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We just came back from Geoweb Summit 2011 in Brooklyn. The event was energetic, and we are glad to attend the meaningful panel discussions on both technology and business strategy. As a GIS Analyst / Developer, I always ask myself the following question: “What is the next generation of legacy desktop GIS systems?” I like NY City’s mashup approach to provide an answer to my question. One of the panelist, Colin Reilly, is from the New York DoITT and he leads campaigns like New York Big Apps. This is an important movement since only the government and big organizations used to exclusively handle GIS data on desktop software like ArcGIS.  This movement opens up and attracts more and more independent developers and startups to learn more GIS knowledge through many of those  mush-up (web or mobile) projects. It’s not about the government’s data transparency but also the movement starts removing technical boundaries, such as file format differences; it’s moving toward to the semantic web world. It’s is also worth to mention that grassroots mapping community, Green Map Systems, contributes awareness and literacy of GIS data through their mapping efforts. Through a couple of different panel discussions, we observed the “data industry” accelerates their business intelligence aspects of their business models on top of their GIS data. For example, GIS data provider, Skyhook, made a partnership deal with PlaceIQ, which runs location based analysis service. Finally, the Augmented Reality (AR) panel discussions revealed a few challenges about how to deliver useful information to users. In my opinion, AR is so fancy and catchy for investors because of their Ads opportunity (remember, Second Life?); however, I still feel missing a killer feature in this platform. For example, yes, I can see my iPhone like a scope, and I can find out the subway stations around me but is this really better than 2D map?

Geoweb Summit Home Page

http://geowebsummit.com/

Don’t forget to check our Geo-Website

http://geo.objectgraph.com/