Breadcrumbs just launched their service today and it let's you manage your GPS tracks like you would a set of photos, assign them to an event or an outing type, group them together, edit them and then share them with friends. I have been playing with the Beta version for about a week now, and now have tested out the live version this morning.
With Breadcrumbs, you are able to load still photos and movies with your friends too by dropping them on the GPS track (automated through their process), which allows you to create a story out of your GPS track and tell it to others. It lets them click on the picture, movie or waypoints that you dropped to learn more about the outing. When you are done, share it on Facebook, or grab the link to the trip and share it out with others via email, etc.. The Facebook integration is automatic if you want to tie the services together. I posted the ride to my FB account; here's what it will look like.
Breadcrumbs doesn't just offer you a pretty service to save GPS tracks, it also allows you to edit them (drag and drop track points to make sure that your track is accurate), and augment their value by adding descriptive waypoints or sticky notes "Lunch - Stopped here to enjoy lunch at the Deli. I highly recommend the Roast Beef", and anecdotes to make the trip come alive.
The entire experience takes place on the backdrop of Google Maps with its familiar views. With a Google Earth plugin your browser becomes a 3-D experience offering a better view if your trip is going through areas with some elevation. Very dramatic when you see some of the views through mountainous areas.
I added a GPX track from my recent work with the Fisica Sensor Key and the MapMyRide App on my iPhone a recent weekend on Nantucket. I tested both uploading directly from my Garmin handheld GPS (Colorado 400T) and from a GPX file - both avenues produced the same result.
The ride was nothing out of the ordinary, but the track is there solidly and the two pictures I snapped with my iPhone showed up without issue on the exact location that I took them; thank you geotagging. We stopped for lunch at the Sconset Cafe - nothing fancy, but fast and friendly service. I wish I had taken more. If you didn't have them automatically geotagged Breadcrumbs has a work-around:
"Each point which makes up a GPS track contains not only a geographical location, but also the time at which the point was recorded. Because cameras also record the time when a photo is taken, the timestamp on the photo can be matched with the the associated timestamp on the GPS track, and so your photos can be located in the correct place on the map. This technique requires that the clocks on the camera and video have been synced to the clock on your GPS device, so don't forget to do this before you start snapping!"
If not, there is a way to manually drop a photo on a track and make it "stick".
So you can go check out my Nantucket Bike Ride from about a month ago, and see the Breadcrumbs product for yourself. I only took a couple of pictures, but if I had known I could have done this with them, I would have taken more!
Breadcrumbs - New GPS Track Management Service
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