Location vs. Place vs. POI

With Nokia, Google, Facebook and a whole host of other players recognising the inherent value in the concept of Places and Points Of Interest (POIs), it’s good to see that the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the standards body of the Web, is getting involved. On the 30th. September 2010, the W3C Points Of Interest Working Group (POIWG) was launched with a “mission to develop technical specifications for representation of POI information on the Web”. I should pause to make a brief disclaimer here; I’m sitting on the POIWG as part of my day job with Ovi Places at Nokia.