February 08, 2005
The beginning of a new era in mapping
by Liza Sabater
The possibilities with a tool like this are endless. For example, instead of the corporate control 311 systems we have today, take this kind of tool and give it to the people for tracking problems around town. Fires, potholes, building hazards are one way to go. In England there is an public art project that allows people to phone-in their stories about different places around town --some never thought of as landmarks worth protecting. Add to it moblogging of photo, text and audio contributions by regular citizens and you could revolutionize the whole concept of a consumer/citizen response system.
Think of mapping your social networks. Like you school group, your work group, your Sunday night football group. How about mapping people by interests in a community of a town. The knitters, the LOTR d'orks, the Prada bitches. Then, of course, there's the possibility of mapping networks within a political community. Where are the Dean supporters comming from? Or the Clintonistas? How about the Progressive Libertarians who are ramping up to shake things in 2008 and beyond?
Granted, dealing with trolls and spammers would be one of the downsides of it but, there have always been people trying to game consumer response systems for ever. It's just part of human nature for some to always want to cheat, lie and manipulate.
That's why systems like these have to be regarded as tools and not as the be all and end all. It amazes me how people complain about spam in blogs. Look, if you can't use the tools out there to delete the stuff because you want a little technological sprite to take care of it for you while you sleep, you're an idiot. Technology is just an extension of human effort. You don't put the effort, then technology does not work. It's that simple.
Posted by Liza Sabater in Google, Maps, Moblogging, Technology, Web
Permalink |
Comments (0)
| TrackBack (0) | Technorati Cosmos
Trackbacks
Trackback for this post:http://www.culturekitchen.com/cgi-bin/movabletype/mt-tb.cgi/2726
The following blogs make reference to this post :
