Geolocation Serving SociologistsAdvancing SociologyPromoting Sociology to Society Geolocation

Geolocation Serving Sociologists | Advancing Sociology | Promoting Sociology to Society

Geolocation • Determining your geographic position of a person, place or thing. – In the internet era, this involves computers, routers, tablets, smartphones and GPS based systems Serving Sociologists | Advancing Sociology | Promoting Sociology to Society

How Geolocation is Determined • GPS (common in smartphones) • IP Address (can me a little off as the location returned could be a proxy server, firewall, etc) • Wi. Fi – positions uses one or more Wifi access points to triangulate your location • Cell Phone – older models may use cell phone towers Serving Sociologists | Advancing Sociology | Promoting Sociology to Society

Geocoding • Geocoding – converting addresses into geocordinates • Reverse Geocoding – getting an address from geocoordinates Serving Sociologists | Advancing Sociology | Promoting Sociology to Society

Mobile Applications • Yelp was first on the scene in 2004. – First social media to connect businesses with people • Google Latitude – Uses google maps to find your friends (if they allow it) • Checkins (Gowalla, Foursquare, Facebook Places) Serving Sociologists | Advancing Sociology | Promoting Sociology to Society

Things you can do with Geolocation • Geomarketing – using an ip address to customize results – Google for searches – Facebook for advertising – Text messaging to deliver store advertisements when you are out driving • Crowdsourcing – Yelp puts tips and reviews in database, marketing depts shape advertisements around this Serving Sociologists | Advancing Sociology | Promoting Sociology to Society

Automatic Checkins s • Checking-in is expected to become automatic in the future – May get a warning on your phone Serving Sociologists | Advancing Sociology | Promoting Sociology to Society

Geotagging • Adding geospatial metadata to photographs, videos, text messages, tweets and webpages – Twitter – Flickr Serving Sociologists | Advancing Sociology | Promoting Sociology to Society

Geo-applications • Safety-tracking for children – Devices to monitor your child’s location • Taxi-service – Send your location to a taxi-service & they send the nearest available taxi Serving Sociologists | Advancing Sociology | Promoting Sociology to Society

Geolocation Examples • Map of recent earthquakes around the world. • Crisis in Darfur • Appalachian Mountaintop Removal Tour • Google Moon • Google Mars Serving Sociologists | Advancing Sociology | Promoting Sociology to Society

Privacy • Social media companies must answer questions like: should a users location be made private like a bank account • How do you share data between users • Concept of privacy different for those born after 1990 • Geotagging is a concern as it can make private information (your home address public) Serving Sociologists | Advancing Sociology | Promoting Sociology to Society

You can make a map! • Google Fusion Tables • Google My. Places Serving Sociologists | Advancing Sociology | Promoting Sociology to Society