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geosearch.metacarta.com
MetaCarta Geosearch News: A good start for a universal geo-interface for news. |
Once again news organizations will be looking over their shoulder -- this time at
MetaCarta's Geosearch News service, which
launched Mar. 24. (More about this at
Journalism.co.uk.)
The more I play with this service, the better I like it.
The red page icons on the opening page are something of a red herring. They're just the main headlines. A search for "Birmingham" brings up a whole lot more from my home town -- and interestingly, not Birmingham, Alabama, meaning the site has worked out that I'm in the U.K.
More interestingly, a keyword search provides a global picture of what's going on with, say news on the environment. How else would I have discovered a story about logging in Indonesia?
You can combine places with keywords, and change the date range of your search (the default is last 24 hours).
There's a lot of room for serendipity here, but a few weaknesses. Most obvious is lack of RSS feeds or the ability to bookmark. Right now, if you want to follow a place or topic through this service, you'll have to keep checking the site and, worse, repeat your search. A lot of extra work.
Secondly, its current sources are limited to Reuters, AP, and Guardian.co.uk. News organizations should be helping to make their content more map-friendly to get in on this service.
Related to this, so far locations are currently quite generic on this service -- apparently based on text recognition. Imagine what MetaCarta could do if it tapped into geotagged stories from local newspapers such as those of Archant?
Hi Paul, I think you missed some of the key...
