Development of online discussion system: Combination of Google Earth and Twitter

Geographic Information System (GIS) is now widely used in the world. GIS aggregates and displays various types of geographical and geological data. It will be a valuable base for online discussions to provide sharing of the data. The purpose of this study is to implement a web service, which enables users to discuss a specific geographic feature efficiently for scientific discovery and research. This research establishes a system combining Google Earth and Twitter API, which can store comments so that users can see the comments anytime. The precise information of the target area is attached with the comments in the database. New functions are diameter specification the addition of keywords, and an avoidance of the limitation in receiving Twitter API. Users access this system by web browser, and discuss the scientific topics of the selected area on Google Earth.