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All Points Blog

Ask.com Moves to Virtual Earth

Posted: July 2nd, 2008, 3:57pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

Search Engine Land reports that Ask.com has dropped its homegrown mapping app (built on deCarta, if memory serves) and switched to Microsoft Virtual Earth. Story and pics at Virtual Earth, Evangelist blog.
EC OK on Nokia Purchasing NAVTEQ

Posted: July 2nd, 2008, 1:53pm CEST

Tags: Geospatial business

The deal should close in five days.

- press release
Starbucks Closing Stores; Some too close together

Posted: July 2nd, 2008, 1:35pm CEST

Tags: Location Intelligence

You likely heard the news about a 12,000 person reduction in employees and the closing of some 600 stores. (Seattle Times) Florida and California will be most impacted; they've been hard hit by the economy and credit crisis. Also, "About 200 of those will be directly operated by Starbucks, with the rest managed by other companies like bookstores and airport concession firms."

I try to make sense of the "too close together" aspect of this story from the land of Dunkin Donuts. Here in my city we hold a large 4 mile race on Thanksgiving. The course passes four Dunkin Donuts and that's far from all the ones we have! We have, to my knowledge, just two Starbucks. Dunkin Donuts, either by design or luck, doesn't seem to have the cannibalism problem. I have a hunch about that.

It's my sense that Dunkin Donuts is far more about "take out." The stores here are notoriously near bus stops and many have parking lots of key commuting routes. Besides, when was the last time you spent much time in a Dunkin Donuts? Starbucks, while it does have a good take out business (which is why I find the closing airport Starbucks odd), is about that mythical third place, the one that's not home or work. It's business is centered around "hanging out in a nice place." Dunkin Donuts surely is not (our local stores often have a sign stating how long patrons may stay - typically 20-30 minutes). If that's all true, it seems you'd travel less for a take out coffee/donut, than for a "sit and enjoy" environment of Starbucks. It seems Starbucks was not thinking that way and taking advantage of human behavior.
ACLU and EFF Sue DOJ for info on cell tracking

Posted: July 2nd, 2008, 1:27pm CEST

Tags: Tracking

Matt Richtel notes in the New York Times Bits blog that the suit was filed on Tuesday. Part of the impetus was a story he wrote in 2005 that noted that it appeared the government was doing such tracking without "probable cause" making courts uneasy. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to gain information on how and how often the government tracked cell users. The Department of Justice did not provide an answer, which prompted the joint ACLU/Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) suit.
Adobe Provides Tools to Make Flash Findable: Implications for Geo?

Posted: July 2nd, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

" Adobe is providing optimized Adobe® Flash® Player technology to Google and Yahoo! to enhance search engine indexing of the Flash file format (SWF) and uncover information that is currently undiscoverable by search engines. This will provide more relevant automatic search rankings of the millions of RIAs and other dynamic content that run in Adobe Flash Player. Moving forward, RIA developers and rich Web content producers wont need to amend existing and future content to make it searchable they can now be confident it can be found by users around the globe."

I'm going to suggest that since more and more mapping apps are using Flash, this move may help the findability of geoapps, if not geodata.

- Press Release

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Ask.com Moves to Virtual Earth

Posted: July 2nd, 2008, 3:57pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

EC OK on Nokia Purchasing NAVTEQ

Posted: July 2nd, 2008, 1:53pm CEST

Tags: Geospatial business

Starbucks Closing Stores; Some too close together

Posted: July 2nd, 2008, 1:35pm CEST

Tags: Location Intelligence

ACLU and EFF Sue DOJ for info on cell tracking

Posted: July 2nd, 2008, 1:27pm CEST

Tags: Tracking

Adobe Provides Tools to Make Flash Findable: Implications for Geo?

Posted: July 2nd, 2008, 1:00pm CEST