A while back I posted about a fantastic online and offline mapping application called Schmap (available on Windows and Mac *shortly*), which takes planning a trip to a foreign destination to another level.

Here is a description of the Schmap guides from the web site:

Schmap’s series of digital travel guides integrates dynamic maps with useful background reading, suggested tours, photos from the traveling public and reviews by local correspondents (for sights and attractions, hotels, restaurants, bars, parks, theaters, galleries, museums and more) to profile 200 destinations throughout the United States, Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Anyway, imagine my surprise when I was contacted by their Managing Editor to say that one of the photos I took in Seattle last year and posted on Flickr (licensed under a Creative Commons license) was short-listed for inclusion in the third edition of the Schmap Seattle Guide, to be published later this month. I had the option of opting out of course but why would I want to do a silly thing like that?

It seems that the Schmap team rummage around on Flickr in search of CC-licensed pictures for inclusion in their various city map guides and then contact the photographers for permission to use them, with attribution of course.

Basically, this strategy makes a lot of sense for both parties. Schmap get to choose from a massive database of free pictures, which are tagged, and therefore they don’t need to hire a professional photographer. The amateur photographer gets to have his or her picture published in a guide that will be downloaded and used by hundreds of thousands of people and can wallow in the novelty. Simply brilliant and the CC-license is of course the enabler in this whole process.

Now if only my picture actually gets selected…

UPDATE: My picture was eventually included in the third edition of the Schmap Seattle Guide