Yahoo have just released a service called TagMaps, allowing you to display a tag cloud of the most interesting terms attached to geotagged Flickr photos on an interactive map.
TagMaps are a new way to visualize text on geographic maps. TagMaps can be used to communicate key characteristics of location-based data in an easy-to-understand way.
A TagMap can be embedded into into your website (for non-commercial use):
It’s not as useful as it might first appear though. The only tags that show are the most “interesting” (often just the most tags for an area), hence the above example for Salisbury shows “cathedral, Old Sarum, and Salisbury” and nothing more granular than that. And you have to click the “View on World Explorer” text at the top to actually see the photos. The tag “cathedral” actually disappears when you zoom in closer, for example. There’s some work to go, it seems.
I like the idea though - it could have some useful heritage applications, which could be especially useful as satellite and aerial photography is improved on the service. Imagine looking at the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape - a big area indeed. Seeing words like “tin” or “copper” or “engine house” etc etc could enable you to explore some photos and narrow down where to go and visit according to your interest.
I’m a little slow in reporting this since I’ve been away on holiday, but Flickr have announced that geotagging is now one of their built-in features.
This is a great move, since it can be quite daunting if you’re really into knowing (and seeing) where photos were taken, but don’t want to move over to rival Zooomr, or delve into some of the arcane geotagging browser extensions or 3rd party tools. It’s all done within Flickr’s Organizr, and it’s all drag and drop. You can even set levels of accuracy, i.e. associating photos with whole cities, or even down to street level. Continue reading ‘Flickr does Geotagging’
There’s one thing that Flickr doesn’t support natively, and that is the ability to ‘geotag’ photos. In a nutshell, geotagging is just associating spatial data (i.e. a set of coordinates) showing where you took a particular photo (or where the subject is located). You could then see where it was taken on a map, or browse photos via a mapping service such as Google Maps.
A number of determined people have written hacks to get geotagging into Flickr. But these often use a plugin for Firefox called Greasemonkey, and a further set of scripts to build in the functionality into your photo pages. If you’re not technically minded, it’s not easy to do, and I think that most people will be put off by this approach.
If you do use extensions such as GMiF, coordinates are stored in with your tags, so your tag lists will eventually become cluttered with tags such as “geotagged” and “geo:lat=51.519606″ etc. It’s not very elegant, but it does work.
Zooomr have built geotagging right into the heart of the system, with elegance. Your geotags are nicely hidden away (but still accessible). Viewing where photos were taken, or simply browsing photos by location on a map are all built-in, and very easy to use. Not to mention kind to the eyes.
Zooomr doesn’t yet have the community aspect that Flickr does. Community is what makes Flickr so brilliant, and it is now very well established. I think that startups like Zooomr fill a nice gap at the moment, and help to keep giants like Flickr innovating and on their toes.
Good luck Zooomr!
Search
About
You are currently browsing the Past Thinking weblog archives for 'geotagging' tag.
