ArcGIS Online Beta Screenshot

In order to make use of the new service, you either create a new account, or register your esri.com account with ArcGIS.com as well (which is what I did). You are presented with a few options when you log in, including a Gallery (viewing), Map (creation), Groups (collaboration) and My Content (management). All functionality seems to be working find from my end at least, and I encountered no errors through my limited testing of their website (way to go ESRI).

Gallery (viewing)

The Gallery allow

ArcGIS.com Gallery

s you to view maps, tools and applications provided by other users. There are some nice examples of maps out there, notably the Gulf Oil Spill Forecast map provided by ESRI and the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill map provided by the user community (nice ones to compare and contrast). Some cool tools include the Decision Tree election application that lets people create priority maps by moving around sliders and the Recovery.gov mapping application. There is also a number of Mobile Apps available, which I have not had the pleasure of testing (if anyone wants to sponsor me for an iPhone or Windows Mobile phone.. ).

Map (creation)

Map Creation on ArcGIS.com Online

Creating your own maps is part of the offered functionality, in which you choose from a number of base maps (including Bing Maps basemaps, OpenStreetMap or the usual ESRI offerings), and then adding your own layers from online services (meaning you need someone to serve data for you). This opens up quite a few possibilities, and may (hopefully) mean that ESRI does plan on releasing a cheap (or better yet, free) way for people to serve their data (which is My Content). For now, you will have to trust ESRI in hosting your data if you wish, by visiting the “My Content” tab. Maps can be created fast and saved with permission options (including saving for personal use, share with group(s) or publicly available.

Groups (collaboration)

ArcGIS Online - My Groups

The My Groups section allows you to collaborate with other users. There are already 899 groups as of this post. Some interesting ones to note are the “ESRI Featured Content” which provides a lot of maps, applications and tools, the “National Maps for USA” by the aptly named  Federal_User_Community user, and many more. Unfortunately, the search method for groups implies you are already familiar with a group name or keywords from their description, if any. I would love to see a Groups browser, which allows you to browse groups on these different parameters: spatial extent, content theme, tools available or in development, applications available or in development, whether they seek help or simply offer services. This is perhaps the next move by ESRI, to create a community of developers rather than simply users of the technology.

My Content (data management)

ArcGIS.com My Content

My Content is where one can upload their own content, as well as manage content. Note this is an extension of simply data management, as tools, applications and maps can be managed through this page. The supported items are as follows:

1. Maps
   1. Web map
   2. ArcGIS Server Map, Image or Feature Service
   3. Map Package (mpk)
   4. Layer Package (lpk)
   5. ArcGIS Explorer Document (nmf) or Application Configuration (ncfg)
   6. ArcGIS Windows Mobile Package (wmpk)
   7. ArcMap Document (mxd and msd) – not recommended
   8. Layer File – not recommended
   9. ArcGIS Explorer Layet (nmc) – not recommended
   10. ArcGlobe Document (3dd) – not recommended
   11. ArcScene Document (sxd) – not recommended
   12. ArcReader Document (pmf) – not recommended
2. Web mapping applications
   1. ArcGIS API for Javascript, Flex or Silverlight
   2. Java Web Application Development Framework
   3. .Net Web Application Development Framework
3. Mobile applications
   1. ArcGIS Apple iPhone
   2. ArcGIS Windows Mobile
4. Tools
   1. ArcGIS Server – Geocoding, Network Analyst, Geoprocessing or Geodata Service

All in all, this looks tremendously useful and a great resource for developers and students alike. Jack Dangermond seems to be leading ESRI to the new world of GIS wonderfully, creating something closer to a web GIS than anyone else has thus far.

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Executive Compensation Mashup by Dave Bouman, winner of the 2010 ESRI Mashup Challenge

ESRI announced the winners of their 2010 Mashup Challenge. 1st place goes to Dave Bouwman and his executive compensation mashup available here.

Second place winner was a social media mapper, that presents real time results from social media websites to a map (see it live here), which seems like a great time killer to me.

Congratulations to all the winners and applicants, and many thanks to ESRI for running this challenge and allowing people to be creative with their products.

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The image below shows how the labs features are presented:

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Google Earth Logo

Before we begin, let us make a distinction. Google Maps and Google Earth are not one of the same. Google Maps is a web-based application that allows people to view maps on a web page. There are three main features Google Maps offers:

1. Users can search by location (i.e. for restaurants within their current map view).
2. Users can ask for directions in a multimodal transportation system (i.e. driving, public transport, etc).
3. Users can add their own data to the map, but only if they can master the Google Maps API (not a hard task, but not something the average person will do).

Google Earth on the other hand is a desktop application that provides the first two functionalities (search and direction), as well as an easy way to add your own data, one point at a time, to your map. There are of course some more capabilities present, like measurements of paths and the ability to upload and share your data with other Google Earth users. But Google Earth is not only what most people user. There are 2 more editions.

1. Google Earth Pro
   Provides some data import functionality from existing GIS data sources (shapefiles, etc) and spreadsheets.
2. Google Earth Enterprise
   The infrastructure that power Google Earth and Google maps at your fingertips, to create your own versions of them. The main advantage is data management of terrabytes of data, with 2 dimensional web maps and 3 dimensional globes.

All of Google’s offerings in the arena of geographic data are impressive to say the least, and worthy of attention. But are they truly GIS?

If one wants to define GIS, one needs to run back to definitions used throughout the years by academics and software publishers alike. Leaving the issue of people running the system and organizational contexts that build the system in a certain way, GIS is defined by the following components:

• Data: The very basic component is of course measurements. Without them, a GIS cannot function. Undoubtedly, Google has made data available in an unprecedented way.
• Representation: Measurements need to be represented in a format that the computer understands in order to operate on. Google Maps/Earth do have this. The famous KML format is one example on how Google does it.
• Operations: This is where Google Maps/Earth get a bit left behind. Granted, there is the search functionality and route finding operations, but is this the only thing a GIS can do? Out of the box, most GIS offerings have operations for slope calculation, linear referencing, buffering, and many more. Google Maps/Earth lack this functionality at their current state.
• Transformations: In this case, we do not simply refer to transformations from one data format to another, but also transformations from simple measurements out in the world, to the results of an analytical process (a report if you may). The pathway from measurement to data to information is not clear, and unfortunately not present in many cases.

If one uses then one of the commonly accepted definitions of GIS, one cannot easily place Google Maps/Earth in this realm. This is not to say that they do not partially provide functionalities that a GIS would, but rather that they are limited and not the whole picture. A pollution dispersion problem would not be solved by Google Maps/Earth. A study of the distribution of populations among some characteristic cannot be rigorously performed (visually perhaps, but can anyone report error numbers visually?).

I therefore suggest that Google Maps/Earth, as well as offerings by other vendors, like Virtual Earth, Bing Maps, Yahoo! Maps and MapQuest should not be called GIS, but rather Mapping Information Systems, or even Networked Mapping Tools. Partially a GIS, but lacking the full functionality needed.

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In essense, the geoweb consists of locationally aware web technologies usually manifested on the world wide web. Web mapping then refers to those online applications that permit users to view or create maps on a web platform, usually with limited or no GIS analysis. Web GIS then refers to Geographic Information Systems that use web technologies as a method of communication between the elements of a GIS.

GIS has been defined numerous times by several scholars and organizations. ESRI, the world’s largest producer of GIS Software defined GIS through the lens of data, map view and model view (source). The United States Geological Survey (USGS) defines GIS as a system capable of capturing, storing, analyzing and displaying geographically referenced information (source). Nicholas Chrisman, a leading scholar in GIS, in his book Exploring Geographic Information Systems, defined GIS as “the organized activity by which people measure aspects of geographic phenomena and processes; represent these measurements, usually in the form of a computer database, to emphasize spatial themes, entities and relationships; operate upon these representations to produce more measurements and to discover new relationships by integrating disparate sources; and transform these representations to conform to other frameworks of entities and relationships. These activities reflect the larger context (institutions and cultures) in which these people carry out their work. In turn, the GIS may influence these structures.” (source) As can be seen by all the definitions, a Geographic Information System has multiple components, including human actors, that work together for a common purpose. These definitions then provide us a first step into clarifying what is the difference between a web GIS and web mapping.

If any of the above definitions are to be considered valid, then mapping is a single component in what is termed GIS, the visualization aspect. Therefore one can define web mapping applications as applications that enable the visualization of geographically referenced data through a web interface available online. While most web mapping applications today allow users to perform some spatial analysis (short path finding algorithms), this does not constitute a GIS application in my mind, as other, simple sorts of analysis are not permitted (imagine spatial queries, buffer analysis, etc).

As web mapping has been clarified, we can now explain what the geoweb is. First of all, the geoweb is considered as a collection of web applications and/or services that are geographically aware. What that means in other words is that applications that somehow are aware of geographic locations, either through geo-ip location or supplemental information as tags or EXIF data in photographs. The uses are multiple, like browsing Flickr photos by location information, load-balancing servers (redirect traffic to the nearest available server to answer requests, etc). The geoweb is therefore an amalgamation of location-aware services available to the public that provide location-based decisions to be made.

The last definition, web GIS, is all that remains. Using any definition of GIS provided above, one will notice there are multiple components. The interaction between the components is usually very direct in desktop GIS. Data, maps and analysis happen on the same computer, so communication is done internally. Enterprise GIS often allows the user to communicate with data remotely, and sometimes even analysis is done remotely. Web GIS enables the communication of all components to happen through the web, enabling diverse data, analysis algorithms, users and visualization techniques that may be hosted at any location on the web.

Of course, the above definitions are the way I understand the world of GIS and location-aware applications. If you have any suggestions or corrections to make on the above, feel free to leave me comments or email me directly.

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