MapForums

Microsoft partner IDV Solutions recently put together a really slick demonstration leveraging Microsoft's Search Server 2008 and Virtual Earth technologies to allow search within the Flickr photo sharing site and then visualize each photo returned in the result set on a Virtual Earth map, giving the photo a geographical context. For the developers and technically savvy of my readers, here is a bit of background behind this experiment. For the rest of us, here is a brief example of the demo.

To keep this relevant to a public sector audience, I searched for imagery related to Hurricane Katrina. As you can see from the below screenshot, a set of photos are returned from the Flickr search and when I click to select a particular photo, it's geographical location is plotted on the Virtual Earth map, represented by a pushpin. When I mouse over that pushpin, a window is opened that provides me with a link to see that same photo and additional information in Flickr (see second screenshot.) Additionally, my search for data on Hurricane Katrina provides results through Microsoft's Live Search site with links where I can get additional relevant information.

What impressed our Live Search team about this solution was that it broke down the traditional "search=documents" paradigm, and shows that search can be visual and across different media types. I agree with this and what I also like about this particular demo is that it demonstrates how through MSFT Search Server, and the ability to add Federated Search Connectors (for example a Gov agency image database), you could add all kinds of other sources and see those images referenced on a Virtual Earth map.

Have a try. You can find it here.

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