
While they may not realize it, most casual photographers already have a great deal of information attached to their photos. Now people are going to have tens of thousands of photos, and when that happens, every little bit of context helps.” “Most people have just one or two or three iconic photos of their grandparents. But 10 years from now, nobody who’s geotagging their photos is going to regret it,” Mr.

“The value may not be immediately apparent. For one thing, it can help people make some sense of the mounds of photos accumulating on their hard drives. Somewhat like geocaching, the G.P.S.-based twist on treasure hunts, geotagging could be viewed as something that was invented so people would have some use for their hand-held satellite-based location finders.īut advocates of geotagging, like Stewart Butterfield, co-founder of the photo-sharing Web site Flickr, contend that linking pictures to maps can lend a new dimension to photography. “But it’s also a combination of the geek aspect, the community aspect and the love of good old-fashioned travel photography.”

“It’s kind of a geek obsession,” said Ms. She is one of many people who have taken up geotagging, which, broadly speaking, is the practice of posting photos online that are linked to Web-based maps, showing just where in the world the shutter was pressed. Instead, the new gadget is an accessory for Ms. Bennett is not, by her own description, “an outdoor person” and will not be using it to find her way through the wilderness. But unlike many other people in Seattle, Ms.

KATHLEEN BENNETT recently bought a device that keeps track of her location with help from the satellites of the Global Positioning System.
