Nestoria Blog

As those of you who read this blog regularly know, here at Nestoria we work hard on the issue of relevance. Put simply, do you get what you searched for? In the context of property search we believe this consists of two parts: did we identify the location you meant, and did we then show you relevant results for that query. To help us with the first part we rely on all sorts of tools, from commercial geodata sets like Tele Atlas, to the low-tech physical atlas we have in the office. But as a ‘lean and mean’ (well actually we think of ourselves as ‘lean and friendly’) start-up we’re always on the look out for clever ways to solve problems without stretching our budget.

One such tool that we couldn’t work without is GeoNames an open source database of geographic information set up by Marc Wick. Happily Marc has agreed to be this month’s Nestoria interviewee.

Marc Wick has held various positions as software engineer and database expert in the financial and technical industry for Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS), Telekurs and Siemens Transportation Systems. He is now working as self-employed software engineer and consultant in Switzerland, and has a degree in Computer Science from the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.

Marc, thanks for taking the time to talk with us.

1. Explain the idea behind geonames.org

GeoNames is a global gazetteer, aggregating local data sets and combining information from various sources like national mapping agencies, census data, postal codes, digital elevation models and many more. A tremendous amount of data is freely available but not easily accessible as the data is often hidden on myriads of national websites. We expect even more official data to become freely available as politicians and authorities begin to understand how important unencumbered access to geodata is for the economy of their country. This process will take some time as it often requires a change of the national mapping agencies’ business models.

The idea of the GeoNames project is to aggregate this national and local data and combine it into one global project. The stance of GeoNames is a pragmatic one, the main goal is to provide useful data and web services.

2. What are some of the challenges unique to managing geographic data?

The big challenge is having to deal with countless sources. Official geodata is often managed by local authorities on a subnational or regional level. This adds up to an incredible number of potential sources and all use different data formats, have other data quality, use their own classification scheme and are published in local languages and scripts. It is a challenging task to harmonize and consolidate all this information.

3. What are your thoughts on the developments in the online geography sector (maps, etc) in the last 18 months?

Online geography has become a commodity feature, mainly in the wake of Google Maps. Some web developers even start considering to remove maps from their site since online maps have become so common place and ‘uncool’. We also see a separation between traditional GIS and online maps. It no longer requires a GIS specialist to integrate maps in an application. Maps have become part of every web developer’s tool set. Commoditization of GPS enabled devices like photo cameras will strengthen this trend in the future.

4. What are the challenges you think a vertical search engine for property like Nestoria faces?

I could imagine that the main technical challenge is to get and parse the data. For the users it is crucial that the data on the site is correct, is frequently updated and the number of attributes parsed and annotated with meaning is also essential. Even more important than the technical challenges is to find and implement the right strategy for the niche between general purpose horizontal search engines like Google and real estate agents, classifieds and real estate platforms on the other hand. Driving traffic to the site and keeping users on the site is certainly another vital key issue.

Thanks Marc, you’re very correct. Managing massive data feeds from many different sources, in different formats, and categorized and indexed in different ways is not a trivial challenge. This is exactly the value a vertical search engine like Nestoria adds to the property industry. For those interested in following GeoNames’ progress, I recommend subscribing to the GeoNames blog.

past Nestoria interviews: Nick Black, Fleming Madsen, Mike Price.