The Geo Factor recently interviewed Andrew Hagenbuch, co-creator of the Mapwing virtual tours service. It’s an interesting app - photos linked to a map or floorplan to provide a visual spatial reference.

TGF: What is Mapwing?

At its core, Mapwing is a technology that enables people to give their photos a sense of direction or place. Tagging a photo to a map isn’t a new concept. But, we are only beginning to see systems that show in which direction each image was taken. The result of this is a blending of images, maps, and comments to produce interactive virtual tours of real or imagined locations.

TGF: Why did you start it? What do you hope to accomplish with the site? What have you already accomplished?

Cofounder Nathan Hoover and I began developing Mapwing because we saw two problems. First, there was no easy way to tag and link pictures together directionally. As we worked on this problem, we got feedback about problem number two which was that virtual tour technology is inaccessible to the everyday user. With Mapwing.com, we wanted to solve these problems and make it easy for anyone share and explore places from around the world. While the site is still fairly new and small, we are already seeing this happen. Thanks to Mapwing’s users, I’ve seen many places that I never even knew existed. Best of all, I’ve been able to explore these locations through their eyes.

TGF: What is your professional background?

Mapwing is an interesting marriage of art and technology. My personal background is in film, photography, and other visual arts. In particular, I’ve worked on documentaries which might explain a little about Mapwing’s goal to capture the world. My friend and cofounder Nathan’s background is in engineering, so the company has some great dynamics.

TGF: What do you see as the most significant consumer uses of Mapwing?

Simply put, consumers are using Mapwing to do more with their photos and, in some cases, telling stories. For example, I’ve seen a lot of virtual tours that take family or personal photos and associate them with custom drawn maps of homes and apartments. I’ve also seen some tours that tell a story by showing a progression of Mapwing points and images. Consumers also like to take their completed tours and embed them into their blogs.

TGF: What do you see as the most significant business uses of Mapwing?

We’ve had a lot of real estate agents approach us about using Mapwing tours for their listings. You can build a Mapwing tour for free so it makes a lot of sense from a cost and feature perspective. Tourism is another big area for us. Hotels and attractions make a lot of sense. But one of the most surprising parts was seeing several town tours appear on the site. What better way to walk around a town before you visit?

TGF: What do you think will be the biggest innovation in virtual tours in the next 12 months? Why?

Virtual touring includes a huge range of technologies. I traditionally think of panoramas as the forefathers of the movement. Although they provide a seamless view, panoramas require stitching software and decent capture hardware. This limits their creation to professionals. I think the biggest innovation will come as ease-of-use. People want to share places and experiences, but this still isn’t as easy as uploading a picture. There is a lot of great stuff in the works right now, and that is going to change.

TGF: What is happening in digital photography or online mapping that might affect Mapwing?

It seems that photo mapping technologies have exploded since we started working on Mapwing in 2004. I think the growth of Google Earth and the introduction of Microsoft’s Photosynth have the most potential to reshape how we virtually explore the world. Honestly, if more digital cameras had GPS tagging, I think large-scale tour creation would move ever close to reality.

TGF: What are the biggest challenges facing the virtual tours concept?

One of the biggest challenges is that while people enjoy exploring things virtually, few have the time or tools to create virtual representations. We see this all the time in real estate. Consumers love Mapwing virtual tours of homes. It is a big time saver when you are trying to narrow down your choices. But, only a handful of agents have the ambition and resources to create tours. You see the same thing on Google Earth. Sketchup makes it a lot easier to create great 3D renderings. However, how many people have the spare time and energy to do that? Unfortunately, I think the only solution here comes from advances in hardware, and things like that take a while to penetrate the market.

TGF: What are potential new feature areas for Mapwing?

We are looking at two main areas for new features. First, the Mapwing team is constantly working to make it easier to create tours. Our online creation software already does a good job at this, but things can always be improved. Second, we are looking at blending other types of media into the virtual tour experience. This includes things like sound and movies.

TGF: What are your favorite blogs and Web sites for geospatial information? Where should those without much knowledge go to learn more about maps?

I enjoy reading Directions Magazine, James Fee’s Spatially Adjusted, and the Google Earth Blog.