Back in December I posted about "
Core Blogs, Aggregators and Blog Content Stealing." In it I tried to rationalize how people, including myself, use different sorts of blogs. I want to update that as my habits suggest that I've changed my tune.
I wrote: "I read lots of GIS blogs. I don't spend much time reading the aggregators (SlashGeo/Planet Geospatial) because I've already culled out the best blogs for me and don't need their help." Well, that's no longer true. I do need Planet Geospatial's help. In fact, I use it as a key resource in part to be sure I don't repeat what others have already covered.
A side note: I have to give the GIS blogging community a lot of credit; it does a great job on not simply re-reporting on content from others. There are a few now and then, but the repeaters are fewer and fewer all the time. I solved this with our "other points" list of posts on the right hand side of our main page. Those are the other posts that I think are worthy of your attention. Said another way: That's stuff I'd have written about, if I found it first. I update the list daily.
The other reason Planet Geospatial is important hit me just this week courtesy of
David Pogue and his interview with Anna Marie Cox formerly author of the Wonkette blog. She's not a tech blogger, but highlights how, at least in the past, a blogger needed to have a personality. That's changing, she says.
And so I think that we’re probably going to see that the individual, strong-personality blog is not going to be at the forefront, because group blogs are going to be able to do what people expect of blogs better [rapid update].
And, if you look at Planet Geospatial, that's what we have - a group blog created from lots of individual blogs. The only difference, and this is where SlashGeo hopes to help out, is putting all the comments in one place.
The other part of the story, of course, is that we bloggers have different interests, different sources and different time zones. That means there is stuff on Planet Geospatial I'd never find simply because I don't travel in the same circles as say Sean Gilles. And, I love that when I get up here on the east coast, the Europeans have all new stuff for me to read.
The state of the geospatial blogosphere is sound and we are happy to be a part of it.
I'm quite happy to read this
As for slashgeo, only time will tell if it can become useful to many, or stay useful only to some. You're right, the site tries to add value mainly by the comments (for which there aren't that many right now), but also by providing a subjective selection of pertinent geospatial news from various sources. (you probably read this analysis and comments http://slashgeo.slashgeo.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/21/1534218 ?)
I can't blame you for not having much interest in slashgeo right now. You already scan most of the geo-related news daily and you definitely know way more about the industry than our team does
Thanks for DM and APB
Alex
Blogs http://www.spatiallink.org/gistools/discuss/weblogs/
News http://www.spatiallink.org/gistools/discuss/news/
Forums http://www.spatiallink.org/gistools/discuss/pubforum/
WAP http://www.spatiallink.org/gistools/discuss/wap/
Keep it up guys!
--Pi
I'm not sure where you get that data of April, 2nd as the start data of PlanetGS, but I've been surbscribing to PGS since day one in October 2005.
Planet GS is the aggregation hub of the GIS world plain and simple. I'm sure it has much to do with James Fee running it, but everyone I know checks it. The fact that you don't know when it started makes me wonder if Spatiallink is really "with it".
No offense intended, but YIKES!
And nothing is plain and simple about your subjective, need I add arrogant, claim. For our users, we are the hub and on and on...
Also, ours is a team effort- I don't go around plastering the internet with an egomaniacal zeal, selfishly promoting myself or my chosen vendor and attempting to make pennies from ad clicks in the process.
The facts speak for themselves: spatiallink_org links professionals from 14 states and 8 countries, partners with not-for-profit agencies, etc. If you and those you know aren't faintly aware of that, you are not "with it" and/or you don't know enough people and/or you don't appreciate the poly-centric nature of our vast professional world.
Yikes back to you!
Lorriana
PS:
#2.1 Lefty on 2006-08-01 20:04 (Reply)
#3 Anonymous on 2006-08-01 20:09 (Reply)
20:04 and 20:09! Hmm, couldn't wait to agree with yourself?
http://web.archive.org/web/20041010140802/www.spatiallink.org/lifescape/
[!]
Aug 3, 2006
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://planetgs.com/
[Internet Archive doesn't even list newcomers like PlanetGS]
Domain Name:SPATIALLINK.ORG
Created On:17-Dec-2003 19:35:31 UTC
Expiration Date:17-Dec-2014 19:35:31 UTC
http://whois.domaintools.com/spatiallink.org
Domain Name:DIGITALEARTH.ORG
Created On:09-Feb-2002 00:50:03 UTC
Expiration Date:09-Feb-2007 00:50:03 UTC
http://whois.domaintools.com/digitalearth.org
Domain Name:SLASHGEO.ORG
Created On:10-Dec-2005 20:45:15 UTC
Expiration Date:10-Dec-2006 20:45:15 UTC
http://whois.domaintools.com/slashgeo.org
Website Title: Planet Geospatial
Created:2006-04-02
Expires:2007-04-02
http://whois.domaintools.com/planetgs.com
[!]
So James Fee can loop around the village claiming "Aggregating since $whenever", but the fact remains = PlanetGS is around 2 years late.
And while we are on the subject, I think Alexandre Leroux has come in for some unfair criticism lately - I think he is doing a decent job with slashgeo.
Anyway, kindly allow me to reiterate - it is heartening to see the new
comers, slashgeo [2005/12/10th] and planet geospatial [2006/04/02nd],
add unique values to our collective toolset. Thank you all for all your work; please just give credit where it is due.
Regards, Pi
Domain Name:SLASHGISRS.ORG
Created On:05-Feb-2005 01:40:08 UTC
See this story http://slashgisrs.slashgeo.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/22/190201
James wrote a couple months ago that he blocks the Archive.org robot from visiting PlanetGS because he doesn't want it to archive content that is no his own. Check out his robots.txt
http://www.planetgs.com/robots.txt
Spatiallink.org even claims content that is not theirs. Take a look at the copyright down below the "blogs" page. They claim copyright over the material that is on that page.
"Thank you all for all your work; please just give credit where it is due."
Credit for what? Being not noticed at all for the 40 years it has existed? Usually the phrase "Build it and they will come" works, but not in this case.
Honestly James, when you can claim and rightly so to a certain degree, that Archive.org archives snapshots of "what people were doing (with their websites) in the past" (your words), surely WHOIS can also help find that. Try this link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whois). I am sorry to see that you have little idea of how websites are registered- maybe website hosting is not your thing. Anyways, there is little need to "take pride in the fact that a Google search for 'adjusted' results in my blog as the top result" (your words and your need for an ego massage!). Why? Because a more likely reason is the relative number of websites with 'adjusted' either in the name or title.
Given what you reveal about your old-school knowledge of the internet, try being "with it" (your words) and some "spatial readjustment" (my words).
But glad to see you finally agreeing with us and beginning to appreciate the poly-centric "yada yada" (your words): "...there are tons of people who have no clue who the heck I am or even that I have a blog. I might have lots of readers in our little circle, but in the grand scheme of GIS as a whole I'm not even a blip on the screen" (your words).
And to think of it, I didn't even know your blog until last week.
So please get back to this website, away from your spin zone and the comforts of your coterie and please don't hide behind a pseudo name to post your reply. Thanks James Fee AKA Lefty AKA Anonymous AKA
aggregating-since-whenever.
Lorrie
But I don't understand the hostility to James - he's given me ideas for several projects that I've done on my site.
Maybe you're just having a bad day (or week, or whatever).
To cut a bunch of the above comments, no one gives a rats behind who has been aggregating since the dawn of the web. If that is the main argument for who has the better spatial blog, then you need to look a bit deeper.
I have never heard of spatiallink, but I am checking it out; so far PlanetGS serves me better...
If this argument is going to continue, drop the WHOIS domain name registration date, my robot.txt is bigger than yours crap and explain why people should read spatiallink over the other options.
~Matt (not James Fee)
you need to add a professional stats tool on your website instead of this http://www.sitemeter.com/?a=stats&s=s24planetgs and include this to your robots.txt to stop google from archiveng it
user-agent: googlebot
disallow: /
lorrie this is just one messed up thread so don't feed these trolls. if you need to hang out away from them at the esri conference let me know. cheers, abhi