Occasionally when I upload a photo to Flickr, I’ll add some geotagging information if I have it readily available. Geotagging, for the uninitiated, is way to to tell Flickr where (down to the intersection) you took a particular photo. Basically, when you geotag something, you plot out on a map where it was that you took your snapshot. I’ve never viewed geotagging as anything but just another piece of data that you can produce with photos — for me, it’s more of a curiosity than anything else.
However, at a recent Web conference in Madrid, Cornell University’s David Crandall and his colleagues presented a paper that detailed how they were able to plot a pretty close approximation of many parts of the globe by drawing from the 35 million photos on Flickr that are in fact, geotagged.
Their results illustrate that while photographers who upload and share their photos may shoot in various locations, there are also some things that geek gravitate towards — the 5th Ave. Apple cube store in Manhattan is the 5th most shot location in New York City based on Flickr data.
Their research also points out that there is a provable social element based on geographic data as well:
Preliminary investigation suggests that these can be quite strongly correlated — for example, we observe that if two users have taken a photo within 24 hours and 100 km of each other, on at least five occasions and at five distinct geographic locations, there is a 59.8% chance that they are Flickr contacts.
Here’s where you can download the paper: Mapping the World’s Photos.
[via New Scientist]
