[wikilike_img src=http://static.flickr.com/56/166072513_c273fdc247_d.jpg|align=thumb tcenter|width=500|caption=fboweb.com kml track zoomed in on inbound traffic toward LAX|url=http://www.fboweb.com/antest/ge/intro.aspx]
Sascha just IM’d this. A flight tracking operation called fboweb (dot com) has a flight tracking service. The usual — put in the flight number and airline, or a tail number, and you get the current tracks of the individual equipment as it roams the earth.
(FBO stands for fixed base operator — a general service center at an airport.)
[wikilike_img src=http://static.flickr.com/60/166089569_e966aec250_d.jpg|align=thumb tcenter|width=500|caption=fboweb.com kml track zoomed in on inbound traffic toward LAX|url=http://www.fboweb.com/antest/ge/intro.aspx]
Now, though, they’re producing kml files so you can see the tracks in Google Earth.
Good lord. The coherence between 1st Life and 2nd Life starts to pull focus. And with structured data, to boot.
Why do I blog this?The flight tracking services, particularly the ones that create a visualization of equipment, are important because they are “weak signals” indicating how linkages between informatics, geography and the activities of social beings can be represented. These are most often designed with the purpose of helping people figure out if a flight’s late or how it’s doing. From an operations stand point, the flight centers are consuming the same data (perhaps not 60 second delayed, as this version is) to make decisions about what equipment will be where and when, and thereby how to make the particular piece of equipment contribute to production of capital profits in the most efficient manner. I’m sure they also use it to make route adjustments during times of heavy or light traffic, and so forth. These blogging behemoths are shaping business practices, no?
How can a similar configuration of networked objects blog in such a way as to inform social practices? And not just those social practices that are about operational efficiencies for businesses?
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