geo URI: the way forward?
What the hell is a URI you say? Well if you just clicked on that link, you will have seen that a URI is the underlying protocol behind a hyperlink that generates a network request when you click on it. So if you want to go to this webpage you will see that the protocol is “http”. There are many familiar ones; mailto: and ftp: for example.
Well the geo:URI scheme suggests taking hyperlinks spatial thus allowing you to divorce the content (i.e. location) from the way it is viewed (e.g. Google maps). It has been submitted to the IETF as a draft ultimately with the aim of it becoming a RFC specification.
Part of me likes this proposal as it elevates the importance of spatial information and should make indexing “space” for search engines easier. Whether it becomes implemented depends largely upon…. Microsoft and we know what they are like for standards. Anyway, the geo:URI people have produced a Firefox extension which handles geo URIs (using Google maps by default) so you can now go here.