A new GIS centered web site called GISnation.com launched yesterday. According to the site’s mission statement its purpose is simply to promote “geospatial solutions” and provide a multi-use platform to showcasing GIS projects.
The site tries to pack a lot into its pages. It attempts to provide tools and services such as social networks, job boards, resource searches, news feeds, promotional challenges and project submission platforms. The social networking aspect itself is quite involved. There is a Facebook-like “wall” that you can post updates to, a blogging interface where you can create your own blog within the larger site, a file upload area, a photo gallery, a professional networking page where you can have a LinkedIn-like profile and a project collaboration area where you can work with others on a geospatial solution.
It will be interesting to see how the geospatial community reacts to a centralized site like this that combines multiple aspects of already established social media services in a GIS centered environment. As with any application that claims to be a social media platform, its value will be revealed by the users who engage with it. If the GIS user community has a need for what GISnation is attempting to provide, it could do well.
I will be interacting on the site in the coming days and will try to report my findings. Meanwhile, if you sign up for access to the site, leave a comment here and let me know what you think. Do you think it has a future?
Update: Apparently GISnation didn’t have much of a futre. The site doesn’t seem to be in existence any more. It’s probably just as well since ESRI already has established forums and GIS communities are already created on sites like Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus.