11:30 AMDiscussant:Michael F. Goodchild - University of California - Santa Barbara
Discussant(s): Michael F. Goodchild - University of California - Santa Barbara Session Description: The dramatic rise of Web2.0 applications and practices have facilitated the creativity and voluntary collaboration of masses of Internet users, e.g., wikis, folksonomies, mash-ups, tagging, social networking, etc.. Of particular interest to Geographers are the evolving forms, functions and scope of spatial referenced information such as local news, reviews, commentaries, recommendations, photographs and maps. Perhaps the highest profile example is GoogleMaps which allows for user generated placemarks and geotagged images, ground-truthing, spatial reviews, etc. and is changing the amount and granularity of information readily available about vernacular places. But widespread user generated data and notations need not translate into valuable knowledge nor is this process neutrally distributed across all places or among all peoples. In short, this session explores where, by whom, about what and how the introduction of Web2.0 applications is producing knowledge about places.
