While I was doing a presentation at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology it dawned on me, right in the middle of a discussion about meta-data, that the best way to understand the significance of locative media, be it via social networks, journalism or commercial directories, can be summed up in the following manner: before, we would use maps filled with meta-data to navigate the physical world; in the future, we will use the physical world filled with locative markers to navigate maps and content.

Since ancient times cartographers have used maps to tell stories – where the Leviathan was situated roughly; where dragons should be avoided and so on. The primary purpose of a map, however was to make the physical world navigable and maps still play that role today. There is also something we can learn from the history of cartography and navigation – something still eludes us and probably will for a while. Historically latitude was always easy to calculate, but longitude took a few centuries longer to measure accurately, and was eventually achieved by keeping two clocks, the one set to the timezone of the departure and one set to the local time. By comparing the difference the longitude could be calculated. Of course preceding this was the discovery that the world was not flat etc.

We’re in a similar situation now when it comes to locative journalism, social media and content. The easy part is getting maps and finding out where you are. The hard part is figuring out what to do with that information and what its real significance in society is going to be. Clearly in the analogue world proximity is a major factor in determining relevance. A barber near my house is more relevant than one in Seville, sort of.

Before I started working on the Grid I had given location very little thought, except perhaps what could be done by mashing Google maps with news stories. The fact that everyone will be able to request content that is filtered by their immediate location was not something that was top of mind and I’m sure this is the case for most people building publishing systems. Now I have no doubt that this technology is going to have a major impact on publishing because it offers a way to filter through all the noise out there.

Two weeks ago I listened to Stafford Masie talk about the work Google is doing on their maps and I think they are onto something that will eclipse the paradigm-shifting work they did when they launched AdSense. Keep in mind that a map is not the only way to access locative content, it will be incorporated into search, into directories, into personalised news services, into social networks and almost any system where it makes sense for the first view of content to be that which immediately surrounds you.

This creates all sorts of other questions like: what is the most appropriate personal radius for locative relevance? When do you show a wider radius rather than a narrow one? What does it mean when these personal areas intersect?

Over the next year we’re going to be doing some innovative work on the Grid that might offer an example of how these questions can be answered, as will Google and many other social media projects that are brewing internationally.