Ever since the news broke that ESRI recieved a Whitehouse contract to:

merge a federal website that publishes geospatial information with Data.gov, the government’s depot for downloadable data sets, the company’s president said on Thursday.

California-based ESRI began last summer tying Data.gov to Geodata.gov, the geospatial information gateway, said company President Jack Dangermond in an interview with Nextgov….

Anyone will be able to create mashups on the free website ArcGIS.com, which ESRI launched on Saturday.

the community has been pretty upset. I’ve seen the same angry sentiment repeated over Twitter, IRC, Skype and beers.

This made me begin to wonder why were folks – myself included getting so riled up over this. ArcGIS.com looks like a great site that makes geospatial data more accessible to the public. Data.gov is making more government data available – marriage made in heaven.

So, what is the problem? At the core the deal and the platform violate the two guiding principles of Gov 2.0. – transparency and open data. When the Obama administration announced their “Transparency and Open Government” initiative there was a hugely positive response from the community.

The deal outlined by the NextGov article violates the first premise – transparency. The ESRI deal was a sole sourced contract that was not competed, but instead an extension to a six year old contract for GeoData.gov from 2004. What was the the process for selecting ESRI for this critical service? What were the requirements? What are the benefits of their solution? Are open standards being supported? No clue on any of it because there has been zero transparency on the contract.

No only was the process not transparent ESRI gets access to government data for ArcGIS.com that is not being made available to anyone else. Worse yet ESRI had access and was working on integration for a year according to the article. No other citizen, project, NGO or company had access to the data to integrate into other existing projects. Keep in mind the current incarnation of Geodata.gov is a data catalog of metadata not a data repository. So, there is no easy way for anyone to systematically pull all the geodata cataloged in Geodata.gov.

A second critical aspect of open government is open data. Open data means the raw data available in open standard formats. So, ESRI got a sole sourced contract and a head start integrating the data into their new Web portal. Some might find it a bit sketchy, but big deal we can get over it. At least the data will be available to the public to repurpose and innovate on top of…right?

Sadly this does not seem to be the case at all. To quote the articles:

He (Dangermond) said he expects Geodata.gov’s map services, which enable Web-based applications from different sources to communicate with each other, to be available on Data.gov within two months.

This is an important nuance. Data won’t be available – “map services” will be available. So what is a “map service” you might ask? A “map service” is a proprietary data stream from an ArcGIS server. A service that can only be produced by ESRI technology. You can overlay the “mapping service” on say a Google or Bing basemap, but there is no way to repurpose the data or open it unless you have ESRI technology. Building anything with the data requires reliance on ESRI technology. So, where will citizens be able to consume this data – ArcGIS.com of course. What does ArcGIS.com support? Let’s look at the screenshots:

ArcGIS.com supports ArcGIS server “mapping services”, ESRI mapping applications, and ESRI mobile applications. All proprietary and none of which can be utilized by anything other than an ESRI product. The “mapping services” coming out of the Geodata.gov work – all the same. No standards and no support for anything other than ESRI licensed software – yeah we asked.

Ah, but you say you can load files, and maybe even download files. At least there would be support for shapefiles, and other apps can read those….nope:

If the data could be open by another technology obviously that is bad. In short this is what has the community quite upset about the whole affair. A non-competitive bid with zero transparency to put government data in proprietary formats that are not accessible to the community, unless you want to buy ESRI technology or look at their proprietary site.

The good news? This is all easy to fix. Make the data available in open formats. Make it available in a raw format for download. Federate the content through open standards so other projects can tap into the data feeds (not map services). Make contracts open opportunities that are competitively bid with clear requirements.

ESRI has lots of great technology but citizens should not be forced to use it in order to access public government data. This is the fundamental principle behind open data and transparent government. ESRI is an important part of the ecosystem, but it is not a monoculture. If the government wants innovation to thrive and sustained economic growth they need to truly open data and create a level playing field.

Popularity: 9% [?]

There has been an interesting discussion going over on James Fee’s blog on the merits of ESRI’s new javascript API and Flex API. James has thrown his lot in with the JavaScript API, and a host of Flex/Flash developers have been exposing their technology’s merits. While we don’t use either of ESRI’s APIs internally we did have to make a choice between Flash and JavaScript/HTML when we were developing Maker. At the end of the day we ended up blending the two approaches – implementing JavaScript where it made sense and utilizing Flash when we needed powerful vector rendering capabilities.

One of the most useful references for me in this process was a workshop Tom Carden gave at ETech last year on the data rendering capabilities of a variety of approaches. The readers digest version of the workshop went something along these lines:

HTML/Javascript – handles 100-1000 data points – loads in .1 seconds
Flash – handles up to 10,000 data points – loads in 1 second
Java/Processing – handles up to 100,000 points – loads in 10 seconds
OpenGL – handles upwards of 1,000,000 points – loads in 100 seconds

For Maker we wanted to be able to handle 10,000+ points/polygons and there was no way JavaScript was going to be able to handle it. Of course rendering the data was just one of many problems. Not only did we have to render the data but also parse it from the server out to the client while running the mathematical operation enabling you to take advantage of the structured data being sent. The team came with lots of clever tricks to pull it off, but the level of performance afforded by using Flash for rendering the vector data was not available with JavaScript. Processing could be a very cool option as the technology matures. Silverlight could also be a great option if they can get the plug-in universally embedded into browsers as with Flash.

While Flash was a great option for the tiling and vector rendering we did not want to build out the entire application in Flash for a variety of reasons. In GeoCommons everything outside of the map itself is JavaScript/HTML. This is probably rudimentary for many folks, but reading the debate on James’ blog I think sometimes developers lose sight of picking the best tool for the job. Oftentimes it is easy to get wedded to an approach just because it is what you know well. We were complete Flash rookies when we started, but got some great help from Tom with Modest Maps, Axis Maps with the Flash development and cartography, hired some full time resources, and learned a lot on our own. It ended up being a great approach for the specific problems we were facing. As long as you are using standard interfaces in your development, you should be able to fluidly adapt to the technology that makes the most sense for your set of problems.

Popularity: 25% [?]

VectorOne posed the question whether or not geospatial technology could drive political consensus on environmental issues. Environmental issues such as flooding, disease, conservation, and/or water quality require top geographic information, spatial analysis and integration. The GIS and spatial technologies industry should assist anyone making decisions to better understand these issues and make informed decisions based on intelligent information and geodata.

Geodata is not available to all – the Farm Bill (H.R. 6126) prevents the FSA from providing geospatial information to the public. Visit Surveying, Mapping and GIS for more details about what Sec. 1619 Information Gathering entails.

Google Maps is still number one. Cowen & Co., an industry analyst firm specializing in covering Web services, found Google Maps as the “de facto leader” in the online mapping solutions space. The analyst firm stated the competitors’ lack of innovation gave Google its success. They also cited Google’s Streetview and public transportation services as main reasons for success.

Geocoding can provide vital information to marketers. Appending demographic census track data to latitude and longitude coordinates is critical for businesses targeting demographics. Many businesses are using Geocoding as a local search tool, a routing tool, and as a store locator.

Florida tries to coordinates a statewide effort for GIS. This is the fourth time the state tried to develop a coordinating body. With the active Atlantic hurricane seasons, and the death of 208 residents, the state realized that coordination of geospatial information during the hurricanes would have saved lives. The Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM) is taking the lead in formulating a statewide GIS strategic plan.

Popularity: 13% [?]

What factors are holding up online mapping performance? There are three reasons why online mapping is still not at its best: Local listings, mapping errors and crowded mapping. Local submissions take time and can contain errors leading to information that is mapped improperly. Overlapping information (such as too many markers) can cause crowded maps.

Blue Marble Geographics plans to answer the need for highly accurate mapping through their products. After combining their Geographic Calculator and Geographic Transformer into one desktop product, users now have control over the use of geodetic datums to ensure accuracy and coordinate control when transforming geospatial data. The company is expanding their products so surveyors, GIS and engineering firms will be able produce highly accurate maps.

GeoEye-1, the world’s highest resolution commercial satellite , launched this past weekend. The satellite will orbit the Earth’s surface taking pictures exclusively for online mapping. The U.S. Government and Google Maps are some of those planning to use the high-resolution satellite camera.

A new interactive map was developed to show the National Hurricane Center’s latest storm advisories. The StormTracker Map shows current center location and forecasted positions. The map has an easy user-friendly layout and all users need to do is click on their desired location to reveal its information.

ArcGIS 9.3 is receiving applause for its error report system. If a crash occurs, users can send an error report to ESRI. The Geodatabase Development Team even posted a video that talks about how ESRI investigates and acts on all error reports.

Popularity: 17% [?]