Flickr working on geotagging functionality?
I noticed something interesting this morning while organizing some of my photos on Flickr. On the Organize page, I spotted an additional tab on the top labeled "ADMIN:DEV". Clicking on it opened a world map (courtesy of Yahoo! Maps/NAVTEQ) and an options panel. That panel prompted me to set my default geotagging permissions for new photos (that is, who can see the geotagging information). After selecting "Everyone", I was presented a map to which I could drag and drop photos, thus tagging them with latitude and longitude information.
The photo selection dropdown list at the bottom of the screen also had additional selection criteria for "Your photos without geotagged information..." or something along those lines. At this point, I decided to cull some coordinates for a few pictures from Google Earth to give the new feature a whirl. When I returned, the tab was gone. Unfortunately, I didn't have the wherewithal to take screenshots, so I have to rely on memory.
The fact that the tab disappeared, along with its title (ADMIN:DEV) indicates that this is something that is obviously not ready for prime time. In my opinion, this would be a welcome feature for Flickr. There are already a number of people doing this, and it would be great to see that integrated with the Flickr experience. I have heard that Zooomr has some great geotagging functionality, but I haven't tried it yet. I'd be happy to see this show up on Flickr since I'm already a paid Pro user, and have spent a good deal of time tagging and organizing my photos there.
It's nice to see that some competition in the photo sharing space is breeding some new features!
Labels: flickr, geotagging, photography
posted by brad77 at 8/04/2006 10:16:00 AM
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9 Comments:
Thanks, Kristopher. I just signed up for a Zooomr account, and have already taken you up on your offer.
I'll give it a try!
Hey, you spotted the same thing that I did. I managed to grab a screenshot of the map link in the toolbar. check out my blog for the image. This is something that I have been waiting for and have blogged about the lack of options previously.
sorry kris, but I have both flickr pro and zoomr pro: flickr is faster and zooomr is 'confusing'. and the italian language is missing!
Very interesting. I have yet to sign up for a Flickr account. However, I might consider doing so, judging that it is providing such a good service.
Like you I'm very stuck in flickr, tagging all my photos properly took alot of time, and I wouldn't want to do it again so I'm really glad this feature is on it's way, it looks fun, and I'm sure there'll be lots of things we'll be able to do with it.
Looks like an Italian version would help Zooomr a bit, wouldn't it, Kristopher?
Nicola D'Agostino
You could also check out www.photobloggers.net. Unlimited photo uploads per month. Now how's that! :D No geotagging yet though :)
competition in the photo sace has nothing to do with flickr adding this functionality, as they hired the developer of geobloggers.com long before zooomr popped its little head up.
that kristopher tate suggested that somehow flickr is playing 'catch up' is ridiculous. i don't consider taking time to get things right and not releasing confusing, slow, buggy features to be playing 'catch up' .. especially when flickr had the idea first.
zooomr grabbed the ideas of geobloggers, which are now a part of the flickr team. "finally trying to catch-up?" .. naive.
also, to continue my pocket rant, i should add that if you're really into geotagging that flickr is the better place to be, because of all of the excellent 3rd party tools for geotagging that have been built around the flickr API.
with these taken into account, zooomr lags far behind what one is able to do with one's geotagged photos on flickr.
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