URI scheme for (geographical) map or address location? To-Do?

[Elvey]

Is there a URI scheme for (geographical) map or address location?
e.g. something like
postal-geographical:postal:123_Main_St,Anywhere_AW,USA
postal-geographical:geographical:lat:1234.567,long:987.65 4

[RFC4395] defines an IANA-maintained registry of URI Schemes. These
registries include the Permanent and Provisional URI Schemes. The
registry is: http://www.iana.org/assignments/uri-schemes.html . I
find no such entry there.

When a user is browsing, say, evite.com, or yellowpages.dom or a
google phonebook entry, they'd like to be able to click on the address
and have their browser do the appropriate thing - use the mapping
device of their choice, much like mailto: uses the MUA (mail client)
of their choice. It could send the info to google or yahoo or mapquest
or mapblast or linedrive or the user's personal navigation system
(e.g. something in their car dash) supporting GPS and providing
directions...

http://www.google.com/search?&q=3042...0st%2C%2094115 used
to bring up links to the major mapping/directions services; now it
just brings up google's.

If there is no such scheme, I guess the place it would be proposed is
either an ietf WG or somewhere in the W3C. Anyone know?

If there is such a scheme, what browsers or clients or websites
support it?

I was going to ask if there's one for a phone #, but I see that sip IS
listed - RFC 3261. Too bad more websites don't support it; e.g. when
I'm browsing, say, evite.com, or yellowpages.dom or a google phonebook
entry, I'd like to be able to click on the phone # and have my browser
do the appropriate thing.
RFC 2806 (tel url) is NOT listed in the IANA registry. I wonder why,
and if this needs correction; probably not, as the sip RFC refers to
it extensively...
Keywords: url uri map location url draft infosystems ietf scheme

[Dan]

On Mar 9, 12:41 pm, "Elvey" <[e-mail]:

Is there a URI scheme for (geographical) map or address location?
e.g. something like
postal-geographical:postal:123_Main_St,Anywhere_AW,USA
postal-geographical:geographical:lat:1234.567,long:987.65 4

I've seen a proposed draft for a "geo:" URI scheme for latitude /
longitude / altitude designations of points on (or above or below) the
Earth's surface.

http://geouri.org/

Earlier, there was a proposed .geo top-level domain to be used in some
manner for geographic location references, but it failed to be
approved by ICANN.

--
Dan

[Andy Mabbett]

In message <11*********************@n33g2000cwc.googlegroups. com>, Elvey
<gg*******@matthew.elvey.comwrites

>Is there a URI scheme for (geographical) map or address location?

You may be interested in the "Geo" microformat, for marking up locations
by adding standard classes to existing (X)HTML:

<http://microformats.org/wiki/geo>

e.g:
<span class="geo">
<span class="latitude">37.386013</span>,
<span class="longitude">-122.082932</span>
</span>

("span" is used for illustration, the classes could be applied to other
types of element.)

The hCard microformat:

<http://microformats.org/wiki/hcard>

does something similar for postal addresses, telephone numbers and
other contact details; and there are microformats (and proposals for
more) for other purposes, too:

<http://microformats.org/>

>when I'm browsing, say, evite.com, or yellowpages.dom or a google
phonebook entry, I'd like to be able to click on the phone # and have
my browser do the appropriate thing.

That's exactly what microformats are for.

--
Andy Mabbett
* Say "NO!" to compulsory ID Cards: <http://www.no2id.net/>
* Free Our Data: <http://www.freeourdata.org.uk>
* Are you using Microformats, yet: <http://microformats.org/?

[Andy Dingley]

On 9 Mar, 17:41, "Elvey" <[e-mail]:

Is there a URI scheme for (geographical) map or address location?

What are you after here? A format or a vocabulary?

A format is something like the Microformats approach that Andy Mabbett
cited. It defines nothing about geography, it just gives you a
structure or schema for your properties related to them.

A vocabulary is something like the Getty Thesaurus of Geographical
Names (TGN) that gives you a list of independently-defined data points
(or "taxons", if you like) that you can use as literal values within
these formats. Another one might be postcodes, or numeric values of
lat/long.

You need both of these to work. You should also avoid any formats that
imply the vocabulary, as a rigid coupling here is a nuisance in the
future. Find a format that can express both, even if its chosen
vocabulary is then something like Google KMZ that then couples them
together again. At least you still have the option at the application
level.