Computing, GIS and Archeology in the UK shares a tip for importing UK Mastermap data into Postgres or Shape files. The Mastermap importer imports mastermap data into ogr formats such as shapefiles, or into a postgresql database, in a free and easy to use way.

Glenn at the AnyGeo Blog posts an interesting question, who owns data? A recent article in Forbes prompted the question, and we’re really interested to know. We think that the more open data out there that is shared, the better everyone will be. Data ownership is all about creating a bigger network effect for data.

Last week we talked about Google’s Map API for Flash. But, does it really work? FlexRIA tries to work it out.

Free Geography Tools maps out PolicyMap, which is designed to easily display data on a map. With data and information from real estate to crime to health to schools, the possibilities are endless!

Popularity: 15% [?]

The recent Myanmar disaster proves that visualizing data has found a new important place in mapping capabilities, links to data and pictures from Frank at Google Earth blog.

All Points Blog points to CNN as an example of why static data just doesn’t cut it, especially when it comes to demographic information and election coverage.

Sue at Very Spatial shows us IBM’s latest project called Many Eyes. Many Eyes is a set of visualization tools and web services that allow users to create and share visualization projects, with the goal of creating a collaborative social networking space for exploring and analyzing visualizations.

James notes that users love to play with maps of their data, and just find it easier to visualize maps than charts.

The GIS data interchange file is discussed by James Fee at Spatially Adjusted, and he asks users how people share data.

Popularity: 24% [?]

Mapufacture shows off some new functionality which includes adding layers of data. With improved layering and editing options, users will be able to visualize data in a whole new way.

Microsoft has declared “geotagging has gone mainstream”. Microsoft Pro Photo and the power of metadata are discussed by Dan Catt.

Local and federal government continues to find a way to utilize geodata and GIS technologies. GeoBlade is based on an ESRI platform and is being offered to local government agencies in need of an enterprise GIS solution.

GIS Lounge shares a post that advocates the use of Google Earth over GIS mapping applications for its ease of use in sharing archaeological and paleontological data.

Popularity: 21% [?]

All Points Blog shares an article from Federal Times that looks at how government agencies are using Google and Microsoft for mapping applications.

Crowd-sourced data and seismology are discussed on Geomantic.

Privacy and GIS data are reviewed by GISLounge, which displays the public concern over privacy in imagery and information.

Mapperz announces that Yahoo Local is including GeoSpatial search functions now, providing search results that can be interactively expanded/refined by geographical location.

Popularity: 22% [?]

We got such useful feedback from the last metadata post I thought I would add some screen shots of how it is starting to come together. Unfortunately we were not able to get all the suggestions in because of the time crunch hitting our release date, but please keep posting the feedback and we’ll work it in as we have more time.

The first screen shot is of the data details page, which contains the metadata information for the data set. In this case 2000 US Census data at the tract level for Alabama:

Here you can see the major elements we are capturing in a user friendly graphical lay out. One of the cool new bits is the system automatically calculates statistics when you upload the data. Being able to data mine and run statistics on the fly is one of the new developments we are particularly excited about.

All the metadata on the data details page is exposed as Dublin Core elements which should make them machine readable to the rest of the world:

Also there are links to FGDC and ISO 19115 metadata mappings which take you to simple text pages with the indicated information. We probably need another pass to get these completely correct, but the infrastructure is all in place to do so.

FGDC looks like this:

ISO 19115 looks like this:

Hopefully this will help make the data in GeoCommons useful to multiple geospatial work flows. We hope having the ability to get data out in shapefile, KML, and .CSV (spreadsheets) will create more cross fertilization between GeoWeb and GIS users. With some luck it can help get more geospatial data out to the public that has been difficult to access in the past. A couple of examples below.

US Census Tract Data for Alabama

Global Maritime Shipping Lanes

Zillow Neighborhoods and Shipping Lanes (just because it looked kinda cool)

Thanks again for the feedback from folks on the metadata and we’ll keep iterating on getting it spot on.

Popularity: 38% [?]