Shared Aerial Drone Videos - Prospects and Problems for Volunteered Geographic Information Research

The practice of producing drone videos for hobby or commercial purposes has already created a vast amount of open and free video datasets. When these videos are properly authored, time-stamped and geo-referenced, they receive characteristics of volunteered geographic information (VGI). As alternative forms to user-generated content (UGC), these visually appealing footages attract significant attention, but their production faces different practical and motivational issues that could impose limitation on the value of this kind of VGI. In order to better understand volunteered geographic drone videos (VGDV) from the social media and VGI perspective we conceptualize and discuss prospects and problems that could be explored in further research. This paper contributes to the development of theory about aerial drone videos, exploration of aerial drone video UGC characteristics and to the applicability of drone videos in Digital Earth systems.