August 30, 2006

gombe chimpanzee geoblog

jane-goodall-geoblog.jpg

The Jane Goodall Institute has a Google Earth-based geoblog. It's a pretty neat hack and visually quite spectacular, although I'm not sure the use model is quite right. Check it out: go to the Gombe Chimpanzee Blog, and follow the links in each placeholder post to the actual blog entries on Earth. Very nice contextual presentation, the aerial imagery really adds significantly to the writing. I just wish the posts had "next" and "previous" links so you could stay in Earth instead of using the chimp blog as a remote control. That shouldn't be hard, right? Just put a couple of .kmz links in?

Are there other Earth-based geoblogs out there?

Posted by Gene at August 30, 2006 10:35 AM | TrackBack
Comments

Hey Fred,
That next idea has been a popular one today, and one that we are planning to execute.

You can however read all of the posts without ever opening Firefox or Internet Explorer. in fact you really don't need either of them at all. I never use regular browsers to access it anymore.
The coolest thing about KML is that it acts naturally as a feed – and even includes a refresh rate that you as the author can define. You will find a link to the blogs kml feed halfway down the list of links. (or get it here http://www.janegoodall.org/news/gombe-blog/feed/gcb-feed.kml) If you click on this link you will open the feed which includes up to about 14 posts the top post on the list is the most recent post.

If you “grab” the folder which represents this feed and drag it into your “my places” folder you will basically be subscribing to our feed. and you will be able to see our next post there shortly after we post it. The “my places” folder doesn’t clear out when you close the GE browser so you will have it there as long as you want.

And as far as we know we are the only all GE blog so far

Posted by: Bryce at August 30, 2006 6:13 PM
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