PlanetEye

October 14th, 2008

Announcing GeoSocial

Juan Gonzalez

Vice President, Technology

Back in May, during the Where 2.0 conference in San Francisco, I was pleasantly surprised about how many of the participants were representing companies in Canada.

There was an immediate bond among these people, and conversations about the need to bring these events closer to home. Certainly, the quality and influence of our collective projects seemed to be mature enough. So, with that idea in mind, Mark Evans (one of the organizers of the mesh conference) and I have decided to organize GeoSocial.

What is GeoSocial? Is a group for people interested in exploring the uses of geodata to enhance the relevancy of information on the web and create new means of social interaction.

Brady Forrest and Andrew Turner recently published their first “Where 2.0: The State of the Geospatial Web“, which may help you understand the progress that has been made in what they’ve called the GeoWeb:

A number of trends are driving towards a new paradigm we’re calling Where 2.0:

• Web 2.0 with its wikis and blogs, is empowering millions to publish and contribute content to open services;
• More geodata is easily available and freely disseminated; and
• Mobile devices are becoming location-aware. They are increasingly equipped with wireless internet connectivity and GPS. We can connect from almost anywhere.

We firmly believe the GeoWeb has succeeded in providing an easily understood framework for gathering, analysing and displaying information. The challenges that remain ahead are now about leveraging this framework to create better ways for people to explore and discover their world.

GeoSocial wants to provide an open forum for all people developing ideas, technology and products that leverage the GeoWeb to create advanced social applications that can deliver personalized, geographically relevant content. We also want to invite people from other areas (bloggers?) to participate and discover how these technologies can fundamentally impact their own products.

To get things started we’ll be hosting a GeoSocial meetup in Toronto on November 6 starting at 6:30pm at The Charlotte Room. Or if you’re not in the area look for us on Facebook.

Tags: GeoSocial, GeoWeb, Where 2.0

6 Responses to “Announcing GeoSocial”

1. It’s a GeoSocial! | Mark Evans Says:
   October 14th, 2008 at 11:27 am
   

   [...] can find more details on the PlanetEye blog. We’ve also got a Facebook group that you can [...]

2. Canadian Developer Connection : GeoSocial Meetup - Nov 6 at Charlotte Room - Toronto Says:
   November 1st, 2008 at 10:22 am
   

   [...] PlanetEye is hosting a GeoSocial next week (Nov. 6) at the Charlotte Room (6:30 p.m.) in Toronto, to bring together people involved in the development of location-based mobile applications, mashups, maps, producing geodata, writing about their cities/neighborhood, or just have an interest in what has been called Where 2.0. [...]

3. PlanetEye » Blog Archive » Crowdsourcing GeoData Says:
   November 5th, 2008 at 8:03 am
   

   [...] interested in the future of the GeoWeb and have something to contribute, remember that we have our GeoSocial meet-up tomorrow Nov 6 6:30pm @ The Charlotte [...]

4. Technology news - Techvibes Blog Says:
   November 5th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
   

   [...] Technology of PlanetEye, and Mark Evans (organizer of the Mesh Conference) are putting together the first GeoSocial meetup in Toronto this Thursday, November 6th at the Charlotte Room (near Spadina / King) at 6:30pm. From the event [...]

5. Location, Location, Location | Mark Evans Says:
   November 7th, 2008 at 8:25 am
   

   [...] was more than evident last night when PlanetEye hosted the first GeoSocial in Toronto. There was a great response with a room full of people excited to talk about what they [...]

6. Bookmarks for October 27 to November 10 | FactoryCity Says:
   November 16th, 2008 at 3:56 am
   

   [...] Announcing GeoSocial [...]

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