Developing spatially-aware content management systems for dynamic, location-specific information in mobile environments

Abstract

Current location-aware information systems lack an effective method of maintaining and updating dynamic, location-specific content. We have developed a design for representing location-specific content that balances flexibility and comprehensibility. We have developed a web-based content management system that implements this design. The system provides an easy-to-use interface to tie any form of media-such as text, pictures, audio, or video-to a location.This work is directly applicable to various forms of location-aware systems, such as tourist information, campus guides, and vehicular on-board navigation. Our work enhances these systems by providing a greater range of content and a more dynamic information base than is currently available in extant systems. We describe how our design allows end-users to easily contribute spatial data to these systems, while simultaneously providing structure to their contributions. Mobile users, utilizing WLAN hotspots in common, real-world environments, can greatly benefit from and easily contribute to location-aware information systems driven by spatially-aware content management systems.