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Flickr takes on Geotagging
Daily Ink
Stored in: Flickr News
Posted On: August 25 2006
By: Bryan Partington
Photo © jacobd
Strange things are afoot over at flickr.
Sudden apparitions.. Here one moment and gone the next.
What manner of haunting is this?
a "map" link above a photostream?
longitude and latitude fields in the flickr organizr?
All signs that flickr's long rumored entry into Geotagging is fast approaching.
With the talk surrounding these upcoming features, It is easy to forget that Geographically locating photos has always been a bubbling, underground activity on flickr.
Stamen design's "Mappr" took a hands off approach, locating a photo based purely on word contained in its tags. While requiring little to no effort on the part of the photographer, the system wasn't always very accurate. Images could be placed no more accurately than by city, and naming conflicts abounded. Locations with the same name would compete for photos, and cities like "Christmas, Florida" posed their own unique challenges.
Dan Catt's pioneering Geobloggers applied a different philosophy, relying on Global Positioning System data acquired when the photo was taken or from coordinates pulled from a service like Google Maps after the fact. This approach proved most successful, allowing photos to be placed exactly where they were taken. The photos could then be displayed, 'pinned' to satellite maps alongside other photos taken by other users in the area.
With the technology showing remarkable promise, Geobloggers suddenly shut down its operations. Eventually an explanation emerged .. flickr had hired Dan Catt to develop their Geotagging efforts.
Adding location data to your photos should be as easy as as putting a pin into a map. Flickr photos are taken all across the globe, however, so Geotagging is like pinning a photo to a map that is 10,000 kilometers wide. This presents some complicated interface challenges that must be overcome in order to make the process easy and efficient for a wide audience.
There are also a host of security and privacy concerns related to sharing the exact location that your photos were taken. While privacy might not be a concern on an obscure web-site filled with early adopters, it becomes a major issue for any serious photosharing site with a broad range of users. It was relieving to see the inclusion of privacy options within the early development screen shots of flickr's Geotagging interface. Clearly, the social implications of this activity are being taken seriously from the outset.
Whether Flickr can popularize Geotagging remains to be seen. Taking a niche activity and exposing it to a wider audience isn't always easy, but the glimpses so far have been very encouraging.
Otherwise, in Flickr News:
- Previously: Yahoo Photos, Flickr May Grow Closer
- Next: Geotagging Hints and Tips
Utata Ink is a daily publication edited by Bryan Partington (striatic). Photos used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and obtained via the flickr API unless otherwise noted. To make a contribution to Ink, please visit Ink Me.
