Data expert Auren Hoffman discusses geospatial data and entity resolution. Topics include complexities of address matching, benefits of using Placekey, challenges of joining data sets, future goals of Placekey, and the importance of celebrating small wins.
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Quick takeaways
Placekey is an open entity resolution service that simplifies the process of matching and joining physical place data from various sources.
Join keys like Placekey are crucial for data interoperability, enabling effective combination, joining, and querying of datasets.
Deep dives
The goal of Placekey is to match data about physical places
Placekey is an open entity resolution service that matches data about physical places including addresses and points of interest. It takes input like an address fragment or a location name with an address fragment and outputs a simple string called Placekey. This allows for easy data integration and joining of physical place data. Placekey is particularly useful for companies in real estate and health tech who need to merge and sync data from various sources.
Placekey simplifies the process of matching and joining data
Solving the problem of matching addresses and data sets is challenging, but Placekey simplifies this process. It offers a cost-effective solution for companies to match Safegraph's data to their own data and other data sets. Placekey serves as a join key, allowing for easy merging, syncing, deduping, and joining of physical place data. By using Placekey, companies can effectively combine data sets and increase the value and usability of their data.
The importance of data interoperability and join keys
Join keys, like Placekey, play a crucial role in data interoperability. They enable datasets to be combined, joined, and queried effectively. Placekey aims to cover all physical places worldwide, providing a join key for any address or location name with an address. The long-term vision includes expanding Placekey's capabilities to describe more complex places, such as trees, park benches, and underground pipes, allowing for even greater data interoperability.
The challenges and future of Placekey
Building and improving Placekey involves continuous effort, as address matching is a complex and ever-evolving problem. Despite the challenges, Placekey strives to resolve corner cases, improve accuracy, and enhance the service for users. The goal is to make Placekey accessible to all and be a lasting, open solution for data interoperability. Future plans include supporting non-Latin characters and ensuring Placekey remains a valuable tool for joining and analyzing physical place data.
This episode is a rebroadcast of Auren’s appearance on the MapScaping Podcast.
In this episode, Auren and MapScaping host Daniel O’Donohue go deep on geospatial data. They start by discussing Placekey– an open entity resolution service for places and addresses. Auren gives a breakdown of the complexities involved with address matching, and what that has to do with the dollar, Unix time, and innovation.
Auren and Daniel also delve into a broader conversation about join keys, data integration and the future of data interoperability.