Thanks to google for opening the API to their outrageously popular AJAX-totally-cool mapping service we all now have the ability to incorporate high quality geographical information into our web apps with relative ease. The lines between digital destinations and real locations are beginning to blur as sites like these are starting to popup around the internet. The following sites lead the way, fusing the geographical data from grassroots users into a form of “geo-tagging.” This type of fusion is on the brink of becoming quite popular.

Flagr

Flagr is a small startup based out of Boston with a service that has tons of potential. Flagr is a relative newcomer in the realm of geotagging but they are using all the lastest Web 2.0 technologies, including: Ruby on Rails, Radrails, and even some Flash. Flagr works off the premiss that each one of those cool little google markers you usually see in Google Maps for directions points represents a location, and each location can have some sort of geo-data attached to it. It can be anything from pictures to text to comments about a restaurant in the area. Did I mention you can do all this from your cell?

43 Places You may have heard about 43Things.com, a kind of Zeitgeist experiment where everyone puts in their ambitions and tag clouds are formed. From this communities spring up and all the inherent Web 2.0 goodness overflows. 43 Places is pretty much the same thing, but instead of asking what you want to do, they ask where you want to go. Users can write about all the places they’ve been, add pictures, reviews of restaurants, swap travel stories and more. Not unlike 43 Things, 43 Places also places a tag cloud on the front page to represent the interest in the locations being discussed. A note about 43 Places, if you already have a 43 Things account you can use that same log in so you can talking about what you want to do and where! Like Flagr, the 43 whatevers network also runs on Ruby.


GlobeBlogr Globeblogr isn’t quite out yet, but be ready for a splash when it’s released. There is something about a service that allows you to map our your trip on a Google Maps, then correlate blog entries, pictures and videos that just beats the crap out of making a scrapbook. I wrote about GlobeBlogr recently here, I think these guys are going to be really popular and give users a chance to add a lot of good geodata to the web.

As services like these become more prevalent and adhere to these Web 2.0 methodologies I think we will begin to see some kind of overarching service that will allow someone who is interested in planning a trip to Paris to find all relevant user created data and make the very most of their trip, and in turn documenting their experiences and continuing the cycle. What a fascinating and modern age we live in.