GeoCommons: a Collaborative Geodata Repository

Since I last used GeoIQ to create my heatmaps on the usage of the accuracy feature in the Flickr geottaged images, Fortiusone has been busy developing an moving from Google Maps to KML as well as setting up a repository for shareable geospatial called GeoCommons. Besides uploading and downloading data from GeoCommons, users will be able to take their data and anyone else’s in GeoCommons and make a mashup with GeoIQ heat map generator. FortiusOne founder Sean Gorman provides a compelling proof of concept in the company’s blog with a mashup of highly rated bars and single women in Manhattan.

Relation to my thesis: GeoIQ has been a great tool to quickly get heatmap viz of some of my geodata. Their GeoCommons might be an excellent opportunity to explore more the levels of granularity used when people share geodata. In the context of GeoCommons, I am also interested to observe how the accuracy and veracity of the data is handled. It is I guess one of the challenge of such a collaborative platform.