World Map Created Using Twitter

[toyotatundra]

Photographer Eric Fischer turned a lot of heads last year with his Flickr set that used the site's geotags to map various cities. Yesterday, he posted a new set on his Flickr stream, illustrating where in the United States, Europe, and the world people tend to use Twitter, and where they tend to use Flickr. The red dots indicate Flickr posts, and the blue, Twitter. One might not necessarily expect to see a lot of difference between the two, but once you get the visual it's stunning and, in parts, pretty stark.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2011/07/beautiful-illustration-where-flickr-and-twitter-are-used/39712/

Twitter gives an indication of where people live and talk. Flickr gives an indication of those places that people consider beautiful or important enough to photograph. Judging by the map, national parks in the American Southwest and Canadian Rockies seem to rate low on Twitter but very high on Flickr.

http://flowingdata.com/2010/05/25/world-atlas-of-flickr-geotaggers/

Likewise, from what I can discern, the Flickr geotags give an indication of where camera-happy tourists head in a range of major world cities.

So there's a lot of photos taken of Harbourfront and the CN Tower. And very few photos taken of Scarborough and Brampton.