Flickr To Launch Geo Tagging Today Mike Arrington is out with a post today saying that sometime today Flickr will launch geotagging.
From Arrington: “Sometime Monday Flickr will add geo tagging functionality and search to its pictures.
Adding location information on Flickr is done through the Organizr, under the Organize tab. In addition to the “Your Sets” and “Your Groups” tabs in that area, they will add a Maps tab where you can drag photos into a Yahoo Map area. A marker will appear that shows the number of photos included with that marker. Once you have a location you can use the Organizr to search your photos and then drag them individually or by sets into the map.”
I will try to write more about this once it’s out and I can try it out myself.
I would assume that this would operate as a mash up with Yahoo! Maps. It will be interesting to see how this would compare with Google Maps in terms of the level of geotagging detail and functionality.
Update: Flickr Blog is now reporting officially on geotags at Flickr.
Good point about google v yahoo maps. In my experiments working on http://www.mapsack.com I found that yahoo’s level of detail is very bad outside the us. I also dont find the maps quite as responsive.
Sounds promising – I must have a go at Geotagging on Zooomr as well – UK detail could be a problem…. fingers crossed!
Yeah, level of detail for the UK is really bad compared to both Google and MSN, and I don’t just mean their satellite imagary, their road maps go only to a city level (1km/1mile) range.
Now, before you all flame me, I think the implementation of flickr’s geotagging KILLS Zooomr’s.
That being said, can we now say that flickr is basically a copy of zooomr, seeing as they blatantly used this feature that existed elsewhere?
Obviously not. Just trying to make the point how ridiculous the “you copied me” argument is and how that Wikipedia entry is even more offensive a few weeks later.
Yahoo’s UK maps are nothing short of attrocious. Its just completely killed any value in this service, which is a shame as its implemented into Flickr rather well.
We hear you loud and clear on street level detail for Europe and beyond. We’ve been working hard to rollout more international data and imagery over the last few months and will keep it coming.
In the meantime, we’re focusing on keeping a good balance of global coverage. If you’re geotagging photos from a recent trip from outside the US, Europe, or Japan, you should find major cities, towns and road networks for every country.
-Scott Regan, Yahoo! Maps team
The Flickr UI technology side of it is great, but it relies so much on the map. Not only is the map data hopeless outside the US, but the Yahoo Maps technology is way behind both Google and Microsoft’s offerings.
I love Flickr but it got a scathing review from me.