Bob is on the street today, scouting out locations

This kind of (kind of) has to do with flying "T"s and percentage signs, if you know what I mean. Or at least that's why I'm interested in it.

Turns out that you can marry YouTube and Google Earth.

Google now ties YouTube videos that have been tagged with geographic information to Google Earth destinations.

So how do you embed geographic information in YouTube video entries? Here's how:

Google doesn't pull each and every video in from YouTube, just the ones where the video authors have put geographic specific information in them (a.k.a. geotagging). This is similar to what Google has allowed users of its Panoramio service to do for some time now.

Panoramio allow you to link images and text to specific geographic locations in Google Maps and Google Earth. The US Holocaust Memorial Museum used this technology to annotate the Darfur genocide with pictures and text embedded in Google Earth. This emerging trend called the GeoWeb is pegged, by some, as the Web's next big thing.

Here's how Panoramio users associate their photos with map locations:

There are four ways to place a photo on the map...

a) Searching for the name of the place

Write the name of the city or place where you want to place the photo and press “next”. Write down the name in ENGLISH, and don't include then name of the state or region
If there is more than one place with the same name you will be offered a choice of countries/regions to chose from. Finally, you will see the map of the place.
Use the map controls to find the right place.
Press “Save position” to finish.

b) Browsing the map to find the place

If you don't know the name of the place you can enter the name of a place nearby, and then follow the steps above.

If you don't know the name of anywhere nearby, leave the field blank and press “next”. The map of the world will appear. Use the map controls to find the right place and press “save position” to finish.

c) Giving the coordinates

You can supply latitude and longitude information in both decimal and sexagesimal formats.

Write the latitude and longitude coordinates in decimal format separated by “,” or by spaces. For instance: “40.56345, -3.45678”

Alternatively, you can type them in sexagesimal format (degrees, minutes and seconds). Just put a space instead of each sexagesimal symbol (°, " or '), and separate the latitude and the longitude with a “,”. For instance “23 45 21.24, -3 20 34.21” means latitude = 23 degrees, 45 minutes, 21.24 seconds north and longitude = 3 degrees, 20 minutes and 34.21 seconds west.

The exact place will be shown in the map. Press “Save position” to finish.

d) Including coordinates in EXIF

If a photo already has coordinates in EXIF (internal information), it will automatically be placed on the map. You don't need to do anything, just upload the photo, but don't press “map this photo”.

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