Slashgeo

The GeoRSS mailing list announced the release of the GeoRSS specifications version 1.0. From the website: "At this point we have completed work on two encodings which we are calling GeoRSS GML and GeoRSS Simple. GeoRSS GML is a formal GML Application Profile, and supports a greater range of features than Simple, notably coordinate reference systems other than WGS84 latitude/longitude. It is designed for use with Atom 1.0, RSS 2.0 and RSS 1.0, although it can be used just as easily in non-RSS XML encodings. GeoRSS Simple has greater brevity, but also has limited extensibility. It can be used in all the same ways and places as GeoRSS GML."

The Brain Off blog tells us about improvements of Yahoo! integration of GeoRSS. From the blog: "They have GeoRSS export and polylines in GeoRSS! [...] Yahoo has supported GeoRSS since the beginning of their API, and now giving developers the ability to export their maps into GeoRSS is a great step at encouraging more sharing. However it could go farther."

The import cartography blog links to the announcement of Google Maps API's support for GeoRSS feed and KML mapping. Surprisingly, the official blog takes Slashgeo's GeoRSS feed as example (thanks Nigel)! Too bad we haven't completed the work on our GeoRSS Feed (example: non-main page geolocated stories are not yet included in our GeoRSS feed). From the announcement: "To start we now support GeoRSS as a data format for geographic content in Google Maps. We want to enable users to create data in whatever format is most convenient for them, and feel that by supporting both KML and GeoRSS we can enable a wider variety of people and applications to contribute content to Google Maps. We've built support for the Simple, GML, and W3C Geo encodings of GeoRSS -- all you have to do is enter the full URL of a GeoRSS file into the Maps query box to load the file." Obviously, the official GeoRSS blog covers the story. Links to other GeoRSS-related stories below.

Some improvements to Slashgeo. Trackback pings can now be sent and received. Additionally, you can slashdot and digg stories with a simple click as much as adding a del.icio.us bookmark. As some of you might have noticed, our RSS feed is back to GeoRSS and Google Maps can be shown on a story's page. Not everything works flawlessly yet, but we're working on it. You can sure share your feature requests! I also update the main page poll to ask you about which main scale you work with. The previous poll about projects revealed most users have many projects (39%) and are missing time (18%) or funding (18%). Only 7% feel they work on the best geospatial projects. You might also expect few news items until Friday, since I'll be attending the Geomatics 2006 conference. Don't worry, we'll cover any significant story to make sure you didn't miss anything pertinent.