From MACKCE@dshs.wa.gov Mon Aug 28 16:48:53 2000 Received: from mxu1.u.washington.edu (mxu1.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.8]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.05/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id QAA73634 for ; Mon, 28 Aug 2000 16:48:52 -0700 Received: from dshsmsg1.dshs.wa.gov (dshsmsg1.dshs.wa.gov [147.56.131.20]) by mxu1.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.02/8.9.3+UW99.09) with SMTP id QAA10577 for ; Mon, 28 Aug 2000 16:48:52 -0700 Received: FROM dshsmsg1.dshs.wa.gov BY dshsmsg1.dshs.wa.gov ; Mon Aug 28 16:44:02 2000 -0700 Received: by dshsmsg1.dshs.wa.gov with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2652.35) id ; Mon, 28 Aug 2000 16:44:02 -0700 Message-ID: <4B3822B43D03D311A6050000F68ABFE7AAEDAC@dshsbudland.dshs.wa.gov> From: "MACK, Curtis" To: waphgis@u.washington.edu Subject: FW: Map of the empire Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 16:44:26 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2652.35) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Liz sent me this article several months ago. It seems pertinent to the subject. The following related link is loaded with discussions on the topic of displaying the web as a map. Unfortunately, I see no tools offered. http://mappa.mundi.net/map/ Curtis Mack MackCE@dshs.wa.gov Geographic Information Specialist (360) 902-0747 Washington State 47.0356 N by 122.8946 W Dep. of Social & Health Services MS-45204 OB2 14th & Jefferson Research & Data Analysis Olympia, WA 98504-5204 Elizabeth Kohlenberg, Director > -----Original Message----- > From: Kohlenberg, Elizabeth > Sent: Thursday, April 08, 1999 5:10 PM > To: MACK, Curtis; Becker, Linda; Roberts, Christine; McCluskey, Richard > Subject: FW: Map of the empire > > This is interesting! > > -----Original Message----- > From: Frank de Libero [SMTP:dti@wln.com] > Sent: Thursday, April 08, 1999 4:56 PM > To: KABEL, Joe; Kohlenberg, Elizabeth > Subject: Map of the empire > > For the geographers, from today's WSJ: > > Invisible World Wants to Create A Comprehensive Map of the Net > By DAVID BANK Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL > If Yahoo! Inc. is a Yellow Pages for the Internet, Carl Malamud wants to > create its Rand McNally. > To Mr. Malamud, founder of Invisible Worlds Inc., the Web is as vast and > bewildering as most of the physical world was to medieval man. Users have > little understanding of the highways and networks that shape information > flow, and even less insight into the relationships among pieces of > information stored around the globe. > What they need, Mr. Malamud believes, are maps to understand context and > see connections, giving the user a sort of three-dimensional overview of > the information infrastructure. It's an abstract idea, but the tiny > start-up plans to prove the concept with the same nuts-and-bolts data that > first made Mr. Malamud a bit of a celebrity on the Internet. > Bigger, Smarter Database > In 1994, as head of the nonprofit Internet Multicasting Service in > Washington, D.C., Mr. Malamud put the entire text of Securities and > Exchange Commission filings on the Internet. The effort led the government > to make the documents freely available, opening a database dubbed Edgar- > for Electronic Data Gathering Analysis and Retrieval System-to widespread > use. > Hooking up with another Internet pioneer named Marshall Rose, Mr. Malamud > is again diving into the 40 gigabytes of SEC filings to build a bigger, > smarter database. Invisible Worlds, based in Redwood City, Calif., > exploits a new technology called XML, or extensible markup language, to > apply identification tags to individual pieces of information. > These hidden markers identify the key attributes of data. For example, > some Web-based shopping services use XML tags for attributes such as > "model," "price" and "features" to be able to display comparisons of > products available from multiple electronic merchants. > Invisible Worlds has developed software that automatically parses > information such as the SEC data with XML tags, a process Mr. Malamud > calls "skulking." Once in that form, users could search Edgar for, say, > all annual reports from financial-services companies, and ask to see only > the balance sheets from each firm. Such searches within multiple documents > are nearly impossible on the Web. > Just a Start > Instead of a text search, users also could ask to see results presented in > the form of a map showing connections between various financial tables. > "There's lots more you can do with this data and I'm going to prove it," > Mr. Malamud says. > The massive XML database, to be made available next month, is just a > start. With $500,000 in funding from Softbank Technology Ventures, a unit > of Japan's Softbank Corp., the company hopes to create other searchable > maps using Mr. Malmud's metaphors: "Net space," representing the physical > infrastructure of the Internet, such as network routers and fiber-optic > trunk lines; "People space," a kind of super phone book that relates names > with phone numbers, home pages, favorite books, and any other link > individuals deem important; and "Geo space," customized maps of real-world > objects. Mr. Malamud expects people will manually annotate maps with their > own tags to augment the work of the automated skulker software. > Besides creating maps itself, Invisible Worlds is developing the > underlying technical protocols and tools so others can create their own > maps. > "The ultimate vision is a big enough set of spaces that have been mapped > that we become one of those fundamental utilities on the Net, like Yahoo," > he says. > Another way to think about the project is as an effort to give future Web > browsers "up" buttons in addition to today's "forward" and "back" > controls. > Post Office Protocol > "When you wander around on the Web, you would like to be able to get above > it and look around," says David Clark, a senior research scientist at the > Lab for Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and > the chairman of Invisible World's advisory board. "Your browser should be > able to go up or down. When you say, 'up,' you get the map." > Mr. Rose, Malamud's partner, is credited with such early Internet > innovations as the Post Office Protocol that is central to most e-mail > programs. Like Mr. Malamud, Mr. Rose is a veteran of the Internet's early > days, when such basic network infrastructure was developed by ad hoc > collaboration among academics and other researchers. Mr. Malamud was > unsuccessful, however, in three years of trying to raise money for the > Internet Atlas through the nonprofit Internet Multicasting Service before > adopting the for-profit approach. > "More innovation is occurring in start-ups and corporate research labs > than ever because there's capital available for people to build things > that have future use," Mr. Rose says. > Mr. Malamud has been seeking inspiration from everything from the > cosmographic maps of Southeast Asia to the "songlines" of Australian > aborigines. He is particularly fond of a story by the Argentine writer > Jorge Luis Borges, who once wrote of an empire in which cartography > reached such perfection that "the College of Cartographers evolved a Map > of the Empire that was the same scale as the Empire and that coincided > with it point for point." > "The real power is when you are making your own personal map, you can cut > and paste other spaces into the one you are building," Mr. Malamud says. > "These 'spaces' are just ways of defining the existing world." > Copyright c 1999 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. > .