Yesterday, Jonathan Crowe at The Maproom discovered that a Flickr clhoropleth map 
had been released for Google Earth which shows a heat map (density) of the number of photos geotagged in Flickr’s databases. Each square shows a color representing a range of photos found in that square, and, if you zoom in, you see the actual number of photos. If you click on the link provided it takes you to the Flickr Map (see my review of Flickr map) which will show you the location and actual photos from that area. By the way, I noticed there are now over 4.5 million photos geotagged in Flickr thanks to the new map tool. I really like this choropleth map because it gives you a fast read on where the most photos are to be found, and a fast way to zoom into Flickr’s map to see the photos. The author of this map is the same guy who did the cool time animation of Costco store growth (see near bottom of this blog entry) I wrote about a few days ago – Beau Gunderson. He explains some of the challenges in in parsing the data (for example querying flickr 64,800 times) at this web page. Great work Beau!
About Frank Taylor
Frank Taylor started the Google Earth Blog in July, 2005 shortly after Google Earth was first released. He has worked with 3D computer graphics and VR for many years and was very impressed with this exciting product. Frank completed a 5.5 year circumnavigation of the earth by sailboat in June 2015 which you can read about at Tahina Expedition, and is a licensed pilot, backpacker, diver, and photographer.