Geoweb
A Geospatial Web (pronunciation: 'gēō-spãy-shee-ăl wěb') or Geoweb is a computer network which pairs geographic (e.g. two-dimensional maps) or geospatial (e.g. three-dimensional pictures) underlay systems with a Geotag overlay system for the purpose of connecting users with other network locations. Today's free and popular Geobrowsers are examples of simple Geoweb service implementations. Complex Geoweb services provide users access to applications and files, within the context of specific physical locations on earth.
The concept of a Geospatial Web may have first been introduced by Dr. Charles Herring in his US DoD paper, An Architecture of Cyberspace: Spatialization of the Internet, 1994, U.S. Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (40°8′58.9″N 88°16′22.7″W / 40.149694°N 88.272972°W).
Dr. Herring proposed that the problem of defining the physical domain in a computer or cyber-infrastructure, providing real time and appropriate fidelity, required a cyber-spatial reference or index combining both Internet Addressing and Hierarchical Spatial Addressing.
As such, the Geoweb would be characterized by the self synchronization of network addressing, time and location. The Geoweb would allow location to be used to self organize all geospatially referenced data available through the Internet.{http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.37.4604}
The interest in a Geoweb has been advanced by new technologies, concepts and products, specifically the popularization of GPS positioning with the introduction of the iPhone in 2007.
Virtual globes such as Google Earth and NASA World Wind as well as mapping websites such as Google Maps, Live Search Maps, Yahoo Maps, and OpenStreetMap have been major factors in raising awareness towards the importance of geography and location as a means to index information.
...
Wikipedia