Flickrvision

May 14, 2007 6:36 AM

Flickervision (beta). Also, Twittervision.
posted by psmealey (37 comments total)

wow.
posted by Dave Faris at 6:40 AM on May 14, 2007

damn. i'm going to end up sitting here all day in my bathrobe.
posted by vellocet at 6:43 AM on May 14, 2007

They should limit it to cameraphone uploads.
posted by smackfu at 6:43 AM on May 14, 2007

I got to say, flickrvision weirds me out far less than twittervision does.
posted by drezdn at 6:43 AM on May 14, 2007

...although you have to geocode the photos, so I guess cameraphones won't have that until you get back to your computer anyway.
posted by smackfu at 6:48 AM on May 14, 2007

smackfu: "...although you have to geocode the photos, so I guess cameraphones won't have that until you get back to your computer anyway."

ZoneTag tags your photos with their location, which it knows based on the cell tower it's connecting to. Not perfect, but frequently close enough.
posted by Plutor at 6:54 AM on May 14, 2007

Flickrvision is very cool, thanks!

Twittervision, not so much.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 6:55 AM on May 14, 2007

Is there a way of slowing these down? The Flickr one is awesome.
posted by teleskiving at 6:58 AM on May 14, 2007

looks like I'm going to mark nearly each and every post as my favourite. reminds me of the story of the map at scale 1:1

thanks anyway for another great find
posted by nicolin at 7:01 AM on May 14, 2007

A very cool link (the first one - I'm not too sure about twitter)
posted by chuckdarwin at 7:04 AM on May 14, 2007

Flickrvision is cool - I would use it as a screensaver at work if I knew whether it was worksafe.
posted by seawallrunner at 7:12 AM on May 14, 2007

Let me be the first dissenter...

Its sort of cool until you realize these are photos that are being uploaded now vs. taken now. So despite all that panning, its not really real-time.

And if its not real-time why not use Flickr Maps, which lets you filter by date taken, date uploaded, tags, groups or even a particular person?
posted by vacapinta at 7:15 AM on May 14, 2007

twittervision previously.
posted by peacay at 7:18 AM on May 14, 2007

And if you want a mappy version of geotagged blogs, try The World As A Blog. This is a few years old, though.

I don't get the appeal of Twittervision, because it requires shoehorning metadata into places it's not designed to go.
posted by Remy at 7:23 AM on May 14, 2007

Its sort of cool until you realize these are photos that are being uploaded now vs. taken now.

I don't see it that way. I that idea that someone at a given moment has chosen a particular photo, and decided (for whatever reason) to post to Flickr. It's more interesting, to me, to think of it as a window in mindsets the world over than it is a real time view into actions.
posted by psmealey at 7:28 AM on May 14, 2007

Web 2.0: It requires shoehorning metadata into places it's not designed to go.
posted by Plutor at 7:40 AM on May 14, 2007

neat
posted by caddis at 8:05 AM on May 14, 2007

So, all the creator of this site needs to do is grab the realtime cameraphone feeds instead of all of flickr?
posted by Dave Faris at 8:16 AM on May 14, 2007

and add timing controls and a STOP button. and Sat' imagery instead of just maps.

But I like this a lot.
posted by lemonfridge at 8:26 AM on May 14, 2007

If you want even more semi-realtime happenings from all over the world (from Twitter), linked together with semi related pictures and videos and presented in a fantastically hypnotical way, check out Flussgeist/L'attente/The waiting.
posted by lodev at 8:28 AM on May 14, 2007

Never has so much accomplished so little.
posted by GuyZero at 8:30 AM on May 14, 2007

MetaFilter: i'm going to end up sitting here all day in my bathrobe.
posted by chlorus at 9:09 AM on May 14, 2007 [3 favorites]

MetaFilter: Why fuck a stranger when you can fuck a friend.
posted by phaedon at 11:34 AM on May 14, 2007

I like the idea behind both of these sites. But I enjoy We Feel Fine
a bit more (even though it's limited to Flickr photos and blogs that make reference to the way a person feels). The murmurs and montage sections offer a more fluid way of viewing the relevant material. That's a site I could stare at for hours.
posted by inconsequentialist at 11:47 AM on May 14, 2007

I still don't get twitter. It's like an RSS feed of your life. But who cares?
posted by ninjew at 1:07 PM on May 14, 2007

Love the flickrvision.
posted by Quiplash at 1:59 PM on May 14, 2007

Whoa. I could stare at twittervision all day long.
posted by Saellys at 3:07 PM on May 14, 2007

I still don't understand this Twitter thing. People actually CARE about what strangers are doing at this very moment?

I'm guessing it really worked well at SxSW where you had multiple participants and multiple venues where events were happening simultaneously. Short of something very similar to that, I'm not sure I understand what other applications it might be used for.
posted by psmealey at 4:03 PM on May 14, 2007

Hmm, it seems they've forgotten Taiwan exists. Oops.
posted by Poagao at 7:53 PM on May 14, 2007

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).

Can someone tell me what's going on?
David
posted by dlisbona at 7:44 AM on May 15, 2007

More anomalies after spending some more time looking at Flickrvision:

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

Many photos from Taiwan

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

Any explanations?
posted by dlisbona at 8:11 AM on May 15, 2007

yes, it's call tourism. people leave their hometowns in Milwaukee, Aachen and go to other places to take photos :)
posted by seawallrunner at 8:56 AM on May 15, 2007

And then they label them as being from Milwaukee?
posted by smackfu at 9:03 AM on May 15, 2007

Aha, it's using the user's profile location. Kind of weird.
posted by smackfu at 9:08 AM on May 15, 2007

PonyRequest for MetaTwitter, or, yes, MeTwit:

6.50 AM: Leave for internetless job.
11.00 AM: Return home, check favorites, notice someone unfavorited something
11.28 AM: Can't find what was unfavorited, their loss anyhow.
11.30 AM: Checking MyComments, decide it's probably best not to respond after making provocative MeTa comment late last night.
11.32 AM: Checking the Blue... hey, is that a double? Better make a comment implying it is, without actually checking.
11.35 AM: Good post... three days ago on BoingBoing!
11.42 AM: Checking AskMe... dump him, dump her, dump them, reinstall your drivers, quit and dump him, declaw her, buy a Mac, reinstall her claws, duh, The Wind in the Willows, yes, no,
that guy so owes me a checkmark from his last question, so fuck him.
12.00 PM: Make clever response to AskMe, F5ing to see how many favorites I get.
12.01 PM: Railing about goddam Jessatex's itchy trigger finger to cat. Cat unsympathetic.
12.34 PM: Check blogroll, leave comment on languagehat's blog, just to look smart.
12.36 PM: Noticed typo in comment left on languagehat's blog, delete it from blogroll.
12.54 PM: Eating lunch.
13.02 PM: F5ing MyComments.
16.45 PM: Shit, late for other internetless job, need to remember to buy new F5 key.
22.05 PM: Home again! Hug SO, checking favorites... what the hell?!?
22.07 PM: Wondering why someone listed me as a contact, tempted to send e-mail asking why.
22.10 PM: Stalking bardic.
22.14 PM: Spending quality time with SO.
22.17 PM: Stalking bardic.
22.19 PM: Dammit honey, it's quality, not quantity - oh, look what you made me type, thanks a lot!
22.26 PM: Folding out fouton, snuggling up to the warmth of the laptop.
22.38 PM: Complain about deleted AskMe response in completely unrelated MeTa.
22.47 PM: Making snarky response to stupid comment.
22.48 PM: Realize comment wasn't stupid, I just misunderstood.
22.49 PM: MeTaFight.
22.52 PM: Christ, what an asshole.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:45 AM on May 15, 2007 [1 favorite]

I received a clarification yesterday from David Troy (the developer of FlickrVision)

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 explains the pictures of the Eiffel Tower from Milwaukee and Omaha.......and all the other discrepancies.

The idea of FlickrVision is great and I'm sure that David Troy can find a way to show which photos are geolocated and which merely indicate the Flickr member's home location.
posted by dlisbona at 11:37 PM on May 15, 2007

And then they label them as being from Milwaukee?

There's the slight chance that it could be from our Bastille Days celebration, but that happened/happens in July, so someone would have to be really far behind or ahead in updating their photos.
posted by drezdn at 6:57 AM on May 16, 2007