So yea, great time had by all. As far as an unconference goes, it was a nice improvement over last year. These things take time to get right and WhereCamp5280 is looking like its going to be a very successful gathering. So what did I see that I think I need to pay attention to in the next year.
- Google Fusion Tables — Are you kidding me? These stuff is “teh awesome”. Fusion tables are going to be more “killer” than Google Maps was. Yup, pay attention.
- Polymaps — I have no idea how I’m going to use this thing or even how the darn thing works (voodoo is the general assumpition), but damn it works and it kicks butt. You can’t be serious if you want to actual serve up vectors via WFS. Another game changer…
- Raphael — I was playing with this a couple months back and forgot about it. Don’t get me wrong, Google Chart API is sweet, but Raphael is like chocolate syrup (with whipped cream and a cherry on top). Hey look at that two SVG rendering projects in a row.
- SEO for Mapping — Brian Timoney talked about SEO and how data needs to be found better. I can’t find a link to his topic anywhere, but just know what is good enough for John Elway should be good enough for the City GIS Department. Seriously though, if you want your data found, you need to think about how Google crawls it.
There was a ton more discussed (see Andrei’s blog). What caught me off guard was the general lack of interest in Microsoft technology. In a huge shift from last year. Silverlight, .NET, SQL Server and Windows were all lacking in representation.
As I said, great time was had and it was good to get me focused on where I want to go in the next year.