INTODUCTION TO GEO HACKING

PRAJWAL BS, OPENHACKDAY, BANGALORE 30th MARCH OF 2011

LOCATION AWARENESS FOR A BETTER LIVING!

•  Navigation

•  Surveying

•  Business process

•  Warehouse and routing

•  Consumer

WHAT YAHOO OFFERS

Placefinder

YQL Geo and WOEIDs

Placemaker

Other location-centric data   Locals, Traffic, Maps & Weather.

LOCATION IS NOT JUST (LAT,LON)

•  Introducing WOEIDs

•  Location as a complex object

•  And sometimes it is hidden

*WOEID–WhereOnEarthID.

h0p://developer.yahoo.com/geo/geoplanet/guide/concepts.html#woeids

CONTEXTS FOR A LOCATION

•  Job opportunities

•  Deals

•  News portal

•  Matrimonial Advertisements

GEO HACKING

•  GOOD NEWS! - Not hard to do.

•  YQL as always has a solution to most geo problems.

REQUIREMENTS

•  Finding current location.

•  Turning a location into a place.

•  Finding geographical hierarchy.

•  Geo-tagging information.

•  Displaying geo information.

THE CREEPY WAY – IP SNIFFING

IP SNIFFING

EXAMPLE

h0p://isithackday.com/hacks/geo/js‐locaDon.html

NON CREEPY AND MORE ACCURATE W3C GEOLOCATION API

EXAMPLE

USERS SOCIAL PRESENCE

•  Get location information from users social presence.

•  FireEagle, Twitter, Yahoo, Brightkite, Facebook, Foursquare, Gowalla etc.

LOCATION BROKERAGE - FIREEAGLE

FIREEAGLE – API’S

REQUIREMENTS

•  Finding current location.

•  Turning a location into a place.

•  Finding geographical hierarchy.

•  Geo-tagging information.

•  Displaying geo information.

GEOCODING AND REVERSE-GEOCODING

converting street addresses or place names into geographic coordinates

(and vice versa).

h0p://developer.yahoo.com/yql/console/#h=desc%20geo.placefinder

PLACEFINDER

PLACEFINDER RESULT

h0p://developer.yahoo.com/geo/placefinder/

REQUIREMENTS

•  Finding current location.

•  Turning a location into a place.

•  Finding geographical hierarchy.

•  Geo-tagging information.

•  Displaying geo information.

YQL GEO.PLACES.*

•  geo.places.ancestors

•  geo.places.belongtos

•  geo.places.children

•  geo.places.common

•  geo.places.descendants

•  geo.places.neighbors

•  geo.places.parent

•  geo.places.siblings

GEO-PLANET EXPLORER

h0p://isithackday.com/geoplanet‐explorer/geodrilldown.php

REQUIREMENTS

•  Finding current location.

•  Turning a location into a place.

•  Finding geographical hierarchy.

•  Geo-tagging information.

•  Displaying geo information.

PLACEMAKER

Takes text/web URL and extracts the geographical information from it.

SELECT * FROM geo.placemaker WHERE documentContent = "Hey, I am in bangalore now. Will visit mumbai and delhi before going back to sunnyvale" AND documentType="text/plain"

EXAMPLES

SELECT * FROM geo.placemaker WHERE documentURL = "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country" AND documentType="text/html”

SELECT * FROM geo.placemaker WHERE documentURL = "http://timesofindia.feedsportal.com/c/33039/f/533917/index.rss" AND documentType="text/rss"

h0p://developer.yahoo.com/geo/placemaker/

REQUIREMENTS

•  Finding current location.

•  Turning a location into a place.

•  Finding geographical hierarchy.

•  Geo-tagging information.

•  Displaying geo information.

PLOT LAT/LON ON YAHOO MAPS!

USEFUL LINKS

http://isithackday.com/hacks/geo/

http://isithackday.com/geoplanet-explorer/

http://isithackday.com/hacks/geo/yql-geo-library/

http://www.hostip.info/

LETS LOCATE YOUR HACK!

THANKS!!

If you throw a guy on Foursquare and a guy on Twitter off a cliff, which one would hit the ground first?

The guy on Twitter. The guy on Foursquare would have to stop halfway down to check in!

PRAJWAL BS Twitter - @prajwalbs Slideshare - http://www.slideshare.net/prajwalbs Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/prajwalbs