Web 2.0 .. What’s this all about?
In 2005, we heard a lot about emerging technologies for a new and better internet, called Web 2.0 by some of us. But what do they really mean with this term? Where are these technologies, and what role do they play in the terms of webmapping?
Regarding maps, in 2005 Google came up with its Google Local service. The competitors, Microsoft and Yahoo, didn’t need much time to follow with their own approaches. They all utilize AJAX, a combination of javascript and XML Requests. This enabled updates of map content without the need of user interaction and improved the usability of webmapping services a lot. Fixed zoom levels (enabling the very fast display of map data) and intuitive interfaces might be among the reasons for the great success of these services.
Another (in my opinion) great developement is the rise of community based websites which use the so called ‘Tags’. The picture hosting service Flickr was one of the first big players and showed us some of the possibilities. Every user is able to tag his pictures with several keywords. Other people use these tags to search or browse through other galleries. Tagging got pretty common, we see it for links, publications, and even geographic information. Tagging is probably the most simple form of metadata. But its simplicity lead to a high acceptance.
Web 2.0 does actually include much more than these two described concepts. A nice roundup was written on Wikipedia
The big challenge for us is now to incorporate these new concepts in existing web mapping services. Unfortunately, the current clients for OGC compliant web services have mostly awkward interfaces, usability aspects do not play an important role in this context. But only better interfaces will increase the user acceptance. And only a high user acceptance might lead to the success of the OGC standards…
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22. December 2005 um 21:31
I’ve had the idea of a AJAX-based WMS client with a very simple user interface in mind for a few weeks, but I have not found the time to start developing yet. So if anyone is interested, let’s go for it!
26. December 2005 um 23:33
Hey, is there really no OGC Ajax based WMS client? I am really wondering. However I don´t know if a OGC WMS Client should be ajax enabled… Which maps would you like to cache? Cache the maps for panning? Would you like to split the map into small tiles? If there is a good reason for a AJAX OGC Client please tell me. Is there anyone aware of, which map actions are mostly used, while working with maps (panning or zooming). Perhaps a silly question, because map interactions depend highly on the user task, so perhaps there is no answer in general.
However, if you are really interested in such a Client please let me know. Perhaps we can also use the WMSClientCore framework of the 52north incubator.
Sorry for the confusing comment… Merry Christmas!
29. December 2005 um 14:06
I have not thought about caching yet. My idea was more like having a really simple user interface, because most WMS clients are actually a bit hard to use if you don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes. So when I’m talking about a client, I mean the thing showing to the user. And yes, of course your WMS client core from 52° North could be a solution for the server-side part.