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Vancouver Aerial Tagging: Holy Flickr!

Holy Flickr! I just blindly stmbled into yet another wildly frenetic flickr functionality.

I think it was Roland's feed that led me here, but flickr is being used, along with its note features, to create a collaborative map of Vancouver-- a series of closer and father up images of the city based on ?? Keyhole.

Start by going to the group page for vancouver aerial tagging:

Here's collaborative aerial map of vancouver, which i made so that i could geolocate some images i took when i visited in may. by clicking on the areas under the tacks you can 'zoom' in. then you can add notes to those images with the text format [photo]flickrimageID[/photo] and your images will appear whenever someone clicks "expose photography locations"

it is a bit awkward interface wise but it is really a lot of fun.

because i've opened up the images so that anyone can add notes, you can all tack your own images taken around vancouver to the map.

The collaborative map lets you zoom in on some closer shots of the city (like Stanley Park) with markers where you can click to see flickr-ed photos.

If you follow the link just below the image to the flickr photo associated with the image, it is the same image viewed in flickr, but there are flickr notes attached to it, each annotated with codes like [photo]516764[/photo]:

Now this is something I did not know flickr could do- I can add notes to someone else's image! So I go to my own photo of the sulfur pile across the water from Stanley Park, and scribble down the numerical ID number from the URL: 124985-- returning to the flickr map image, I add my own note (upper right) positioned over where I think the piles where, and I add my own caption code>[photo]124985[/photo].

Now this is where it gets wild... going back to the interactive map ( the "EXPOSE PHOTOGRAPHY LOCATIONS" link... an icon and links my image has been automatically added to this map (upper right):

Maybe it is not as exciting reading about it as seeing and experiencing this first hand, but my brain is explosding with (caffiene?) excitement about what this group photo sharing could mean...

The ability alone to add notes to someone elses images... that has a lot of collaborative potential. Just to make sure, I zipped to one of D'Arcy's pictures and left a note. Think about it-- creating an image and asking other people to help you annotate? comment? on it via notes.

Holy Flickr! And Vancouver, great city, home of flickr and awesome bloggers, what a place!