I think I’ve made it abundantly clear that I really love maps.
Being someone with no natural sense of direction or mathematical savvy, I like maps both as a navigation tool and as a tool for data visualization. I also think they’re playing an ever-increasing role in local news coverage.
Because context is important, and readers of a local site should be able to scan headlines, announcements and videos by the town. And by the neighborhood. And by the street.
The utility of using a map to present information on a local site is pretty broad. You can use it to tell people about special events in their area, where to vote and how to get there.
I’ve become interested in Flickr and as I develop my photo-a-day project throughout 2010, I’ve been trying to keep up with geotagging them.
Why?
Recently, I’ve been reading up on different ways to organize text, photo and video, particularly with maps.
At The Collegian, our Arts & Living section approached me with the possibility of doing a downtown shopping guide for the Web. They asked me for input on how to present it, and I thought about a post I’d read recently that mentioned iMapFlickr, which uses the Flickr API to create customizable, embeddable photomaps.
Why not take photos of the locations, write a brief review (or link to a full review [or both]) and let readers browse shops by street?
It’s a possibility worth playing with, so I tested it out by mapping a few of my Flickr photos.
You’ll notice I haven’t traveled too much since I started storing all my photos on Flickr; it’s pretty much a jump between New York/New Jersey and western Mass. Still, it gives you an idea of how a photomap can let you visualize locations geographically.
This was really, really easy to put together. Assuming you’ve already geo-tagged your photos, you can pop in your Flickr username, choose the set that you want and, hey presto, you’ve got a map. The service allows for some minor tweaks to the color scheme, size and layout, but like most third party services, it won’t exactly match your site’s template.
There are actually quite a few map-based photo organizing applications out there, and another interesting one is Geoslideshow, though this app is in its beta stages, and I’ve just requested an invite to try it out.
I’m always looking for new ways to organize content geographically, so if you’ve heard of something that might better fit my needs, let me know.
