Congratulations are in order: I managed to pull Flickr images by geo-tag! Circumventing the authentication problem – it turned out I did not really need this – which is just as well as I understood about zero percent of the for-dummies explanation about this subject. Does this make me a super-dummy?

Anyway: I made some more code and it works. Just input a placename here and the 20 top pics from that place will show. Actually, I told the algorithm to get pictures from jan 1th 2010 onwards, in a 10 km radius around the place’s centroid, and sorted by interestingness.

Interestingness is what Flickr calls the criteria used for selecting which photos are showcased. “All photos are given an Interestingness “score” that can also be used to sort any image search on Flickr. The top 500 photos ranked by Interestingness are shown in Explore. Interestingness rankings are calculated automatically by a secret computer algorithm. The algorithm is often referred to by name as the Interestingness algorithm. Although the algorithm is secret, Flickr has stated that many factors go into calculating Interestingness including: a photo’s tags, how many groups the photo is in, views, favorites, where click-throughs are coming from, who comments on a photo and when, and more. The velocity of any of those components is a key factor. For example, getting 20 comments in an hour counts much higher than getting 20 comments in a week.” 

Interesting!