The days of backpacking guides written by Harvard students that direct you to a “hostel” that turns out to be a hovel may be numbered.

If a project by Jenny McCarthy and Slava Sakhnenko, two computer science grads now part of a start-up, Planeteye, pans out, that is.

The service Planeteye plans to offer adds “geo-tags” to photographs or movie files, and will allow users to search for media based on where in the world they were taken. Users upload images on to Planeteye’s servers and geo-tag them or any existing online photos. Visitors can then enter a location or landmark, and see far-off places through a previous traveller’s photo lens.

“By mapping all these locations on a map and linking different media to them, you go past having to read articles that people submitted, and actually see what it would be like to be there,” said Sakhnenko.

Planeteye grew out of a fourth-year project for a computer science course, Business of Software, that McCarthy, Sakhnenko, and three other students presented to faculty and industry types in May 2005.

After the presentation, they were approached by Rick Segal, a venture capitalist with JLA Ventures. Segal asked them to spend the summer as interns to hone their idea, they said.

After more work, including a month-long backpacking mission to Europe to find out what travelers want and need, Planeteye was formed, earlier this year, to bring their idea to market. In May, Planeteye struck a deal with Microsoft, allowing them to use patents previously held by the company. It hopes to have a beta version of its service running by the end of the summer.

Still, the main hurdle will be getting people to assign a location to photos, Sakhnenko admitted. But that may change as mobile phones with GPS units enter the market-as they are beginning to do in Asia, McCarthy pointed out.

Alternately, users would drag a location marker for each photo on to the corresponding position on the map-“internet drag’n drop,” in geek-speak.

To turn a profit, Planeteye could tempt users to click on targeted ads, racking up “live ad revenues,” McCarthy said. The company is eyeing the travel industry.

“Based on location-searching, it would pop up a list of sponsored hotels,” said Sakhnenko. “And since we’re a map-based application [the advertising] can be really relevant.”