different organizations, improving collaboration for emergency response and incident management, and increasing productivity for utility network planning, design, construction, maintenance and operations.

Intergraph has expanded its utilities and communications infrastructure management solutions with enhanced capabilities for managing fiber networks in advanced grid implementations. In addition to geospatially managing traditional copper and cable communications networks, a recent update to Intergraph's G/Technology infrastructure management solution includes additional functionality for fiber management to support progressive electric, gas and communications initiatives such as smart grid and FTTx (fiber to the home, building, etc.).

GeoDecisions is pleased to announce the release of Trailer Tracking Service (TTS) for military freight in its patented IRRIS technology.

In accordance with the Defense Transportation Regulation, Part II, Chapter 205, TTS augments the Satellite Motor Surveillance Service (SNS) to enhance the security and visibility of Arms, Ammunition, & Explosives (AA&E) and Other Sensitive Materials (OSM) shipments moving in commercial closed-box van trailers.

SuperGeo Technologies proclaimed that its latest desktop geographic information system (GIS), SuperGIS Desktop 3, is able to support Windows 7 now.

MerchantCircle, a national social network of local business owners, announced that it has opened its first Application Programming Interface (API) to third party developers who can now develop applications on top of MerchantCircle's rich database of valuable local business information from merchants nationwide.

Around the Web

GISCafe Today Blog

We Have Met the Enemy and He Is PowerPoint, April 26, 2010, by Elizabeth Bumiller, The New York Times (registration required)

Illustrating the Value of GIS (ArcUser Online)


Events



 


You can find the full GISCafe.com event calendar here.

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-- Susan Smith, GISCafe.com Managing Editor.