I have been honored to work with the Center for Civic Media at MIT on the Grassroots Mapping and Public Laboratory projects. I love the work that is being done at the center and hope the GonzoEarth methodologies can make a lasting contribution.
From MIT: The MIT Center for Civic Media creates and deploys technical and social tools that fill the information needs of communities.
We are inventors of new technologies that support and foster civic media and political action; we are a hub for the study of these technologies; and we coordinate community-based test beds both in the United States and internationally.
http://civic.mit.edu/

This map has the Where's Waldo thing going in full effect. All kinds of different things happening in the scene musicians, artists, photogs, and all kinds of other New Yorkers.
http://publiclaboratory.org/map/washington-square-park-new-york-city/2011-4-27

http://publiclaboratory.org/map/wherecamp-stanford-palo-alto-california/2011-4-24

This is the second GonzoEarth map of the Gowanus canal. The Public Laboratory is among the participants in ongoing restoration and cleanup efforts at the superfund site. The kite aerial imagery was acquired by Charles Stewart of letsflykites.com
http://publiclaboratory.org/map/gowanus-canal-brooklyn-new-york/2011-3-27

A trip to North Carolina to help WCU initiate a balloon mapping program, and completion of a high resolution aerial image map of the campus.
http://publiclaboratory.org/map/western-carolina-university-cullowhee-north-carolina/2010-10-1

http://www.tahinaexpedition.com/2011/01/kite-photos-of-tikehau-motu-now-in-google-earth.html/

One possible way to process raw aerial imagery is to use existing imagery for georeferencing and rectification. With this technique it is possible to process aerial imagery without GPS data. The base data must have good metadata with a known coordinate system. It is also important to be aware that the precision of the new map will reflect the level of precision of the base data.

It is possible to obtain base data for the area of interest from various online GIS data clearinghouses. The USDA National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) is a 1m leaf-on coverage of the entire conterminous U.S. The imagery is acquired by the USDA and then made available to the public through the USGS National Map Viewer. It represents an excellent baseline for obtaining public domain base data for image processing.

http://nationalmap.gov/viewers.html#

Download by either navigating the viewer extent to your area of interest, or through a bounding box query.

“A Neogeographical Approach to Aerial Imaging” at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library.  

http://californiamapsociety.org/