Bruce from bioneural.net is taking geotagging blog posts to the next level by developing a web standard icon. Geotagging is the act of adding geographical metadata to a piece of content such as a blog post.
The first important step in geotagging blog posts was made by cyberhobo who developed a plugin for WordPress that makes it very easy to annotate your blog posts and automatically puts them on a Google Map.
This is what a map with geotagged blog posts could look like:
A more customized example of a geotagged blog map can be found on Shifting Pixels.
In this way blog posts could be location based but especially location aware, or as JoeLencioni puts it:
I think that geotagging may be more for posts that are about a certain location, not necessarily posted from a certain location. At least that’s how I’m using it–I’m tagging posts of photos with the locations they were taken.
Plugins make it easier to geotag your posts and show them on a map. On top of that, the development of a specific geotag icon will very likely further develop the geoblogging trend by providing a clear and distinguishable icon. The icon and geotag information may be added to the end of the blog post:
Geotagged at 53.07509122405637, -0.8168667554855347 (View on map) – example from geoblogger publicenergy
The icon is still under construction and being made with the help and input from other geobloggers. The first draft resembles a brown pin in which the brown refers to the earth and the pin to the old habit of pinning down points on maps. The icon is designed to fit in with existing and established web icons. From left to right the proposed Geotag icon, the established Feed icon, the OPML icon, and the Share icon.
You can follow the development of the icon at Bruce’s blog and leave feedback or participate in the comments. Will the new standard icon further popularize the geotagging of blog posts?
