US Patent 10120947 Propagation of photographic images with social networking

Embodiments of the invention relate to file sharing, and more specifically to sharing image files based on a social networking relationship. A digital image and associated file are created with geotag data that defines an image capture. Data associated with the image capture is stored as image metadata associated with the image file. A hyperlink to a preferred viewing URL is created and established based on a match produced from a comparison of the image file image capture data with at least one physical location identified in an index of cached data. The hyperlink is associated with the image file and directs a viewer to the physical and/or virtual location where the image was captured.