the web 2.0

For anyone who doesn't yet believe or undertand how powerful the new world of the web 2.0 is (the world of blogs, wikis, mashups and more) - I have a great example for you.

Not long ago, Google was making statements about KML being the HTML of geographic content. Many people thought this was slightly (to say the least) arrogant and assuming of Google. One of my favorite GIS bloggers, James Fee over at SpatiallyAdjusted.com made a quick post about it here ==> Google you have got to be kidding, right?

James has 3744 people subscribed to his blog through an RSS feed (so his feedburner says) that are notified any time he makes a post about anything on the blog. This particular post about Google, KML and HTML prompted a lot of people to make comments about this post. This is where it gets good. The post above we are talking about has 43 comments made thus far. Scroll down and look at who wieghed in on the discussion with the 38th comment ... Michael Jones - the main in charge of Google Earth - official title - Chief Technology Advocate.

I think that shows how powerful a more interactive and collaborative world wide web can be ...

Monitoring Refugee movement with Google Maps

I thought this was an interesting article on CNN ... about 4 headlines down this afternoon.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/04/08/google.refugees.ap/index.html

Hightlights of the story ... note the last one. Very interesting ...

• Google, U.N. team up to help pinpoint refugee movement
• Maps will aid humanitarian operations, help inform about refugee crises
• Special maps help track, give information about crises in each area
• Google considering stand-alone version of its mapping software for field work