July
2006
Google and photo geotagging
Ok so I’m getting into this whole geotagging thing, sitting here thinking about Google maps and Web Picassa and seeing the future of browsing online photo albums in the same way a few of us can already find websites based on physical location. I’m thinking that it’s the one big advantage Google would have over Yahoo’s flickr, which at the moment is miles ahead of web Picassa. Picassa is Googles photo managing suite, which recently had a limted test version of an online tool, linked in with the Picassa desktop software.
Why geotagging photos and Google? Well because if you are Google and you get your users to upload photos with a tag to say where they were taken, suddenly you could map those photos, so as a user you could browse by location. Going on holiday, want to check out the hotel? Perhaps you’ll be seeing a friend in a new city and want to check out some snaps before you set out? You put out a java application for mobile phones and suddenly users can browse the area they are in and see photos of places which they are thinking about going to see.
It would be a bold move for Google to open up their API and allow it to be used by flickr, but then again someone out there could write a mash up quickly enough to do this. One to watch for sure.
