Anything Geospatial

GIS, Maps, Geo and Location Technology by @gletham

Archives for February 29, 2012

Foursquare Uses OpenStreetMap OSM and MapBox Streets For New, Pretty Maps

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Yep, that’s correct, foursquare is now touting OSM as the basemap of choice! Announced today on the official foursquare blog (reserved usually for only BIG news) foursquare seems to think that the OSM maps are pretty and thus will be treating users to the sweet OSM maps that are maintained and updated by the legion of faithful OSM mappers and partners. Apparently the decision goes back a few months to a foursquare hackathon where OSM seemed to get the company’s attention thanks to some clever mashups that were created during the event.

This from Foursquare… Starting today, we’re embracing the OpenStreetMap movement, so all the maps you see when you go to foursquare.com will look a tiny bit different (we think the new ones are really pretty). Other than slightly different colors and buttons, though, foursquare is still the same site you know and love.

According to the post, foursquare reached out to MapBox for some help in generating what they call “pretty maps” which were made using OSM data. It seems a partnership was struck and now the MapBox Streets product is now what’s respondible for all the foursquare maps. via MApBox… MapBox Streets is a beautiful alternative to Google Maps powered by high-quality open data from OpenStreetMap, available now from MapBox.

Note, just this week MapBox Streets was announced on their blog – see details in this post

OSM basemap displayed on a venue map via foursquare.com

You have to expect that perhaps down the road foursquare will be offering special rewards, badges etc… for OSM mappers who help update the maps via foursquare… seems like a good fit to me and a great way to grow the crowd. See more details in this blog post on the foursquare blog

GIS Analyst – Laid Back Career #4 With An Average Salary of $79+K

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Ok, let me just start by saying NO, I don’t normally read anything on Yahoo!, however, a link to this article made me click for more info! In a piece titled Laid Back Careers on a Yahoo! EDU web resource there appears a short list of what they define as laid back careers. According to the findings they use the term laid-back to mean low stress. So I guess you GIS techs are happy and nice and relaxed.. oh, and according to their stats you all seem to be doing very well financially as well, raking in an average salary of  $79,370 per year!

From the research… Laid-back feature: Although this job could potentially be high-stress – it isn’t an everyday norm. A typical low-stress assignment might include suggesting ideal locations for stores or forecasting flood zones, notes the survey.

Hopefully you are laid back and stress-free as it is very good for your heart and well being…  See the list of Laid back careers HERE

Filed Under: job

Where Did You Wear it? Mapping Condom Use With foursquare-like checkin

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The Atlantic Wire has an interesting article that looks at social checkin, but not any use of the foursquare-like checkin rather, they look at  an effort by a Condom maker to use QR codes on wrappers that grab the location and share on a map. The result is a map generated of condom use locations! From the article…  Users can add information (anonymously, via pull-down box options) about the players involved, what “the safe sex was” like, and why they use condoms; they can also upload that information to their Twitter and Facebook accounts. Participants are urged “Sex that safe, should be shared,” which is a great message… Sort of? Source: Atlantic Wire

Users of condoms can answer “Where Did You Wear it?” and get on the map at http://www.wheredidyouwearit.com/check-in 

The survey asks where did you wear it, how was the sex, what room were you in, your age, your gender, why you wore a condom, and your relationship status

 

Facebook Timeline Feature Comes to Pages – A Preview of our GISuser Page

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Unless you happen to be the owner or administrator of a facebook Page – for a company or brand, then you likely wouldn’t even know that today facebook has finally rolled out the timeline feature for pages. For all purpose this simply means that the brand pages that you visit, like our own GISuser page, will now appear pretty much like your own timeline does. For the administrator it adds a little more functionality and redesign, most noteworthy, a new Admin panel that toggles on/off at the top of the page where you can access updates, announcements, messages, and other Admin related items. Interesting to see that there’s absolutely nothing posted about this new update on the facebook blog!

The timeline page feature means the new look will be viewable by the admins for an initial time period of a week and then will be open to all – you should start seeing our GISuser facevook page in timeline mode next week. See http://www.facebook.com/gisusers and please give us a like ;0)

http://www.facebook.com/gisusers
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