connecting*the*dots

Can flickr be any more fun without spinning in circles before exploding into fiery, shimmering glitter dust?

For those of you not in the know, geo-tagging is when you apply specific (or general) geographical tags to an object in order to identify its location. flickr has done an amazing job out the gate with this puppy, as the drag and drop interface is so good, so very easy to use.

(click here for a full-sized interface screenshot)

I’ve spent this entire evening digging back through my photostream, eyeballing maps and looking up the addresses of specific places where I took my shots. Some are easy to find (my house, M’Coul’s), while others are a bit of a challenge (wedding pictures, scenic shots), but it’s a fun exercise either way.

My question to Stuart and crew: This is going to become socialized at some point, right? (UPDATE: The map just appeared in my Explore tab! More here.)

I mean, how fresh would it be to be working your map and easily flip from how you’ve experienced a location to how someone else has? Essentially, take the concept behind the tag globe icon and apply it as a metaphor within the map interface, opening it up as another exploration tool? (I realize that I’ve just described a lot of the functionality of Plazes, but it already relies on people uploading geo-specific flickr images of hot-spot locations to their interface… hm, another Yahoo! acquisition, possibly?)

The Business Of Mashups

When I interviewed/presented at A9 last June, they were in the midst of that highly publicized “send a college student around in a van to take pictures of every block of every city” campaign. The idea being that seamless visual context of a business location on a Yellow Page business interface could be both useful and fun.

Well, sure, but the most useful? I approached the interface challenge from a bit of a different angle.

My presentation ended up clashing with what I perceived to be their primary context scenario for the product (people finding particular businesses with city block pictures). I argued instead, focus first and foremost on improving Yellow Pages search results and try to get businesses to “tag” their particular inventories to expose their goods to the A9 engine. Simply put, lead with the most useful user scenario, not with the eye candy of street scenes, which can always come later.

Now, flickr is, and should be, all about enhancing eye candy (finding it, sharing it, etc.); enabling people to find geo-specific businesses that have what they need is someone else’s business model.

See where I’m going with all of this?

Imagine how sick of an API this geo-tagging feature would be for a Yellow Pages product — one completely optimized to the teeth with a killer business tagging interface, providing exponentially more degrees of findability than simply scraping language from the business name, description and reviews found on the business interface itself?

Say a kid, fresh on campus, is looking for a local Chinese food restaurant and stumbles across the smartly exposed collection of quarter-mile range of images on the business interface of a Yellow Pages service. I can imagine the following conversation busting out:

Dude, check this out! ‘Swallow Balls‘ Haha. I’m getting that for Joe, he’s such a ball swallower. Ha! Oh man… they even serve scorpion? Okay, we have no choice, grab your chopsticks, we’re so there!”

Viral goodness of flickr madness; good for you, me and Mr. Chen.

Gnar, dude.

Artists: DJ Arty Fufkin mashing up Gnarls Barkley, Supertramp, The Who & Rockwell
Songs: Crazy Logic, as a mashup of Crazy, Logical Song, Go To The Mirror Boy & Somebody’s Watching Me

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When I was young
It seemed that life was so wonderful
A miracle
Oh it was beautiful, magical
And all the birds in the trees
They’d be singing so happily
Oh joyfully
Oh playfully watching me

Does that make me crazy?
Does that make me crazy?
Does that make me crazy?
Possibly

And I hope that you are having the time of your life
But think twice, that’s my only advice
Come on now, who do you, who do you, who do you, who do you think you are?
Ha ha ha bless your soul
You really think you’re in control

Well, I think you’re crazy
I think you’re crazy
I think you’re crazy
Just like me

I always feel like somebody’s watching me
I always feel like somebody’s watching me

Then they send me away
Teach me how to be sensible
Logical
Oh responsible, practical
And they showed me a world
I could be so dependable,
Oh clinical
Oh intellectual, cynical

Does that make me crazy?
Does that make me crazy?
Does that make me crazy?
Possibly

My heroes had the heart to lose their lives out on a limb
And all I remember is thinking, I want to be like them
Ever since I was little, ever since I was little it looked like fun
And it’s no coincidence I’ve come
And I can die when I’m done

Maybe I’m crazy
Maybe you’re crazy
Maybe we’re crazy
Probably

See me
Feel me
Touch me
Heal me

Crazy Logic from the mashup mind of DJ Arty Fufkin.

(via BoingBoing)

10 Things I Hate About Commandments.

Classic.

(via BoingBoing)

I’m jumping from a close look at American policy to a perspective on the history and future of Islam to shorts of fiction with gutfelt emotion to the ills of the ownership of ideas.

The mashup is pretty interesting…