Oh... I am getting really excited! Christmas is just around the corner, less than 2 weeks only. :)

A particular podcast title caught my eye, it says "Geospatial Invades the Holidays" by Directions Magazine. Do click on the hyperlinks to listen to the podcast or read more from this really nice online news magazine about anything geospatial.

Ah, suddenly I realised that some of you may ask "Where is the OneMap news?". Nope, no OneMap news in today's post. TeamOneMap believes we should not just be promoting the use of OneMap, we have a far greater wish of getting users to think in a geospatial way and provide information and knowledge of GIS and geospatiality. :)

So, do you know that in the holiday season, many of us actually make use of some geospatial information?

Have you ever used 'find a store location' function to search for stores or shopping malls?


Source: http://www.orchardroad.sg/

This is in fact one of the most common faced issues by shoppers. Location is probably one of the biggest factor that determines where we go and shop besides the attractive discounts that malls may give. 

Ever gotten a text message that says "blah blah blah on sale now!", "We have free gifts for...", "20% discount when you..." etc when you are in close proximity to a shop? That is the work of location based services (LBS), a tactic often used by companies to attract past patrons to shop in their stores again.

Satellite imageries of shopping mall carparks are also used to estimate the the businesses of shopping malls (not so applicable in Singapore though, we only have multi-storey carparks!)

Interestingly, geospatial technologies can also help prevent fraud cases to ensure you have a safer shopping experience! The location of purchase using your VISA card can be used to match the location of your GPS-enabled phone. So once a transaction is made that is far away from the location of the phone, you know something is seriously wrong!

Let's make friends with geospatial technologies!

If you are interested to find out more on the potential and possibly, issues that can arise from geospatial invading the holiday season, be sure to listen to the podcast by Directions Media!

In the meantime, continue to use OneMap when you have a location question in your head!