Earlier this week Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO) launched a new feature that allows users to "geotag" pictures on its Flickr photo-management website, using a simple drag-and-drop interface. The process is so easy that the company reported that more than 1.2 million photos were geotagged in the first 24 hours.
If you are not familiar with the term, geotagging permits users to drag photos to a Yahoo! map and mark them against a specific worldwide location.
By adding text and GPS information to the tag, the service will allow people to explore and search photos by text, topic, time or location. For instance, tourists could get a feel for a particular destination before they actually visited it.
The potential marketing, advertising and new business opportunities such a service will enable boggles the mind. One company that is not boggled, however, is Google (NASDAQ:GOOG).
On the same day Yahoo! announced its new geotagging feature, Google reportedly registered three new domain names, including googleimagetagger.com.
And what does Google hope to do with this site? A good place to start looking might be the new agreement it signed with British Airways (NYSE:BAB) yesterday. The deal allows the airline to use Google's software so that visitors to its website can not only book their flights, but also access Google Earth to find nearby hotels and car rentals on a 3-D map.
As geotagging becomes more prominent, people will be able to tag an increasing amount of information on an increasing number of sites, including everything from restaurants and nightclubs to museums and even entire city blocks.
As the technology continues to improve and more people geotag ever more information, the value of information will increase -- information that Yahoo! and Google should be able to translate into new revenue streams.
Last month, I wrote about Microsoft's (NASDAQ:MSFT) new prototype photo-browsing system, Photosynth, and stated that it will allow users to create 3-D models of specific locations through the use of thousands (and potentially millions) of people's photos.
While I am not familiar with Microsoft's unique geotagging capabilities or its plans in this regard, I have to believe the software giant is working on applying some version of the same technology to Photosynth.
I can't begin to say who will win in this global game of tag, but I do see healthy new revenue streams for both Yahoo! and Google, and maybe even Microsoft. And, at a minimum, investors should begin considering this potentially lucrative line of new revenue when assessing the value of these stocks.
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Fool contributor Jack Uldrich sometimes plays tag with his kids, but hasn't yet geotagged anything. He owns stock in both Google and Microsoft. The Fool's disclosure policy wins every race.
