Tag: Fotopedia »

Fotopedia’s mission has always been to create a photographer and user-friendly Wikipedia for photography. Their iOS apps take a category and compile the best shots in a wonderful package. Their latest offering, Women of the World, a collection by Olivier Mantel, is free and “A tribute to the diversity, beauty and strength of women around the world."

A joint project with the World Bank, the photos celebrate the indomitable strength of women all over our planet with hundreds of extraordinary images and a small selection of photo-stories that showcase women in traditional and decidedly modern roles. From a mosque in Senegal to a road works project in Vietnam and even on to Wall Street, the collection spans 35 years of women at home, at work, and on the go in moments of joy, contemplation, toil, and sorrow, but often doing everyday things in everyday settings, too.

The stories are updated: at present they focus on the “Women of Africa," “Eternal Mothers," and just added, "Forever Yours" - a look at marriage.

Like all Fotopedia apps, the interface is simple to use and the images sharp and striking. There are also lots of sharing options built in to help bring attention to, as World Bank president Robert B. Zoelick so aptly puts it in the app’s forward, “women [who] make up 50% of the global population, 40% of the global workforce, yet … own only 1% of the world’s wealth.”

Download this visual treasure trove and celebrate the world's mothers, sisters, daughters, wives, friends, colleagues and inspirations.

Out of the 890 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, I'll bet that the average person has seen 2 in person -- maybe 3. With Fotopedia though, you can view them all, anytime you want, on either the iPhone or iPad.

Fotopedia "brings together 20,000 photos illustrating 3,000 points of interest" within all 890 sites, with more pictures being added every day. Being a web-based app, each site is integrated with its description on the UNESCO World Heritage website, its description in Wikipedia, and a convenient link to TripAdvisor, just in case you plan on going on a vacation.

There are a few snafu's though that need to be ironed out. The navigation system past the home screen is a bit confusing, just randomly jumbling you through site after site. All of the sites are admittedly amazing, but a top level navigation menu that separated all the countries would be greatly appreciated.

Fortunately, there is a useful map view that pinpoints all the locations for you. Depending on your zoom level, it also goes from individual sites to whole countries, showing the sites within. Again, a top level view of all the countries would be much easier, but such a menu does not exist.

For a free app, Fotopedia has quite a lot of content, making it a borderline "must have." It could use some organization, but if you want to go on a picture tour, this is definitely the way to do it.