Idea Lab

Democratizing the Geography of Information

by David Sasaki
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

As little as a year ago Google Maps had no geographic information about San Javier La Loma, a small working class neighborhood on the outskirts of Medellín where the ConVerGentes group of the HiperBarrio citizen journalism project is based. Some progress has been made, but as you can see from the satellite imagery, most of the streets are still not mapped, much less the parks, buildings and footpaths. Now, compare that to the map of San Javier La Loma created by HiperBarrio and freely available with nearly unrestricted use on Open Street Maps: There is clearly an aspect of amateurism...

• December 5, 2009
• 2 comments

Seero Makes Location the Center of the Story

by Leslie Rule
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

Seero, a new startup, is a "live on location," geo-broadcasting online app that mixes gps and video streaming by broadcasting and mapping in real-time. With the service, you broadcast live video, geo-tagging the content in real-time as you go. If folks are logged on to the site, they can follow in you in real-time; or if they aren't online at the moment, the content, including the geo-tag is archived and accessible. The application highlights exploration. And to date, their most prominent geo-broadcasters are those journeying the world, but as with any broadcast, it's only as good as the content. I've...

• April 27, 2008
• 1 comment