Wednesday, June 24, 2020

YouTube Near You



YouTube GeoFind allows you to search YouTube videos by location. Using the GeoFind interactive map you can search for videos by location and see where each of the returned videos was shot on the very same map.

Being able to search for videos by location seems to be a great idea and on the face of it should provide really interesting results. However searching YouTube videos geographically often seems to provide disappointing results.

Over the years there have been a number of maps which allow you to search YouTube by location. None of these maps have ever seemed to have gained much traction or lasted very long. I think the main reason for this is that searching YouTube by location returns many videos which have no particular or local geographical interest.

For example I used GeoFind to search videos posted to YouTube in Manhattan. In the first ten results were videos on cooking spare ribs, make-up tutorials and how to make money on Facebook. These videos don't appear to have any real local interest and might as well have been shot anywhere in the world. In the first ten results only one video (about an NYC Justice Bike Ride) had what I would define as local interest. I think searching YouTube videos by their get-tags often provides really disappointing results. This is probably why no YouTube map has ever become a really successful app. 

No comments: