Michael Jones on GeoRSS
In this recent interview with Michael Jones at GCN, he was asked his opinion on GeoRSS, and he’s positive, but unfortunately gives some wrong information.
JONES: I think GeoRSS is fabulous. We’re totally supportive of that. The only issue — and it’s not a problem — is that RSS is a very simple mechanism. It says here’s a fact and there’s a Web page that holds the information about that. It’s not the actual page itself. It doesn’t really have enough information to, say, draw a line around the toxic spill. You can imagine the questions that a program like Google Earth is going to need answered to draw the scene properly. We support GeoRSS and support KML, but we’d like a richer discourse, like a word processor where you could change the font.
GeoRSS supports four geometries: points, lines, polygons, boxes. It is most definitely possible to describe a toxic spill area in GeoRSS (or more summer-positively, a pretty field of wild berries).
The question about GeoRSS vs KML is a more subtle one. Yes, GeoRSS aims for simplicity, and KML allows richer descriptions. But really, it doesn’t matter to the GeoWeb; as long as the information is out there in a machine readable format, the GeoWeb is enriched. But certainly there are cases when GeoRSS or KML is more appropriate, and it depends on the publisher and the purpose.
Andrew has some thoughts on how GeoRSS and KML could work together. He simply sums it up as HTML : RSS :: KML : GeoRSS, which seems like a useful departure point for discussion.