E-Media Tidbits

Amy Gahran On Sept. 3, I hiked to the 8,400-foot summit of Bear Peak on the western edge of Boulder, CO. This Flickr map shows exactly where that summit is. (Click image to see more.)

On Aug. 28, the popular photo sharing service Flickr debuted what I think is a very cool tool with ample news and citizen-journalism implications: drag-and-drop geocoding.

That is, you now can drag photos you upload to Flickr onto a map that shows streets, satellite photos, or both. When you drop your photo onto the desired point on the map, detailed geographic coordinates (latitude and longitude) get added to the metadata for that photo.

This is similar to what you can do with custom Google Maps. On a Google Map you can specify a location (stick a "pin" on the map) and then upload photos and other related information or media. I've done that, and it's not too cumbersome -- but I think Flickr's photo-centric approach is far more intuitive. Plus Flickr makes it easy to tag and share photos, which makes them more broadly findable.

That's why, if you're trying to reach a general non-geek audience, I think it might make sense to use this new Flickr feature to supplement geographically focused news or other coverage. It's easier for you and for your audience. You don't have to customize from an API, like you do with Google Maps. Rather, you can simply ask people who want to participate in your project to upload their photos to Flickr, geocode them, and tag (label) them in a way that will relate them to your project. Then you can use Flickr's various sharing tools (feeds, etc.) to publish that set of geocoded photos in various ways.

Also, on any geocoded Flickr photo you can call up nearby photos.

The only downside I've found so far is that I couldn't call up Flickr's satellite maps (drawn from the Yahoo Maps service) using Firefox on the Mac. I had to jump into the Safari browser to make that work.

I love finding free tools that expand what journalists and online publishers can do without requiring any investment other than a little learning time. It's even better if they're fun to use. This one is definitely fun.