Floating Sheep Publications

A special issue of the Journal of Urban Technology on information technologies and urban networks has just been published. It has a great series of articles from a range of researchers. Including the following two from the Floatingsheep collective.


Graham, M. and M. Zook. 2011. Visualizing the Global Cyberscape: Mapping User Generated Placemarks. Journal of Urban Technology 18(1): 115-132.
This article focuses on the representation of physical places on the Internet or what we term cyberscape. While there is a wide range of online place-related information available, this project uses the metric of the number of user-generated Google Maps placemarks containing specific keywords in locations worldwide. After setting out the methods behind this research, this article provides a cartographic analysis of these cyberscapes and examines how they inform us about the material world. Visibility and invisibility in material space are increasingly being defined by prominence, ranking, and presence on the Internet, and Google has positioned itself as a highly authoritative source of online spatial information. As such, any distinct spatial patterns within uploaded information have the potential to become real and reinforced as Google is relied upon as a mirror of the offline world.


Zook, M., Devriendt, L. and M. Dodge. (2011). Cyberspatial Proximity Metrics: Reconceptualizing Distance in the Global Urban System. Journal of Urban Technology 18(1): 93-114.
In this paper we analyze how distances between a sample of a hundred major world cities varies when measured in cyberspace. The project develops a novel spatial statistical model based upon the number of user-generated placemarks indexed by Google Maps. We demonstrate how this metric captures the “invisible” patterns of intercity information flows and helps comprehend the contours of the complex digital network that exists between large urban centers across the world. Using a specially designed software program to interrogate Google Maps, a series of keyword searches (“tourism,” “business,” “hotel”) as well as each of the city names were conducted in each of the sample places. Comparing this digital measure with the material movement of people and other relevant descriptive variables, such as national economic development and language differences, we were able to provide a cogent model that plausibly explains why certain city pairs (especially those that are physically distant) exhibit strong informational linkages. While the strength of these digital connections undoubtedly demonstrates the continued importance of physical proximity and established transport infrastructures in the twenty-first century, one can also observe significant evidence for [new?] digital “wormholes” which indicates that processes of globalization driven by online interaction also operates by its own rules.

Information Inequality

Following on from the last post, here are some examples of Google placemark inequality:

First of all, China offers perhaps one of the most striking examples of regional disparities. Beijing, Shanghai, and the Pearl River Delta Region all are characterized by heavy information densities. In other words, a lot of information has been created and uploaded about these places. However, much of the rest of the country has very little cyber-presence within the Google Geoweb. In the map below, the height of each bar is an indicator the number of placemarks in each location.

The U.S.-Mexico border along the Rio Grande river offers a similarly striking contrast between high and low information densities.

The border between North and South Korea offers another example of placemark density not being correlated to population density. For obvious reasons, very little information is being created and uploaded about North Korea. In the map below (top), each dot represents 100+ placemarks. Interestingly, there are strong similarities between the map of placemarks on the Korean Peninsula, and satellite maps of lights visible from the Peninsula at night (bottom).

image source: globalsecurity.org

Information inequalities are clearly a defining characteristic of the Geoweb. Some places are highly visible, while others remain a virtual terra incognita. In particular, Africa, South America, and large parts of Asia are being left out of the flurry of mapping that is happing online (e.g. the Tokyo/Yokohama metro region has almost three times as many 0/1 placemark hits (923,034) as the entire continent of Africa (311,770)). Some of the geographical implications of cyber-visibility and invisibility have been examined in part (e.g. here and here), but there is clearly a lot more to be discussed. In particular, because Google allows any keyword to be searched for (not only "0" and "1"), we are able to explore not only the raw amounts of information attached to each place, but also the contents of that information.