A question I never had before just came up to my mind:
Should I geotag my page and why and what for?
The reason for that question is simple. I have just stumbled upon a nice little site which offers a combination of blogs and maps: FeedMap
Using FeedMap you can geo-code your blog, browse already geo-coded blogs and search for blogs. Once geo-tagged, you can get your own BlogMap location using a simple url that allows you to network with your local bloggers and much more!
Absolutely not web 2.0 at all, developed by a guy at Microsoft, powered by Microsoft maps but still pretty useful if you like to show off your blogs geographic location in a little badge or if you want to have a neighborhood blogroll. My article is branded as a product review but the subject geo-tagging or geography related mashups is hot in general and is worth a second thought!
Check the rest of the article if you are interested in geo tagging ...
Basic Features of FeedMap
- Browse blogs
- Search blogs
- Submit blogs
- Update location
Submitting your blog to FeedMap or similar services is a recommended idea if you will use FeedMap or not because it simply is another easy possibility to promote your blog. The geo-tagging can be provided to FeedMap by entering an address or by entering the longitude and latitude.
For many different future features on the Web I would also recommend to add some geographic information to your HTML header if your blogs topic is somehow related to local services. How to create and add the header code is explained on the excellent reference page Geotagging Web Pages and RSS Feeds. Other infos can be found at Wikipedia.
How to Integrate FeedMap into your site
You get three different links which you can integrate as the source of a javascript call. Three nice outputs are offered by FeedMap:
- Blog Map - a little map which shows your location. FeedMap offers a link which has to be integrated as a javascript call in your site.
- It looks like this:
<script src="http://www.feedmap.net/blogmap/blogapi.ashx?method=blogmapbadge&feed=http://feeds.feedburner.com/hamburg-sankt-georg-informationen" lang="javascript"></script>. As you can see you have to append your feed URL to get the right map. - Neighboring blogs - You get a map with blogs in the neighborhood
- Local blogroll - A blogroll where you can specify the distance from a city
All the codes can be seen on this small How can I? page. A much better step by step explanation can be found here: BlogMap Me Please, A Guide. Attention: All steps are described for blogspot. If you are on another blog system you most probably do not have to follow all steps (i.e. re-publishing the whole site).
Services using geo-tagging
There are so many Google-maps mashups out there that it would hard to list them (Example: The Textpattern blogmap). Just two other services starting to use geography information in a very useful way are:
- Zooomr: a Flickr competitor, picture example, p.com search
- Plazes: Geo-tagging all the Internet access points (WiFi, home, office, ...), example
Last not least, by adding your blog to FeedMap or other similar services you have a good chance of getting your link spread a little more. Some black hat SEO would be to geo locate your blog in the center of attraction for your niche. Your hardware blog can reside in the silicone valley without problems. Well, it's a virtual world ... information wants to travel :-)
I did not check all the FeedMap functions. I hope for some helpful comments :-)
Are you using or publishing geo-tagged content?
Which services are really useful and can also add new content for blogs?
Technorati Tags: blog, map, 2006, FeedMap, Zooomr, Plazes, geotagging, geography, tagging, longitude, latitude
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Geotagging is an interesting
Geotagging is an interesting one. I wish my camera had a gps unit but for blogs it is not that widely used. For me though, being a fan of canadian blogs (particularly vancouver, calgary and winnipeg), location is almost synonymous with subject!
Yeah, by using FeedMap you
Yeah, by using FeedMap you could create some blogrolls for these areas for your private usage which will automagically update when somebody else adds his/her blog to FeedMap (or similar services).
Well, for monitoring an area the better idea might be to monitor RSS feeds of search engines and put all the feeds into a i.e. BlogBridge guide. Then you only have to create a smart feed which filters all the results for your keywords in article and article titles. I have stuffed together like 200 of such SE feeds and my smart feeds produces an output of about 50 articles per day. That's a great way of doing your personal web monitoring.
But for publishing these geographic information FeedMap is a good solution. Oh, I have to add a disclaimer: I did not use FeedMap on a production site. But I like the idea and FedMap offers more then just the web 2.0 mashup thing. Even an API is available.
The interesting thing about geo-tagging is that it adds another dimension of website promotion to the existing ones.
Geotagging at the post level
There is a site out there, http://excio.com that lets you geotag individual posts instead of just the site. It's pretty cool....ok, maybe I think so because I wrote it, but it's like feedmap, only better because people move around and do different things. it doesn't do me any good to be talking about a cool thing I saw in south east Houston yesterday, when my geotag is locked into my home address in North Houston. The minute I blog about something away from my anchor point, I lose relevance.
Follow-Up: Universe 2.0:
Follow-Up: Universe 2.0: 'Beam me up Scotty' with geotagging
Some geotagging and location services.
Oh, and what happened to excio.com?
Speaking about
Speaking about “geotagging”: do you know locr? locr offers the ideal solution and makes geotagging exceptionally easy. locr uses GoogleMaps with detailed maps and high-resolution satellite images. To geotag your photos just enter address, let locr search, fine-tune the marker, accept position, and done! If you don’t know the exact address simply use drag&drop to set the position.
For automatic geotagging you need a datalog GPS receiver in additon to your digital camera. The GPS receiver data and the digital camera data is then automatically linked together by the locr software. All information will be written into the EXIF header, and can then be used by other applications.
Have a look at www.locr.com.
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