Mapping Hacks

166

|

Chapter 4, Mapping (on) the Web

#35 Search Local, Find Global

HACK

Geolocating web content is an especially interesting prospect for search

engines, which will be able to provide targeted directory services to the next

generation of web-capable mobile devices. The “global village” vision

offered by Internet pioneers starts to look like a set of interconnected, tiny

hamlets; a Web that looks more like the world looks.

Some mobile telecom companies want to provide “walled gardens,” leading

the user by the nose through a set of carefully vetted, sponsored Points of

Interest. Spatial web search could also lead to balkanization of the Web into

islands. MSN’s new web search, in beta as of writing, provides a “Find Near

Me” option that is only available to users connecting to their site via an

Internet address in the United States. Non-U.S. users can’t look at or experi-

ment with, the spatial search options. This technique, known as IP

geolocation, can roughly approximate the location of a user in a country,

because “blocks” of addresses are loosely allocated on a country-by-country

basis. IP geolocation was notoriously used to stop non-U.S. users from

accessing http://www.georgewbush.com/ in the run-up to the 2004 presiden-

tial elections.

Yoking what you can see on the Web to where you’re looking at it from

leads to no two people ever having quite the same view of the Internet. Per-

haps this helps ...