WebProNews

Exactly one month ago, we wrote about two upcoming improvements to Flickr.  Both features relate to geotagging, and according to a fresh email from a company spokesperson, “[b]oth features will go live mid-day today Pacific Time.”

Prepare yourself, then, for a world map featuring “hot tags” - essentially words representing photos and tied to the places in which the pictures were taken.  A feature known as “Places” will operate in a similar fashion, and should provide “a zoomed-in way to explore more than 100,000 locations from around the world (cities, states, countries, regions) through interesting and recent photos, groups, tags, and featured photographers of that place.”

“Places” should also serve up info like the local time and weather, making it useful to real travelers (as opposed to those of us who are stuck behind desks and simply looking for pretty pictures).

These upgrades received a warm welcome long before they (almost) launched; Flickr fanatics will likely refresh the site throughout the day in order to catch a glimpse of them as they go live.

Both features will, by the way, be free to all Flickr users.