Well kudos for FortiusOne for getting the word out on Maker! especially since the launch was delayed from the original PR blitz. As with most GeoBloggers, I’ve had access to Maker! since last week and have really been impress with its output. Sean has been teasing us for months it seems with the cartographic output of Maker! in his blog posts, so I was glad to finally get my hands on Maker!. (side note, do you put a period after a product name that ends in a punctuation mark?)
Maker! is the map production portion of GeoCommons and Finder! is the search engine for geospatial data. Together they allow users to create web maps that can be shared with the world. So to get information in Maker!, you first upload your data to Finder! and then add it to your map. The byproduct of this workflow is more data gets added to Finder! and in turn more data is available to the community at large. Freely sharing data is one the core components of GeoCommons (compared to WeoGeo which is more of a marketplace).
Stefan Geens does a good job of showing how the map is created and how you set what we usually refer to the symbology of layers. What I like about this approach is you can bring to light the data in ways that before Maker!, required custom programming to achieve good looking results (if even possible). FortiusOne, according to Sean, worked with cartographic professionals to create the rich (I’m sorry) map production tools. These tools are so good in fact that I’ve heard a couple GIS professionals lament that they’ll be out of a job soon (of course we all know that Maker! will only increase our workloads to produce data for public consumption). What we have here are two really simple tools that allow anyone to upload geospatial content, combine that information with other datasets and then create a wonderful looking map that visually tells a story.
You can argue all day and night about what the GeoWeb is or isn’t, but I think we have an excellent example of what the GeoWeb should be right here. Finder! has discoverable web services of data (with metadata to boot) and Maker! allows you to leverage those services together to create derivative value content to share with the world. Moving forward, the data of GeoCommons should support more OGC services (beyond KML) for those who need that support and the maps created with Maker! should be more easily shared beyond just an web map. But the groundwork is there for sharing data with the world.
Despite the lack of monkey maps, the GeoMonkey approves of Maker!
14 Comments
While I can’t really disagree with anything you say here, James, I do see a danger with the general public looking at the data and this site and thinking “Well, that’s very helpful, but simplistic. I keep hearing about GIS technology and how it can change our world, but to be honest, it looks like something a good graphic designer could do. Where’s the magic?”
Maker! does have some nice base layers and the whole site looks good and responds pretty well, but I can’t use their data because I don’t have a good insight into the reliability and truthfulness of the data offered.
But best wishes to them, I have to hope those who put their money and time into GIS related efforts will be rewarded and should be respected as entrepreneurs, but as a professional, I can’t get excited yet. I don’t want the rest of the world thinking a few dots on a pretty map is all GIS is.
Am I being unfair, not giving it a fair shake? I honestly don’t know.
Well that is a problem with any dataset. I was hard on GeoCommons a year or two ago for the very same reasons. But with metadata available, you should be able to make good decisions about using the data.
You are right about the metadata. I didn’t dig deep enough into the site to see it at first. I also like their kml, shape, and excel download capability.
I zoomed into the Lower 48 County Boundaries and saw 1 mile wide gaps and overlaps in the polygon data. Perhaps someone generalized the data too much. It probably displays much faster this way.
Thanks for the coverage and we will work on cutting down the teasing on the next release. We plan on adding additional metadata support in the future like being able to upload a .shp.xml with a full specification, but hopefully have the bare bones in place for now.
Agree that the functionality in Maker for GIS type analysis is simple – just thematic mapping. We had a lot of internal debates over how much functionality we could expose to non-technical users. The goal was not to create a full web-based GIS but instead a simple application that anyone could use and later be extended as users become more educated.
When we first did heat maps (kernel density functions) on GeoCommons version one lots of users misinterpreted the maps thinking it was a data visualization and instead of a data analysis.
Users would think the brightest spot on the heat map was the highest value on the map instead of it being the highest concentration of high value points close to each other. It was a hard lesson in educating non technical users to use the tool appropriately.
I think in order to let the rest of the world know what GIS is and the value of it we need to take baby steps – otherwise they are going to be overwhelmed and run for the hill IMHO
James – the GeoMonkey is officially represented:
http://maker.geocommons.com/maps/560
http://finder.geocommons.com/overlays/4960
No more will “monkey” return no results
Hilarious Sean!
One thing that intrigues me is the fact that I cant see the usual copyright notice anywhere regarding the Google Maps base map layer? Is that an oversight, or did Google waive any requirements regarding copyright notices ? (very unlikely?)
Small oversight in the launch craziness it is being added and tested today. Good to know the Google police remain vigilant
Well better the Google “Police” than the Google Lawyers.
I think an RSS feed for new data added would benefit all.
This is true and the logo and copyright are going up later today. Hopefully folks are checking out the application and super cool GeoMonkey maps as well.
I tested the maker site saturday morning but it didn’t seem to be working (I couldn’t add layers to a map, I couldn’t preview the authored maps, couldn’t change basemap layers, refresh rate very slow). I checked my bandwidth to make sure that wasn’t the problem; the pipe was wide open. Perhaps they are victims of their own success. Interesting concept none the less; I’ll revisit soon.
Hi Timmy
There must have been a traffic spike. Checked it out looked to be running well. QA is looking into it let me know of the problem persists.
Thanks Sean