[GSDI Technical] Google/ESRI announcement in plain English

[Kate Lance]

http://apb.directionsmag.com/archives/4293-GoogleESRI-Announcement-in-Plain-English.html
Google/ESRI announcement in plain English
The announcements out of Where 2.0 from John Hanke of Google and Jack Dangermond regarding integrating neogeography with professional GIS (perhaps not the best terms, but I'm confident readers understand) are quite a lot to digest. (Video available here, http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2008/05/where-20-video-googleesri-keyn.html ) But that's ok, both companies are resetting their visions with regard to the other, to data and to services and it's certainly time for that.
Here's the substance of the relevant announcements teased out of coverage from Where 2.0, where the two geotechnologists shared the stage yesterday.
ArcGIS Server 9.3 (available in about 4 weeks, per Dangermond) will make its metadata service "scrapable" into KML and thus findable via Google's geographic search (once known as KML search). Further, ArcGIS Server will be able to publish not only that data as streaming KML (and GeoRSS) but also related services. Dangermond showed finding data from a Portland, Oregon service, visualizing it and then performing analysis, all from Google Earth. Said another way, all data and services served by ArcGIS Server could potentially be findable and usable in any Google mashup. Further, the resultant KML can be used in app that supports the OGC standard.
- ESRI has enhanced the API for ArcGIS Server 9.3 (JavaScript/Flash) to make it more conducive to plugging into other Web mapping properties in mashups.
- Google is making its geographic search available in its various APIs. To date it was only available via Google Maps and Google Earth applications. Now any Google developers will be able to do "local search" on explicitly tagged data (KML built via MyMaps or 3rd party apps like Platial and Flckr or your GIS!). 
This is a huge step forward for geography (neo, paleo, and all the rest). It does indeed bring the hidden data and emerging Web services from the huge ESRI community out into the light of day. 


      
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