GEOSTREAM

Exploiting User-Generated Geospatial Content Streams

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'With the proliferation of the Internet as the primary medium for data publishing and information exchange, we have seen an explosion in the amount of online content available on the Web. In addition to professionally-produced material being offered free on the Internet, the public has also been allowed and encouraged to make its content available online to everyone. The increasing popularity of open online communities and social-networking sites, image and video sharing portals, discussion boards, and community wikis has meant a dramatic drop in the barrier-to-entry for casual computer users to generate and upload their content on the Web. The volumes of such User-Generated Content (UGC) are already staggering and constantly growing. In the geospatial context, GeoWeb 2.0 is the geographic embodiment of the Web 2.0 moniker for the next generation Web, i.e., the next generation of geographic information publishing, discovery and use. The objective of CROWDIES is nothing less than to provide means for the channeling of the GeoWeb phenomenon towards the specific needs of the SMEs involved in this project. Specifically, the focus of the project will be on (i) smart data mining and fusion mechanism for User-Generated Geocontent, i.e., to tap into the vast amounts of such content existing on the Web and derive meaningful datasets from it, (ii) tools that support the user in the authoring of such data, i.e., based on a specific SME needs, create Web-based geospatial content authoring tools that allow the inclusion of as many users as possible to create content, and (iii) a means to publish such content and provide related services on the Web as well as on mobile devices. The latter case will lead to the creation of live mobile guides, in which users will create the live content shared with a larger community. Overall, GEOSTREAM will provide the participating SMEs with the tools to be able to turn the oncoming geospatial data tsunami into a compelling business advantage.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

A new way of gathering valuable geo-based data from a variety of sources promises to help smaller businesses become more competitive.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

With the emergence of Web 2.0, academic, business and social spheres are exchanging information and networking more than ever before. All users are putting their material online, be it professionally produced, academic, artistic or even personal, creating a tsunami of geospatial data. From technological studies to social trends, this information can be put to good use by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). However, the relevant data must be efficiently assessed and processed, a process that could prove very challenging.

Such information gathering could be enhanced through Geospatial Web or Geoweb applications, which combine maps and pictures to connect users with other network locations and in a variety of ways. Against this backdrop, the EU-funded project 'Exploiting user-generated geospatial content streams' (http://geocontentstream.eu/ (GEOSTREAM)) studied how to exploit the Geoweb phenomenon to the benefit of SMEs.

Specifically, the project focused on developing smart data mining and fusion mechanisms for user-generated content, as well as tools that support the user to authorise such data. It also examined ways to publish the content and provide related services, such as through web and mobile applications.

To achieve its aims the project team outlined indicative use cases and identified data sources (e.g. Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap) from which user-generated geospatial content can be harvested and exploited. It also documented sites for photos, events and text messaging in order to retrieve relevant data. After the data collection process was completed, the project team formulated solutions to integrate and mine relevant information while removing duplicates and clustering entities by type, category and proximity.

Additional work involved considering intellectual property rights issues, design of the authoring tools, and development of web/mobile computing frameworks. The project's results comprise algorithms, software tools and libraries under a complete framework for SMEs to exploit user-contributed geocontent. Thanks to this initiative, the Web's power as an information gateway will be enhanced to make European SMEs more competitive in a global market.