Flickrvision -- Twittervision's new cousin
Just released today, Flickrvision shows realtime, geolocated Flickr photos. Just like Twittervision, it's hypnotic to watch. The map moves around to show the location of the most recent tweet or photo. Both visualizations hail from David Troy, a VOIP consultant who has suddenly found himself doing a lot of geo work.
David has really been expanding Twittervision. If you have a Twitter account, you can login to Twittervision using those credentials. Logging in will let you set your location and modify what you see on the map. You will also be able to make a Twitter post from there. Your followers can also check out your geo-centric user page (mine).
There is also an API for Twittervision. It allows you to set your location and to query for others' locations. It is designed to compliment the Twitter API. I don't know of anything built on top of the Twittervision API, but there are a ton of applications using the
Twittervision accepts a location notation for Twitter messages. To specify your location use "l:" in a message. The usability of this notation remains to be seen, Andrew Turner points out making a colon can be difficult on many phones. Personally, I am a big fan of Dodgeball's notation; it uses an "@". In the Twitterverse, the @ symbol has been unofficially claimed to send public messages directed at individual Twitter users.
I was incredulous at first that David was releasing an API extension for another company's product, but this seems to be a good move for him. He is building a platform that can take advantage of other site's social networks. David can focus on and clean up their geodata. Flickrvision seems like it could be a step to make the platform more generic (even though Flickr released their own map last year). Becoming a one-stop shop for all of the things happening in a specific location could be a pretty good place to be. This is what he could become even if it's not currently his intention.
David Troy will be giving an Ignite talk at this year's Where 2.0 on May 28th (open to the public). A Where20-specfic Twittervision will be on LCD screens in the lobby; follow Where20 to be able to post messages during the conference.
tags: geo, web 2.0
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The just launched today flickrvision and the earlier twittervision are utterly and endlessly fascinating. You have a real time (or less than a minute ago) sense of the ever-changing teeming ecosystem of the Internet to wax National Geographic. Flippin... Read More
Comments: 9
Flickrvision would make a good screensaver. Anyone ever tried wrapping a web-app up as a screensaver? Something like an Apollo app or maybe just an embedded browser?
Cool addition to Flic and Twit.
This could be a cool tool for a sociology class. It is realy cool to see real time what people are sharing. I wonder how plan to keep questionalble content from giving everyone a "flash."
I can't get how Flickvision is working......when I clicked on several of the Flickrvision displayed pix to see the original photopage on Flickr, I don't see location information. Some of the posters have other geotagged photos, some don't have any geotagged photos.
I'm also seeing pix on Flickrvision which make me doubt the alleged geotagging (palm trees in Belgium, amazing seafront scenes in Minsk, Far Eastern waterfront scenes in London).
Photos from http://www.flickr.com/photos/visuellegedanken/ none of which seem to be geotagged
There was one photo of the Eiffel Tower from Milwaukee and another from Omaha
Arc de Triomphe in Germany?
An unusually large number of photos from Minsk, Belarus including dramatic seashores, many signs in English
Very many photos from the same people
A photo of black barefoot children (who look very African to me) from Aachen, Germany
Many photos which don’t make sense to be to be geotagged i.e. their content is totally location insensitive e.g. a picture of a gun
Can someone tell me what's going on?
David
To David Lisbona -- we use geotagging data from the actual photos where it is available, and then rely on the user's profile location in cases where it is not. Because less than 1% of photos are geotagged, we rely on user profile location heavily.
This is why when you look at the expanded view of each photo it says "posted less than a minute ago from London", etc.
Obviously we want to use the site and the concepts, datasets, and APIs that underly it as a way to encourage more people to do geotagging of various kinds, because as that gets more ubiquitous and better (as it will) you will start to see less European vacation photos posted from Des Moines.
Follow the site as we make progress towards that goal! We have some great ideas about how to do that.
To David Troy - thanks for the clarification.
Various blogposts are proclaiming FlickrVision as displaying geolocated photos which is not currently the case 99% of the time. Please advise an email address, blog or forum where one can respond with suggestions.
The idea is great and the website addictive.
David david2@lisbona.com
(...until David Troys come with this himself)
joinedvision, a combination of twittervison and flickrvision: http://tinyurl.com/27pv4n
I assume Flickrvision only pulls public photos - what about those with Creative Commons licenses?
I just finished a mobile twitter application called twibble to send an user's current GPS position to twittervision. If GPS is not available you can still enter the location manually.
http://www.das-zentralorgan.de/twibble
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Greg Sadetsky [05.14.07 07:20 PM]
David has done a wonderful job! Here's what it looks like in 3D:
Flickrvision on a globe
Twittervision on a globe