Panoramio

Often whilst Google Earth browsing (there should be a better verb available for this activity, growsing or something like that) I have been impressed by the embedded photographs available via the Panoramio layer. If you are not familiar with Google Earth (shame on you), this layer gives you access to fairly high quality images which are "rooted" to the actual locations via the Google Earth maps. Thus, as you wander down a country lane in County Kerry, you can click on one of the little blue spots and see a splendid image of the Iveragh Peninsula - or some such joy. Obviously there was some review and selection procedure at work : the images are quality images and there is not the usual selection of headless mothers and cute dogs one normally associates with on-line photo albums.

So in need of a distraction to keep me from filling-in my tax self-assessment form, I went in search of Panoramio. It is now part of the Google Empire, but the site was established by two young Spanish software engineers who wanted to develop a means by which you could file and display images from a geographical perspective. It has now become hugely popular and the system can be used to both store your images and display them to the public via Google Earth. Once you have an account - in the best Google traditions, free to set up - you can store any photographs and - if you so choose - submit them for inclusion as Google Earth Panoramio images.

So I have my account - you can access it via this LINK - and I have a few images already there. We will have to wait and see whether they pass the Google Earth selection process.