BENCHMARKING THE QUALITY OF GEOWEB: INFORMATION AND TACIT KNOWLEDGE ABOUT RESTAURANTS IN THREE ITALIAN CITIES

ABSTRACT If information and communication technologies are contributing to the attenuation of the force of destiny towards opportunities for individuals and places, then some applications, together with practices of ranking, mapping and delivering the representation of place will be concerned with how codes or practices in cyberspace negatively or positively shape our world. This paper examines the quality of geo‐web information from ‘Google maps’ applied to the empirical case of the Italian cities of Benevento, Bologna and Siena. It interprets data using a three‐level benchmarking of information‐listing generated by web queries of localised services: the Google geocoded Internet, Yellow Pages, and tacit knowledge. The implications of the on‐line/off‐line visibility of local enterprises for local development actions, and the implications of hidden filters and ranking within the framework of the contemporary global information society will be outlined. Furthermore, an assessment model of the ‘geoquality’ of geocoded Internet spatial information is developed.