More than any marketing leaflet, the Google/ESRI Where 2008 presentation made me curious about the potential of the upcoming ArcGIS Server release.
I find the example shown of the fires in California, where students started locating and pinpointing new fire outbreaks in Google My Maps, very interesting. In the field of spatial planning, stakeholder participation is often a crucial part. Since most projects deal with spatial impacts, using maps and plans is just natural to transport information. Enabling feedback processes directly via easy-to-use map interfaces like Google Maps or Microsoft Virtual Earth could support communication strategies very well I think.
The thing is, our clients, partners and most stakeholders aren’t GIS power users. They are not very familiar with desktop GIS and, for obvious reasons, use map server interfaces only when they are forced to (the “Captive” user base). Anything what helps increasing user experience on interactive maps is just a huge step forward.
Arc2Earth is handy for quick & easy interactive map publishing via Google Maps/Virtual Earth or KML, but the potential of having feedback collected, (geo)processed and instantly returned by a server leaves room for some really great project ideas and use cases.
I guess first I’ll have a look at the GeoServer project and see what I can accomplish with the Open Geo-Stack, before bothering our local ESRI sales people.
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