The Demise of Running Times... and how it Relates to the GIS Media

I just got a card in the mail letting me know that Running Times, a magazine I'd subscribed to for maybe eight years, is ending publication in January. The timing will let its sibling, Runner's World, also owned by Rodale Press, celebrate its 50th year, and per the card, "broaden its ambitions."

Print publishing is having a rough time these days and I knew when Running Times and Runner's World came under the same umbrella in 2007, there would be changes. I am very happy Rodale kept both editorial teams paid and the magazines published until 2016!

Geospatial Media Landcape Changes

In the Beginning...

I first noticed "online geospatial media" in the 1990s. I was working at Esri and I was loyal reader of Directions Magazine. Later I started my own newsletter, GIS Monitor, and briefly edited EOM. For the last ten years I served as as Directions' Executive Editor.

It was just about ten years ago that online geospatial media offerings exploded. Blogs were the new hot thing back then and to celebrate I wrote A Reader’s Guide to Geoblogs. I was a big fan of Planet Geospatial, James Fee's automated geospatial blog aggregation site and gave him a made-up award: the Directions Media Special Achievement in Blogging Award for 2006.

Fee shut that site down last year. And, last week I learned SlashGeo, a human-curated aggregation site shut down. Another effort to consolidate geospatial in one place, GISBuzz, seems to be gone, too. I saw on Twitter that it was "for sale" as recently as May 24. Now the domain is parked.

Visiting the "Geography Gods" Blog

Who would name their blog and Twitter account "Geography Gods"? Two high school students who got the top mark ("5") on the AP Human Geography Exam last spring. Congratulations to the budding geographers for the academic achievement.

What is the Geography Gods website?

The tag lines are two:

• Unbiased Current Events and Geography 
• Dedicated to bringing you global news and events

The second is tough. The first is even tougher, as About.com's Matt Rosenberg observed in a tweet. 

The site dates back to Sept 2011 and has several dozen posts. Many describe current events and some take on travel related issues, like how safe Mexico is for tourists. Others are a bit further afield, such as Barry Bonds' challenges. There isn't a specific focus on geography as a factor in describing events or topics, though to be fair, that is not among the stated goals. Articles have some quotes (for example, from the New York Times), but no links to online sources. I think that would be a great addition.

Articles are by the blog owners and a number of other named writers (who I'm guessing are classmates, no bios are provided for them). Sadly, the comments are about 95% spam; a few from friends and family are very supportive. It might be time to explore a spam filtering solution.

I think it'd be great if geographers and educators offer suggestions to make the website more valuable. It's exciting to see such initiatives from the next generation of geographers.