Way out to real-time data in today’s Geo-Social media, is a universal open database for places and people

Today’s modern society has become so fast that data users must be extremely cautious on relevance and authenticity. Take for instance tracking movement of a person from one country to another during the sad era of Ebola. It would be unwise to ignore social media for critical information about the last update the person did and the location registered by the social app. But social media alone cannot offer the much needed information because it isn’t based on real-time localized information.

We have seen substantial growth of start-ups building apps for all type of uses. This effort combined with the power of the ever improving mobile device creates an environment of limitless possibilities. While one media might not be completely efficient in offering real time data, integration of several platforms will offer almost real-time results that can be crucial. But building such systems is complex because of the various scopes and contextual challenges such as social and location (geographical) issues.

Let's emphasize on location. One challenge is getting accurate real-time information around locations. Creeping the web in real-time is difficult, especially if you’re exploring millions of chunks of data. It requires a distributed system that is complex. Another ultimate challenge is the process of taking a location information and figuring out what actual locations it mentions or what locations it’s about. That requires developers to linguistically understand an entity and what is a pronoun and what isn’t a pronoun. Finally is to build a “places” taxonomy that can match against queries. This bit is more useful when humans contribute directly to feeding the system with the accurate information. Deliberate in-direct participation of people in developing this data is through workplace systems that capture locations and ultimately this data is safely shared (without sharing any private bio data that breach privacy).

The initiative by Google and it’s partners to create a database of open places could solve the mystery of “places” taxonomy. At least if we all make a bold move in building systems that contribute and utilize central global open database where names and places are accurately spelt and updated.

The issue of location and geo-tagging will ultimately get a social touch when we connect and contribute to the data. Unfortunately, system owners (organizations) are afraid of imaginary threats when they are approached to consume open data. Imaginary because there is no risk in standardization. This is a big deal because it breaks consistency when for instance my software system is meant to shorten Nairobi to NRB while the Airport system is shortening the same to NBI. Same applies to names of people where I can chose to be Allan or Alan and no other variant otherwise it's a spelling error. Communication is broken down in this context.

Solution lies in use of an open database where edits made by those who notice them are vetted for accuracy by the end users. This is also important in other real-time data such as change of business location demolition of a land mark and so forth.