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Thursday, August 30, 2012
Validating Land Cover Datasets with Geo-Wiki.org
This guest post is by Dr. Steffen Fritz, and Ian McCallum, researchers for the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, an international research organization that conducts policy-oriented research on global problems.
During the last decade, scientists have created several global land cover datasets. Comparison studies show that there are large spatial discrepancies between these products. One reason for these discrepancies is the lack of sufficient ground data for developing and validating these products. To address this issue, we have created the crowdsourcing tool Geo-Wiki.org, a web application using the Google Earth API and Google Earth plug-in. We chose Google Earth largely because of Google Earth’s navigation functionalities, including the ability to adjust the globe’s tilt and see the structure of the Earth’s surface, a significant advantage in recognizing land cover.
In a nutshell, volunteers can:
- view disagreement maps derived from three recent global land cover datasets
- select among available high resolution images as well as upload or view geo-tagged pictures (e.g. http://confluence.org), and
- determine which land cover type is found on the ground and decide which dataset is correct.
We record the results in a spatial database.
Geo-Wiki.org adds data to Google Earth in many ways. A MapServer provides raster data that are overlaid above Google Earth imagery using KmlGroundOverlays. Vector data such as current pixel outlines are generated with JavaScript by creating and adding place marks with custom styles. Point data such as members or confluence points are loaded asynchronously as KML and simply added to Google Earth.
One of the main challenges we faced developing Geo-Wiki.org was the rapid handling of the large global datasets we wanted to visualize. To solve this, we chose the open source PostgreSQL relational database with a PostGIS extension to allow for spatial queries. The database stores the user details, user validations and the pixel polygons of the three global land cover data sets. Although the global land cover maps can be viewed as a semi-transparent layer on Google Earth, the bounding coordinates of each pixel are stored in the database. This representation was chosen in order to quickly retrieve the outlines of the pixels and their attributes at any given point on the Earth’s land surface.
In addition to the Google Earth API, Geo-Wiki.org uses the following technologies: Apache2 web server, PHP 5.2, MapServer, GeoServer, GDAL/OGR, PostgreSQL+PostGIS, JavaScript/AJAX.
We have recently launched a Geo-Wiki.org competition to raise awareness of the tool and to encourage community involvement in environmental monitoring.
How One Online Food Retailer Increased E-commerce Sales By 70% In Key Regions
LaTienda is an award-winning, family-owned business supporting artisanal firms in Spain. The firm works with small family-run businesses, many of which are dedicated to centuries-old food-making traditions.
With warehouses in Williamsburg, Virginia and Alicante, Spain, the company ships hundreds of thousands of orders throughout the United States, Canada and Europe.
LaTienda’s brand equity is built on its fundamental commitment to the customer experience. They guarantee a positive experience for its customers – quality products delivered in excellent condition, or they will replace or refund the purchase.
Overall, they had been seeing great success with their online orders, though they wanted to continue looking for opportunities to grow sales. To assist with this, they worked with WebStrategies, located nearby in Virginia.
They knew that a key product category in particular required more expensive shipping methods if it was too far from LaTienda’s Virginia warehouse. Their challenge was to understand the impact on sales of varying shipping rates for this subset of products.
LaTienda grouped visitors into two regions: Region A visitors were close enough to the warehouse to always get reasonable shipping costs. Region B visitors were everywhere else, and had to use a more expensive shipping method for the key product category.
WebStrategies wanted to measure the impact on sales whenever one of the key products was placed in the cart. To measure this, they installed Event Tracking to the “Add To Cart” buttons on every product page.
They then used Advanced Segments Custom Reports to separate visitors in Region A from Region B, and drilled down to view performance by product category. Sure enough, visitors from Region B were found to be 48% less likely to purchase if they placed an item from the key product category in their cart, which raised total shipping costs.
To combat this effect, LaTienda.com implemented a less expensive, flat rate shipping model in region B and monitored sales. After the test, the rate at which Region B visitors completed the shopping cart were found to have increased by nearly 70%.
Just to be sure, they checked to see if there was a similar increase in conversion rate for Region A visitors, and found that it did not fluctuate more than 3.4% over the same time period. The analysis confirmed that product shipping rates greatly impacted shopping cart behavior, and used data to measure the results of a key business decision.
Check out the full case study as a PDF download, and see additional success stories in our analytics case studies and success stories section.
Posted by the Google Analytics Team
With warehouses in Williamsburg, Virginia and Alicante, Spain, the company ships hundreds of thousands of orders throughout the United States, Canada and Europe.
LaTienda’s brand equity is built on its fundamental commitment to the customer experience. They guarantee a positive experience for its customers – quality products delivered in excellent condition, or they will replace or refund the purchase.
Overall, they had been seeing great success with their online orders, though they wanted to continue looking for opportunities to grow sales. To assist with this, they worked with WebStrategies, located nearby in Virginia.
They knew that a key product category in particular required more expensive shipping methods if it was too far from LaTienda’s Virginia warehouse. Their challenge was to understand the impact on sales of varying shipping rates for this subset of products.
LaTienda grouped visitors into two regions: Region A visitors were close enough to the warehouse to always get reasonable shipping costs. Region B visitors were everywhere else, and had to use a more expensive shipping method for the key product category.
WebStrategies wanted to measure the impact on sales whenever one of the key products was placed in the cart. To measure this, they installed Event Tracking to the “Add To Cart” buttons on every product page.
They then used Advanced Segments Custom Reports to separate visitors in Region A from Region B, and drilled down to view performance by product category. Sure enough, visitors from Region B were found to be 48% less likely to purchase if they placed an item from the key product category in their cart, which raised total shipping costs.
To combat this effect, LaTienda.com implemented a less expensive, flat rate shipping model in region B and monitored sales. After the test, the rate at which Region B visitors completed the shopping cart were found to have increased by nearly 70%.
Just to be sure, they checked to see if there was a similar increase in conversion rate for Region A visitors, and found that it did not fluctuate more than 3.4% over the same time period. The analysis confirmed that product shipping rates greatly impacted shopping cart behavior, and used data to measure the results of a key business decision.
Check out the full case study as a PDF download, and see additional success stories in our analytics case studies and success stories section.
Posted by the Google Analytics Team
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Multi-Channel Funnels: Webinar, Checklist, Tips & Tricks
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Full Submissions for Google Places API Developer Challenge Now Open!
Earlier this month we announced the Google Places API Developer Challenge, a 10-week application development event designed to spur the creation of applications focused on civic needs. We’re excited to see how you can find solutions to critical needs in areas such as transit, community engagement, education and city management by combining publicly available data sets with the power of the Google Places API. The developers of the winning applications will receive a VIP experience at Google I/O 2013.
Application submissions begin now and will continue through the end of October. The winning applications will be announced in mid-December. The judging and selection of applications will be performed by a distinguished panel of luminaries with backgrounds in geospatial technology, application development, and civic innovation, and they include:
Developers have always impressed us with their innovative uses of the Google Places API, and we're excited to see that energy focused on helping our communities. If you have any questions or concerns about the API, please join our developer community on Stack Overflow. We look forward to seeing all of your great ideas and meeting the winners at Google I/O.
Application submissions begin now and will continue through the end of October. The winning applications will be announced in mid-December. The judging and selection of applications will be performed by a distinguished panel of luminaries with backgrounds in geospatial technology, application development, and civic innovation, and they include:
- Bill Oates, Chief Information Officer, City of Boston
- John Tolva, Chief Technology Officer, City of Chicago
- Jay Nath, Chief Innovation Officer, City of San Francisco
- Adel W. Ebeid, Chief Innovation Officer, City of Philadelphia
- Mark Headd, Chief Data Officer, City of Philadelphia, and former Government Relations Director at Code for America
- John Geraci, Founder of DIYcity.org and Outside.in
- Adam DuVander, Executive Editor at ProgrammableWeb
- Jeanne M. Holm, Chief Knowledge Architect at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab and Chair of NASA’s Knowledge Management Team
- Laurenellen McCann, National Policy Manager, Sunlight Foundation
- Ed Parsons, Geospatial Technologist for Google
- Paul Rademacher, Creator of the First Google Maps API Mashup and Creator of Stratocam
- Rob Gray, Global Marketing Manager, Google Earth and Maps
Developers have always impressed us with their innovative uses of the Google Places API, and we're excited to see that energy focused on helping our communities. If you have any questions or concerns about the API, please join our developer community on Stack Overflow. We look forward to seeing all of your great ideas and meeting the winners at Google I/O.
New options for the Maps Ad Unit
Editor's note: re post from Geo Developers Blog.
Our developers often ask about opportunities for monetizing sites that use the Google Maps API. For years we've provided a way to add AdSense to their maps via the Maps Ad Unit, and today we're adding two new extensions to that feature. This means more choices for ads with your maps and an improved experience for your users.
The first extension adds six new ad formats that request a link unit rather than direct ads. Link units display a list of topics that are relevant to the content of your page. When a user clicks a topic, Google will show a page of related ads. Since link units can take up less screen space than direct ads they’re a great option to consider when you have limited space.
The second new extension allows you to customize the design of the Maps Ad Unit. We now support custom colors for the ad unit's background, border, link, text and URL. This enables you to set a color scheme that complements the design of your site.
You can now test-drive these new features with the demo. While the demo illustrates only a subset of the supported formats with a limited number of predefined styles and on-map positioning, you have much more creative freedom over your own ad unit.
When you are ready to try this on your own site please see the developer documentation and Maps API reference for instructions on how to use these features with your ad unit.
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