Microsoft, Google and Yahoo! Now Support GeoRSS

Lord Satri writes "This week, Microsoft announced their new Live Maps, in addition to supporting Firefox on Windows for 3D, now supports the GeoRSS standard. They join Google which recently announced the support of GeoRSS and KML mapping in their Google Maps API. In short, GeoRSS is a standard supported by the Open Geospatial Consortium that incorporates geolocation in an interoperable manner to RSS feeds. The applications are numerous. With Yahoo!'s support of GeoRSS, all the major players are in and the future looks bright for this emerging standard. As for KML, Google Earth's file format, this new Google Maps integration is not unrelated to the recent announcement of internet-wide KML search capabilities within Google Earth. From the GeoRSS website: 'As RSS becomes more and more prevalent as a way to publish and share information, it becomes increasingly important that location is described in an interoperable manner so that applications can request, aggregate, share and map geographically tagged feeds. To avoid the fragmentation of language that has occurred in RSS and other Web information encoding efforts, we have created this site to promote a relatively small number of encodings that meet the needs of a wide range of communities.'"

No Mac or Linux?

[oyenstikker]

How is it that Firefox is supported on Windows but not other platforms? Can Firefox on Windows use ActiveX?

Re:No Mac or Linux?

[HoosierPeschke]

Contrary to how it looks like it installs on Firefox, it's not an addon, it's a plugin.

On top of that you need ADMINISTRATIVE rights to install.

Here's the xpi [microsoft.com] for your viewing pleasure.

I haven't been able to extract the exe yet (using uniextract) to see what that might contain.

Re:

[xENoLocO]

You mean it plugs into the framework of firefox, and not that it's a XUL "extension", right?

Side note: the entire slashdot post never even mentions XML. RSS is made of XML... so is this... shouldn't this be called GeoXML?

Re:

[HoosierPeschke]

I still haven't played much with it (got kinda bored real quick). It fakes install like it's a addon (hence .xpi), but the xpi script just executes the executable contained in the JAR. Because I didn't have admin rights to the Windows computer I was on, it pooped. It installs a plugin like flash installes.

Re:

[oyenstikker]

So it doesn't really work in Firefox. It works in Firefox with a specific Microsoft plugin.

Re:

[Supergibbs]

so it's IETab and an ActiveX plugin all rolled up together....

Re:

[maxume]

Add-ons can make use of native binary components; they probably only made binaries for windows.

GeoURL

[Toba82]

Looks like GeoURL [geourl.org] is about to get eclipsed pretty badly. It was fun while it lasted.

Re:

[steevc]

I would think that GeoURL has a different purpose as it has nothing to do with RSS. It's more about being able to see the location of whatever a site relates to. I know that a lot of sites have the GeoURL/ICBM data, but the main site has not developed over the last couple of years. That doesn't stop others from using the data for things like making their own Google maps. Even with my limited Python skills I was able to knock something up based on the members list on our LUG site. A few of us had the GeoURL

Tokyo's Reaction

[akaina]

Tokyo's reaction is justified. How else will the people know wether or not the reports of giant robot attacks are real or not?

Neat, but buggy

[Perseid]

Virtual Earth is pretty neat, but:

1) It crashes at random just like the IE version.
2) I looked around San Francisco and there were billboards. Real billboards with real ads. Lame.

For now Google Earth still wins. Competition is always good, though.

"Map-making: so easy a caveman could do it"

[GillBates0]

Incidentally, Google also announced in this blog entry [blogspot.com] (titled as above) it's new Google Maps feature which gives users to draw lines, polygons, place placemarkers, and upload location specific pictures/videos via Google Maps.

To me this sounds like a great feature to share travelogues to my family and friends -- makes them much more interesting, when I can plot my route and augment them with my videos/photos/commentary.

That's why we're announcing My Maps, a new feature that makes it quick and easy to create your own custom Google Maps just by pointing and clicking. You can add placemarks, draw lines and shapes, and embed text, photos and videos -- all using a simple drag and drop interface. Your map automatically gets a public URL that you can share with your friends and family, or you can also publish your map for inclusion in Google Maps search results. We'll continue to show organic local search results with red pushpins; user-generated results will have blue pushpins. The user-created results include KML as well as maps made through My Maps.

Some of the examples in that blog entry are pretty interesting, e.g.: America's Highway: Oral Histories of Route 66 [google.com].

Re:

[Shemmie]

Used it this very day to do some coursework. Very flexible system, and the ability to draw shapes, give them an identify, and even add pictures to it, makes it a very simple, quick and easy way of customizing map data.
You have the ability to then make it public or keep it private as per other Google ventures.

Re:

[harry666t]

"draw lines, polygons, place placemarkers, and upload location specific pictures/videos via Google Maps."

Yeah, now MAYBE next time my friends won't get lost trying to find my home in that damn forest...

Re:

[camcanuck]

Too bad Google is just catching up to what MS has been doing with Live Maps for months now. Instead of 'My Maps' MS calls them collections. On top of that while Google maps can ingest and display GeoRSS it can't publish GeoRSS while Live Maps can. Google will only publish in KML. If you create a collection in Live Maps I can view it in Google Maps, Yahoo Maps, Live Maps or even ope source projects like OpenLayers. If I create a 'map' in Google the only place you can view it is in Google maps. That pl

OpenLayers also supports GeoRSS

[foniksonik]

OpenLayers, an open source (BSD License) javascript library for generating your own maps. [openlayers.org], also supports the GeoRSS standard.

If you ever wanted to use your own set of tiles for a map... this is the software for you. FYI IANADeveloper on it but if you're good with RICO or Prototype you should be. We all need an alternative mapping system that is mature and ready for general use out there for applications that may differ from the norm (like a map of something other than the earth... a building for instance).

Quick, to the Batpole!

[Lavi Dave]

Must get down to the patent office and file a patent on GeoRSS so I can start suing people.

I am thinking about buying a gps unit

[ubuwalker31]

Are there any that will upload your co-ordinates to google maps? Or is there a way to hack this using certain gps units? Can I download a data file from my gps to my computer and then upload it at home? Help out the newb with some links!

Re:

[jmarkantes]

All the answers are at gps information [gpsinformation.net].

As for uploading waypoints, I think Google Earth, the paid version, can link to a gps unit. From there I believe it's easy to get it onto google maps.
J

Who would have thought...

[LamboAlpha]

Who would have thought that the names Google, Yahoo and Microsoft would all be used in the same article without the words suing or lawsuit.

Other Startups?

[gavinpquinn]

I wonder what this will mean for other startups? http://www.grapheety.com [grapheety.com] flagr [flagr.com] ?

Microsoft beat Google to this party

[rock603]

Microsoft actually has been supporting GeoRSS for over a year now in both the developer's kit and via user collections. Last week's Virtual Earth announcement was specifically around the "publishing" of GeoRSS feeds BETWEEN users. This means that users who create their own collections (MyMaps in Google-speak) can make them available for subscription just like any other RSS feed - whenever the owner adds anything to the map, the users will be notified via RSS and will see the updated map instead of having to