"The U.S. Geological (USGS) and other scientific institutions are using social media and crowdsourcing to learn more about earthquakes, according to a new report.  These techniques provide inexpensive and rapid data to augment and extend the capabilities provided by traditional monitoring techniques"

To continue reading: http://wilsoncommonslab.org/2013/07/10/report-looks-at-successful-government-crowdsourcing-efforts-for-earthquake-monitoring/_

Abstract
In just under seven years, Twitter has grown to count nearly three percent of the entire global population among its active users who have sent more than 170 billion 140–character messages. Today the service plays such a significant role in American culture that the Library of Congress has assembled a permanent archive of the site back to its first tweet, updated daily. With its open API, Twitter has become one of the most popular data sources for social research, yet the majority of the literature has focused on it as a text or network graph source, with only limited efforts to date focusing exclusively on the geography of Twitter, assessing the various sources of geographic information on the service and their accuracy. More than three percent of all tweets are found to have native location information available, while a naive geocoder based on a simple major cities gazetteer and relying on the user–provided Location and Profile fields is able to geolocate more than a third of all tweets with high accuracy when measured against the GPS–based baseline. Geographic proximity is found to play a minimal role both in who users communicate with and what they communicate about, providing evidence that social media is shifting the communicative landscape.


To read the full article: http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/4366/3654

This month will stay close to the center.  One of our of old trusted sites.

Produce Row
(204 Southeast Oak Street)

This Wednesday December 12th.
anytime after 5:00

Join the Oregon URISA Young Professionals for a social and networking event at Apex Bar on Thursday, September 13 from 5:30 to 8pm. Here is your chance to get involved in an exciting group geared towards developing a robust network of emerging geospatial professionals in Oregon. 

Who: GIS professionals, both current and aspiring.
What: Brainstorming, networking, informal planning for GISPro Conference and OpenStreetMap State of the Map, both to be held October 2012 in Portland, Oregon
When: Thursday September 13 5:30 - 8pm
Where: Apex Bar, 1216 SE Division Street  Portland, OR 97202
Why: OR-URISA YP is a newly-formed interest group within OR-URISA, the Oregon chapter of URISA, a professional association for the geospatial community. Check out our mission statement below. OR-URISA YP cabinet members hope to have a strong group presence at the 2012 URISA conference, GISPro, to be held September 30 - October 4th in Portland, Oregon. Cabinet members are also active in planning OpenStreetMap State of the Map, going on October 13-14 in Portland. We are hosting a social to informally plan for these events, reach out to prospective members, network, and brainstorm how to support and advocate for the continued development of a robust geospatial community in the great State of Oregon. Although we are specifically focused on the needs of young professionals (under 35 years of age or <10 years in the industry), all are welcome to get involved!

Feel free to drop in anytime between 5:30 and 8pm. Apex is cash-only so be sure to bring a few bucks for a drink. Please email Betsy Breyer betsybreyer@gmail.com with any questions.

OR-URISA YP Mission Statement:
The mission of the OR-URISA Young Professionals is to provide the young professional geospatial community with the resources to develop and maintain outstanding careers. Chief among these resources is interaction with industry leaders through mentorship, internship opportunities, and workshops. In addition, the group aims to share its knowledge of emerging GIS technology and techniques with the broad geospatial community, industry professionals, and the public.