An often discussed topic of the Web 2.0 hype is social tagging. Previously, only online editors were able to add semantic tags to content items such as websites, text, pictures and videos. With Web 2.0 technologies, users are enabled to create their own tags and share them with others.
Geo tagging describes the adding of geographical information to content items and thus setting these items into a new reference framework. Users are for example able to add geographical data to holiday pictures that are stored on an online photo service. Users can retrieve their pictures by semantic tags (e,g. Vienna 2007) and/or on a map. New types of online communities develop as community members are enabled to set their points of interest on a map, to share their points of interest with others and to add descriptions and ratings.
These services become even more popular with the availability of free and ready-to-use application programming interfaces (APIs) to the maps of Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. To integrate these geographical online services into a website becomes easy.
The aim of this survey is to give interested users and companies, especially online community owners, an overview of available geographical services. The authors describe examples of websites offering geo services and discuss the advantages of doing so.
An important issue for website owners is the readiness of users for these new and not always easy-to-use services. An online survey with end-users and interviews with Internet experts were conducted to find out more about the acceptance of existing and possible future services.
In order to be able to give a better overview of the multitude of available applications, four types of services were defined. Existing applications were attributed to these types and described in more detail. Thus readers are given ideas for their own commercial or non-commercial applications.
Finally, the survey offers a check-list for website owners helping to choose the right API provider as well as a selection of links to online forums and websites for developers.
