Geo-tagging, the practice of adding geographical information to media, in this case photos, has been around for a while. Flickr, the Yahoo!-acquired social photo-site that’s loved by everyone, has been ignoring this idea for a long time. In the fast-paced world of online services, not delivering new stuff that wows people can be deadly. Unless of course you’ve got a following that’s not only loyal, but also quite gifted, and whips up new stuff just because it can.
Case in point, loc.alize.us, a geo-tagging service that is very easy to use and integrates Yahoo!-rival Google’s maps right into the Flickr interface. The fact that Yahoo! has their own map-service makes this whole thing rather naughty. Naughty but nice!
When looking at your pictures in Flickr, simply click the loc.alize.us bookmarklet and follow the instructions:
Here’s a screenshot of what the loc.alize.us homepage looks like:
Go there to look at geo-tagged photos or for the bookmarklet that will open up geo-tagging heaven for you.
Finally, just to top it off, the bookmarklet adds the geotags to the existing tags in Flickr. In case Flickr ever decides to let people export their pictures complete with tags, this will come in very handy!
And next time I use the word “tag” or any derivative more than once in a sentence, you have the right to come over and give me a good whipping.