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geotag posts

Filed under: Fun, Internet, Web services, Google, Yahoo!, Social Software, web 2.0

New project aims to combine Flickr, Google Earth, and "spatial location"


An innovative an dinteresting venture by the University of Southern California called Viewfinder seeks to spatially locate 2D pictures within a 3D environment like Google Earth. The end result places the pictures within Google Earth so that they seamlessly integrate within their environment. Can't picture it? Just check out the video after the jump, and check out the site for more information on how it works.

The goal is to eventually create a service that basically mixes something like Flickr with Google Earth, enabling users to view and post photos within their virtual environment. Flickr currently allows for geotagging, but viewing the pictures within their environment adds tons of more fun to the idea.

Perhaps Flickr should consider expanding its photo services instead of adding video, which it is trying to do right now, since Flickr users seem to hate the presence of moving pics on the Yahoo owned site. It seems a partnership with Viewfinder and Google Earth would be a better move, and -- since Yahoo's busy intermingling with all sorts of companies right now -- why not?

[via boing boing]

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Filed under: Photo, Google, Social Software, BlackBerry, web 2.0

Sneak Peek: Picasa for Blackberry allows geotag of images, much more

Over at Berryreview.com, they've had a chance to scope out the new Picasa Web Albums Uploader for Blackberry. While the older "version" of Picasa for Blackberry was just a glorified landing page, this new application has plans to do a lot more:

  • Add any picture to the correct album, add tags, or adjust its size prior to uploading
  • Upload any picture to Picasa Web Albums
  • If you're using a BlackBerry smartphone with GPS capabilities you can also geotag images so that people who look at your pictures can tell where they're taken. (Of course, it will only list the location at which the photo was uploaded, so if you upload a picture of that alien aircraft you snapped at Area 51 after you get home to Kennebunkport, your friends will think your photo is a fraud). To properly geotag an image (and avoid disbelief), you should complete the uploading process from the same location the picture was taken.
No release date as of yet, but if you want to be the first to know, you can become a member of the Blackberry Owners Lounge, and they'll let you know as soon as Picasa for Blackberry is available.

[Via Berryreview.com]

Filed under: Photo, Web services, Yahoo!

1.2 million Flickr photos geotagged in the first day

Spiral Jetty, geotaggedRemember Monday when I reported on Flickr's new geotagging features, which gives users a nice drag-and-drop interface for "tagging" photos with the location they were taken at? I thought it was cool, but expected it to take off fairly slowly. According to the official FlickrBlog, though, in the first 24 hours more than 1.2 million photos were geotagged by Flickr users. In his post on the blog, Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield writes, "When we were doing our projections for how many photos Flickr members would geotag, we though that we'd hit Spiral Jetty a million in the first month, maybe even as fast as two weeks. Instead, 24 hours in, there were 1,234,384 geotagged photos (and now more than 1.6 million geotagged photos as I write this, about 9 hours later). Crazy!" Crazy indeed. Browsing around the Flickr map it's obvious he's right--there's way more pink polka dots on the map now, even in my little rural corner of the world. Butterfield also writes a bit about the technical side of Flickr, which will be of interest to my fellow web dev geeks.

[Via TechCrunch]

Filed under: Photo, Web services, Yahoo!

Flickr adds mapping, geotagging

Flickr map
Today Flickr seriously pumped up its geotagging support and added Yahoo! Maps integration. The announcement in the Flickr blog links to a few screencast tutorials that make geotagging, i.e. associating photos with particular locations on the map, look pretty easy. It's done through the Flash Ajax-based Organizr tool, and basically you select a bunch of your photos and then drag them to the location you want to tag them with on the map. Similarly, you can explore other people's photos with a new map interface. You can go to flickr.com/map to see everybody's photos and search by location and/or tag. Naturally, it's all done through the Yahoo! Maps API, which means you can zoom and pan around as well as see a satellite photo or hybrid view of the map. The Flickr update also includes integration with Upcoming.org: you can now tag your photos with a special tag for an Upcoming.org event and they'll be displayed on the Upcoming page for that event. Neat.

[Via Waxy.org]

Filed under: Photo, Web services, Yahoo!

Flickr embracing geocodes and maps?

Flickr LogoMarshall Kirkpatrick over on TechCrunch has an interesting post of a possible upcoming Flickr feature.

Marshall's post highlights some posts from Flickr users that noticed today a new Maps option on their photo page - one of the enterprising users, James & Vilija's, grabbed a screenshot (and posted it to Flickr).

This would absolutely rule and makes all kinds of sense. There have been other ways to geotag photos, but they have been limited and not applicable to the less technically inclined.

Integrating with Yahoo! Maps would make this easy to pin them to the right location, Yahoo! Maps already generates GPS Co-ordinates when you right-click on them, and hopefully will add tags automatically to the photo for easy searching later.

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