JeffreyBarke.net

From Directions Magazine, via Donna:

Jotle is a new Google mashup that combines Google Maps with Flickr and YouTube. According to a posting at the Directions Magazine's Web Map Gallery by Mikhail Novikov:

Google Maps + Wikimapia + Placeopedia + Flickr + YouTube = Jotle! Jotle is a new Flickr photo and YouTube video explorer that takes Google Maps and mashes it up with Wikimapia and Placeopedia placemarks.

Jotle lets you zoom into various parts of the world and see map points for Wikimapia and Placeopedia. Jotle then uses the tags for these locations to pull in photos from Flickr and videos from YouTube. Though it's definitely not the first Flickr + YouTube Google Maps mashup it is the first that uses this clever location-plotting as a way to suggest photos and videos for the areas of the map you're looking at. It's also a great compliment to the immense value both Wikimapia and Placeopedia offer in the area of travel and tourism. Now in addition to researching areas you are about to visit using Wikimapia and Placeopedia you can also use Jotle to get a visual feel for the immediate area.

Hmm… well, I'm not sure if it's my slow internet connection or what, but don't believe the hype. While the concept of Jotle is sound, the performance leaves much to be desired. The app was very unresponsive and I had a hard time figuring out what did what (or if anything did anything at all!).

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Update: After spending a bit more time playing around, I feel I may have been a bit too hard on Jotle. It is in beta, after all, and my connection is terribly slow. Still, there's something about the UI that I feel is seriously lacking.

There was a cute (well, quirky anyway, and somewhat offensive to the geotagging community) and informative article on Flickr and geotagging in today's New York Times: "Pictures, With Map and Pushpin Included." The article defines geotagging, mentions different ways to do it, discusses EXIF headers and even mentions a product I use and endorse, RoboGEO. It also questions (and provides several different takes on) the rationale for geotagging:

Then why go to all the trouble of geotagging now? For some the payoff might be the feeling of satisfaction that comes from adding to the growing pool of location-tagged photos on sites like Flickr.

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The stored location information and Web links created by these systems allow the photos to be displayed as an overlay on the digital maps. Similarly, geotagged photos can be searched by location rather than just by file name or time.

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Mr. Butterfield has found that geotags already add valuable information to some kinds of photos. In particular he finds it useful when viewing photos of urban decay.

Despite the trouble (and it is a hassle, even with RoboGEO), I am solidly behind geotagging, given my background in GIS and community-asset mapping. I also endorse Flickr (even though it's owned by Yahoo!^*) because of their amazing API and support for georeferencing (view my Flickr map).

Read the entire NYT article

^* I have neither forgotten nor forgiven.