On Friday, photo host Flickr introduced a slight tweak to the way users are able to geotag their photos.
Clicking on the "add to your map" option on the right side of any photo now pops up a mini Yahoo Map with an address finder. Previously, users were required to go into Flickr's somewhat complicated Organizr tool and add geotags en masse. If it's your first time using the Flickr map to geotag your photos, you'll still need to hit the Organizr, but only to change the initial privacy settings.
I've already used the system on a handful of photos, and it's far more efficient for one-off shots than using the Organizr tool. However, if you're planning to geotag three or more shots, it might be worth it to stick with the Organizr if only for its batch-editing capabilities.
To help speed up the process of tagging your photos with the new pop-over map, there's a new recommendation system that will suggest landmark locations or neighborhoods, based on where you've dragged your shot. If the system has any potentially overlapping areas, they'll be listed as suggestions that you can simply click on to re-map your shot. I found this to work well with things like parks or general neighborhoods, but for businesses you're out of luck.
On a side note, if you're an iPhone user and wondering why photos you've uploaded to Flickr via e-mail are not showing up on Flickr's map (despite having geocodes in the EXIF data) it seems some of that geodata is being stripped out by Apple before it hits Flickr. To upload shots from your phone without having that information stripped, you can use several third-party Flickr uploaders that tie into Flickr, like AirMe or Flickup.
You can now geo-tag photos right on top of any photo you're looking at. It'll also recommend places nearby in case you're trying to remember where you shot the picture.
(Credit: CNET Networks)
Nearbie is a new social bookmarking service that lets users broadcast status updates, and keep tabs on friends. Nearbie goes one step further than some other sites that do this (see Dodgeball, Groovr and Jaiku) to show you how user-submitted material is connected to people or places in your geographical location. Users can submit all sorts of things such as event notices, local landmarks, personal stories, and pictures. It's a lot like a blog, but with far more structure. The hope is that when enough people begin to use the service, users will be able to discover more about people they've met or places they've been.
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
Adding new content to Nearbie requires users to log in and go through a four-step process telling others the who, the when, the where, and the what. Each of the steps lets you add specific tagging information such as the geographical location, who else was there, or when exactly it happened. Think of it as a police report, but for blogging purposes. When you've submitted your "post", it shows up on the front page of Nearbie and is grouped with other posts for similarities in time, place, or people.
What interests me is whether or not people will be willing to input data about their lives into another Social Network. Sites such as Facebook already have a hassle-free way to keep tabs on friends with their controversial news feed, the service that automatically publishes everything about everyone, given the right privacy settings. Nearbie seems to be shooting for something similar but requires a little more work on the user end that, frankly, I don't think people are willing to go through.
See Mashable's review for an alternate take.
Locr is a new photo hosting service that promises to make geo-tagging your photos a little easier. After uploading photos, users need to simply add a zip code or city name to set a longitude and latitude for their shots. Users can then browse other geo-tagged photos by click-dragging a Google Map.
Is this different from what Flickr offers? Yes, but without a Web-based batch uploader or a way to tag landmarks, Locr comes up short.
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
Locr's Web interface is really easy to use for individual uploading and geo-tagging, but it just doesn't work with multiple photos. That requires installing the Locr upload client on your Windows PC. The software is a little buggy and gave me a few error messages on my way to uploading just two photos. If Locr could employ an browser-based Java batch-uploader like Facebook or Fotki, it would be much easier than installing software (especially for Mac or Linux users).
Locr does do a few nice things for you, like including information about surrounding landmarks. My test photo of the London Eye pulled in tidbits of information about Westminster and Vauxhall Bridge, both of which are nearby. It's also really cool to drag around the browse map, as corresponding geo-tagged thumbnails will pop up below. This is reminiscent of and even faster than Tag Maps, which I took a look at a couple weeks ago.
Locr is missing a few things, but its map-based photo browser is really well done. If it's gunning for other photo-hosting services, it needs to step up its upload and photo management tools. Geo-tagging is a really cool feature. If Locr can find a way to make it even simpler by letting you search for landmarks while geo-tagging, I think they'd have something that their competitors don't.
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
TagMaps is an exploratory mashup/science project from Yahoo Research Berkeley that mixes Yahoo Maps with Flickr's geo-tagging features to create a neat-looking photo browser. Locations show up on the map as large tags, and mousing over one will populate the corresponding Flickr photos to the right. Clicking any of these photos will give you the title and photographer information, along with the option to visit the photo page on Flickr.
What's really cool is that you can toggle between day and night modes. Both the map and the photos change dramatically depending on which mode you're in. Photos are sorted by their time stamp, so there's no additional work needed to get them to show up on TagMaps besides tagging them on Flickr. The project is definitely a work in progress, as I was unable to get any night photos to display properly yet.
TagMaps also includes a service called Trip Explorer. It taps into Yahoo Travel's Trip Planner site to show you tags of interesting places to visit. Testing it out in Berkeley, California, I found it picked up mostly bars and restaurants. When I zoomed over to San Francisco, TagMaps showed me typical tourist destinations. Clicking any of them shows other items of interest nearby. I would like to see it give a quick snippet of information from Yahoo Travel, or at least have a way to easily find out more information without leaving the TagMaps interface.
You also have the option to add a TagMap to your blog or Web site, as I've done above. You can select any starting location, along with the zoom level. If you're the technical sort, you can even choose a spot by latitude and longitude.
TagMaps is a project with a lot of promise. It has the casual, exploratory feel you get from Google Maps, but it also mixes in a dash of visual appeal with the Flickr shots. I could easily see this becoming a mobile-phone app or surfacing on blogs and social-networking profiles.
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