I’ve come across a few observations about whether and why people will do “geo-annotation” (which is a bit of a deadening phrase).
[Starting here and then in no particular order here, here, here, here, here.]
No one offers any examples of actual geo annotations.
So I will.
From citypoems.
These are annotations of an airport departure lounge.
They are prompted by a sign on the wall that asks people if they want to read impressions about the place they are in, sent to their phone by SMS, and if they want to add their own responses to the place, again by SMS.
We’ve found that people are more likely to read than write (about 3000/400 for citypoems overall).
It’s safe to assume these examples are done by real people who have no idea that what they are doing is “geo annotation”, they just saw the sign and thought it would be fun to have a go.
18/02/2004 17:14:41
FIRST TIME: Heart beating, sweat from head, drips then pours, regulars calm, cool as you like, just ready for the flight.
02/04/2004 09:28:59
Airports and waiting, fog in the lights, diverted all flights. Tannoy announces planes lost in teeside. Updates to come, pubs just open and some are turn ing to drink. Sure we will get there but only after they double the air fair, as we fly leeds, barbados, zurich.
03/04/2004 13:34:44
Leeds bradford airport, a wonderful station, lots of planes: its quite an education. Mothers, fathers, siblings too, all going away to places like peru.
[And finally, just for fun:
12/03/2004 16:56:23
Hello from nyc!
That comes from a number starting +16464. I don’t know if that really is a US number.]
Based on 18 months of an ongoing citywide event, my two pence worth is this: “What you ask for is what you’ll get”.
I think I’ll leave it at that, except to add that experience tells me that the “PDAs and laptops for lost tourists” model is wrong.
We did a kind of prototyping experiments I reported here:
http://tecfa.unige.ch/perso/staf/nova/blog/. It provides a kind of short list of geo-annotation uses.
Posted by: Nicolas Nova | October 26, 2004 at 15:21
sorry here is the link: http://tecfa.unige.ch/perso/staf/nova/blog/2004/06/08/research-collaborative-mapping-ideas/
Posted by: nicolas | October 26, 2004 at 15:35
In one of my recent post I was trying to give my point of view on this topic saying that it is difficult to think about one of these geo-annotation applications which is not "social".
Of course we are kind of ego-centered in our lives, and tagging place is not going to be free from our ego. I would rather discuss the fact that the center and the motivation for tagging places is not going to be the great public. On the contrary, to me the focus should be the small group, the group of peers.
http://www.i-cherubini.it/mauro/blog/2004/10/25/categorising-geo-annotations/
Posted by: Mauro Cherubini | October 26, 2004 at 16:31