[georss] RE: GeoRSS - Tech Terms Baffle Most U.S. Adults: Poll

Mon May 8 13:37:01 EDT 2006

I am sure other people's experiences will vary, but if the discussion is
about showcasing the virtues of RSS (in general) and GeoRSS (in particular)
then I'll share my thoughts as to why that's probably going to be a little
bit challenging.

RSS isn't meant for human eyes directly. It requires some amount of
filtering. I only started using RSS feeds (for news data) within the past
year, having known what it was and what greatness it had potential for long
before I actually started using subscribing to any. For me it was finding
the right aggregator that did a good job presenting the specific cases of
RSS data that I was interested in.

I have started to introduce RSS (in general) to other people in the same
fashion that I picked up on it. I use protopage.com as my aggregator so that
I can be anywhere and still have all of my feeds easily accessed. protopage
isn't really set up to handle more specific cases of RSS feeds, like GeoRSS,
which is probably where mashups work best for demonstration.

So, my suggestion for explaining RSS (in general) would be something like
protopage. What's great is you can set up your own page and make it public,
give people the link, and they can see your set up and how you can more
efficiently get your daily dose.

In fact, here's my example:
http://www.protopage.com/teeheehee

Something like this doesn't work well with GeoRSS, unless as a human you can
read and understand coordinates (Ok if you can do that you're not a great
example of the general public!)

Really you'd really need a mashup for demonstrating anything more concrete
than a newsfeed. In my mind I think a good example would be something that
shows the content of the GeoRSS, and any other data it incorporates, in the
raw somewhere on the page sort of in a separate space like a 'training' or
'tutorial' type setup, along with the final rendered product (a map with
points, lines, etc.) at the bottom of the page.

That said, does any such training/tutorial type of setup exist? Some place
where you can see the raw data get merged and transformed into something
pretty?

Does this help? :-)

:danKissam

On 5/8/06, Andrew Turner <georss at highearthorbit.com> wrote:
>
> This is definitely a problem I've found when talking to even tech-savvy
> people (programmers, engineers) that aren't up-to-date on web technology.
> I've been trying to find a single way to convey the notion of RSS. While it
> is simple in the end, the idea of a "feed" is somewhat difficult to see the
> benefit of to someone that doesn't currently read 10+ websites or is trying
> to 'mash-together' data.
>
> Even at our company, I've tried to introduce "App-casting" for providing
> software update information to our customers. The mgmt sees it as "something
> neat", but not really necessary to spend time or resources on at this point
> since our customers aren't asking for it.
>
> Anyone have a good 'example' they give to people, both tech and non-tech,
> when describing what RSS and GeoRSS is?
>
> Andrew
>
> On 5/8/06, Carl Reed OGC Account <creed at opengeospatial.org> wrote:
>
> >  *Education and marketing will be critical in having more geo folks
> understand the power of GeoRSS. When I presented a month ago to an audience
> of 200+ GIS professionals, I asked how many had heard of RSS - two hands
> went up!*
> *
> Carl
>
> *  *Tech Terms Baffle Most U.S. Adults: Poll
>
> **The latest tech buzzwords, such as RSS and VoIP, are little more than
> gobbledygook to more than half of American adults.
>
> **By **Laurie Sullivan* <lsulliva at cmp.com>*
> **TechWeb.com *<http://www.techweb.com/;jsessionid=E2WPH4XUD2FDSQSNDBCCKH0CJUMEKJVN>
> *
> May 5, 2006 10:54 AM
> *
>
> Only 43 percent of the U.S. 2,748 adults responding to an online survey
> agree they are in-the-know about the latest tech buzzwords, according to a
> Harris Interactive study<http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/may06/05-02TechBuzzwordsPR.mspx>commissioned for Microsoft Windows Live.
>
> Seventy-seven percent of women say they are not knowledgeable about the
> latest tech buzzwords, compared with 45 percent of men. Although 79 percent
> of U.S. adults are aware of blogs<http://www.techweb.com/encyclopedia/defineterm.jhtml?term=blog&x=6&y=8&_requestid=852427>,
> only 17 percent read them.
>
> One in three, or 32 percent, of U.S. adults say they aren't sure how best
> to describe voice over Internet protocol
> <http://www.techweb.com/encyclopedia/defineterm.jhtml?term=protocol&x=&y=>(VoIP
>
> <http://www.techweb.com/encyclopedia/defineterm.jhtml?term=voip&x=6&y=8&_requestid=852427>).
> *Seventy one percent have never heard of Really Simple Syndication (* *RSS
> *<http://www.techweb.com/encyclopedia/defineterm.jhtml?term=rss&x=6&y=8&_requestid=852427>
> *). *
>
> Forty six percent said they don't know the definition of Internet tagging.
> Tagging is similar to the bookmarks people make on their personal Web
> browsers<http://www.techweb.com/encyclopedia/defineterm.jhtml?term=browser>,
> except that tagged Web pages are stored on the Internet and can be accessed
> from any computer at any time.
>
> The survey data<http://www.techweb.com/encyclopedia/defineterm.jhtml?term=data&x=&y=>was weighted to represent the total
> U.S. adult population on the basis of religion, age within gender,
> education, household income, race/ethnicity and propensity to be online, a
> Microsoft spokeswoman told TechWeb Thursday.
> Carl Reed, PhD
> CTO and Executive Director Specification Program
> OGC
>
> The OGC: Helping the World to Communicate Geographically
>
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> --
> Andrew Turner
> ajturner at highearthorbit.com        42.4266N x 83.4931W
> http://highearthorbit.com              Northville, Michigan, USA
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