Methods and systems for connecting a social network to a geospatial data repository

1. A method for connecting at least one social network to at least one geospatial data repository, comprising:

accepting geospatial data from at least one user utilizing at least one processor, wherein the geospatial data is entered in at least one data format of at least two data formats supported by the method, the at least two data formats supported by the method comprising data formats other than a global positioning system (GPS) data format or in addition to the GPS data format;

serializing the geospatial data to create data objects and data object references, wherein the data object references are identifiers for the serialized geospatial data and are used to create the data objects;

retrieving the data objects utilizing the at least one processor, according to their corresponding data object references, wherein the serialized geospatial data is converted into a common format to create the retrieved data objects;

linking the retrieved data objects to at least one associated user in the at least one social network utilizing the at least one processor;

creating at least one map as requested by the at least one user comprising the retrieved data objects using the at least one processor;

creating, using the at least one processor, semantic relationships for the social network between the retrieved data objects according to a user action by the at least one user on the at least one map; and

recommending related data objects when the at least one user searches at least one data object using the at least one processor, the related data objects determined using the semantic relationships of the social network.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the serialized geospatial data has at least one data object identifier which links to at least one corresponding data object in order to allow the geospatial data to be easily searched and/or combined.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein search results of searched geospatial data is ranked based on reputation of at least one contributor of content.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein semantic relationships are utilized to analyze the geospatial data.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the geospatial data is entered in different formats.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the at least one format of the at least two data formats supported by the method further comprise at least one GIS data format.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the at least one GIS data format comprises: a Shapefile format, a Geographic Resources Analysis Support System (GRASS) format, or an OpenGIS Simple Features Reference Implementation (OGR) format, or any combination thereof.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the at least one format of the at least two data formats supported by the method further comprises at least one OGC format.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the at least one OCG format comprises: a Geographic Markup Language (GML) format, a Web Feature Service (WFS) format, an Open Geospatial Consortium's (OGC) SLD format, or any combination thereof.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the at least one format of the at least two data formats supported by the method further comprises at least one Geospatial database format.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the at least one Geospatial database format comprises: a Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing system (TIGER) format, a Postgres Structured Query Language for Geographic Information Systems (PostGIS) format, or an Oracle Spatial format, or any combination thereof.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein the at least one format of the at least two data formats supported by the method further comprises at least one Web format.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein the at least one Web format comprises: a JavaScript Object Notation format, a Really Simple Syndication format, or a Keyhole Markup Language (KML) format, or any combination thereof.

14. The method of claim 1 , wherein the at least one format of the at least two data formats supported by the method further comprises at least one text format.

15. The method of claim 14 , wherein the at least one text format comprises: a Comma Separated Value (CSV) format and/or a delimited text format.

16. A system for connecting a social network to a geospatial data repository, comprising a computer with an application for:

performing processing comprising accepting geospatial data from at least one user utilizing at least one processor, wherein the data objects are entered in at least one data format of at least two data formats supported by the system, the at least two data formats supported by the system comprising data formats other than a global positioning system (GPS) data format or in addition to the GPS data format;

performing processing comprising serializing the geospatial data to create data objects and data object references, wherein the data object references are identifiers for the serialized geospatial data and are used to create the data objects;

performing processing comprising retrieving the data objects utilizing the at least one processor, according to their corresponding data object references, wherein the serialized geospatial data is converted into a common format to create the retrieved data objects;

performing processing comprising linking the retrieved data objects to at least one associated user in the at least one social network utilizing the at least one processor;

creating at least one map as requested by the at least one associated user comprising the retrieved data objects using the at least one processor;

performing processing comprising creating, using the at least one processor, semantic relationships for the social network between the retrieved data objects according to a user action by the at least one associated user on the at least one map; and

performing processing comprising recommending related data objects when the at least one user searches at least one data object using the at least one processor, the related data objects determined using the semantic relationships of the social network.

17. The system of claim 16 , wherein the serialized geospatial data has at least one data object identifier which links to at least one corresponding data object in order to allow the geospatial data to be easily searched and/or combined.

18. The system of claim 16 , wherein search results of searched geospatial data is ranked based on reputation of at least one contributor of content.

19. The system of claim 16 , wherein semantic relationships are utilized to analyze the geospatial data.

20. The system of claim 16 , wherein the geospatial data is entered into the system in different formats.