Perusing the host of web 2.0 features that help the visually inclined has been a laboriously vexatious task. However, I have come across an abnormally user friendly tool called flickr. Lets face it, we (I) don't want to have the internet cause anymore strife than any other piece of technology (usually) would cause. Afterall, technology is meant to be the "application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes," ...thank you Apple Dictionary, you have once again assisted in my contentions.
Flickr is a tool for sharing and annotating images. Flickr was developed by Ludicorp, a Vancouver based company that launched Flickr in February 2004. The service emerged out of tools originally created for Ludicorp's Game Neverending, a web-based massively mulitplayer online game. Flickr proved a more feasible project and ultimately Game Neverending was shelved.
Flickr enables you to share your photos with the world. But wait! It's oh so much more than that. It is a online photo management system that has two main goals: 1) To help people make their content available to the people who matter to them. 2)To enable new ways of organizing photos and video.
In regards to their first goal, Flickr has arranged for multiple ways to get photos and video in and out of the system; from the web, mobile devices, the user's home computer and whatever software their using to manage their content, and through the flickr website, rss feeds, email outside blogs... and so on.
In regards to the second goal, they want to reduce the stress of the massive amount of photos or video made possible by the digital switch. Their solution to the overwhelming nature of digital photos/videos is a collaborative sharing process. The people you choose to share with can be given permission (by you) to organize your stuff.
Let me introduce you to the "tour" of flickr: What is Flickr? Flickr is a way to get your photos and videos to the people who matter to you. And basic accounts are free! You can UPLOAD, EDIT, ORGANIZE, SHARE, MAP, MAKE STUFF, and KEEP IN TOUCH.
The founders of flicker, Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake head a team of 45, and pride themselves on their good work. After all, Flickr has received worldwide recognition, and accolades from some of the most prestigious press outlets. Flickr is a Yahoo company, and is bookmarked on Delicious.
Some of Flickr's competition includes: Shutterfly, Kodak Gallery, Snapfish, and Photobucket. Personally, I have used Kodak Gallery and Photobucket and although they provide a way to share photos with friends, the infrasturcture is completely different. They are not as much of sharing/organizational based sites. Oh, and Kodak Gallery is constantly pushing (trying to sell they're shit).
I have been playing with Flickr for only 2 days now, and I'm completely enamored. I have not even made myself public yet. I'm still in the first stage of the game, uploading photos, creating sets, and even dabbling in the editing. I'm satisfied with the editing capabilities, however, they offer better or more "advanced" editing for around $25 a month.Too bad.
The only reason I would order the advanced version would be to stay on par with the massive amount of professional photogs out there in flickr-land. Flickr is extremely community oriented, people are constantly posting new pictures, and what's more then that, people are constantly commenting on them. Using such photography jargon as "negative space" and "streamlines" and "contrast." It feels like a virtual photography gallery, where everybody's an expert, or at least feel entitled to their opinion. Another social phenomenon of the internet, everybody's a critic. However, I have yet to see a mean or devastating critique, one said, "i like this very much except for the small blurry spot in the background." Yee-ouch!
Like the Universe, FLickr is constantly expanding. I just checked, and with in the last MINUTE there were 5,865 uploads. Ok, and I checked again: 5,762, again: 6,243. So I think it's fair to say the site averages somewhere beteen 5 and 6 thousand uploads per minute.
Flickr provides it's own press page...
example:
The Village Voice writes: "Flickr didn't invent online picture sharing, of course, but it was the first such site to recognize itself as much more than a hosting service for personal photo albums. Tricked out with features inspired by the latest fashions in online-software design & post-Friendster social-networking tools, folksonomy-friendly image-tagging code Flickr has also won a devoted following of users hungry to explore the possibilities its Web-centric toolset opens up. It's a place not just for self-display, but for an emergent visual conversation" (24 March 2005).
Ok, so here's an example of how easily I took an unusable image and made it sharp and vibrant on Flickr!
Flickr... and You
I realized that I should probably qualify my last posting. Flickr is a tool that is perfect for tattoo enthusiasts and Visual Anthropology junkies alike. Here's why:
Two words, Organization and Sharing (I guess that's three words, but take away the and, and it just looks weird, trust me, I write a lot). Not only can you organize a "set" of tattoo photos, but you can organize multiple "sets", for instance tribal, old school, quotes, monkeys, whatever and have them all be under a "collection" titled Tattoo. You can then put that collection with in a larger Body Modification collection. You dig?
Same goes for Visual Anthropology, where categorization of images in a relatively comprehensive way is of the utmost importance. Then, there is the sharing of said collections. You can find a group of tattooists or tattooies, or people just interested in body modification in general. Just like you can find groups of people who organize their images by cultural, anthropological significance.
The discipline of Visual Anthropology is about culture through visual mediums such as photography and film. The field can be looked at in two ways, 1) How culture represents itself visually, ie. through art, architecture, fashion, body modification, etc. and 2) How the anthropologists visually represent the culture they are studying, ie. through film and photographs mostly.
Although the most popular route for a Visual Anthropologist is through ethnographic (mostly documentary) film, photo essays are another form of project. Flickr is an online space to create and exhibit photo essays. Not only can the editing and organizing of the photographs be done in a relatively easy way, but in the same space, a person can label and provide context, narrative or explanation for each photograph and set/collection. What is more, the anthropologist can then share his or her photo essay with the world.
Having reflected on this post, I realized that the discipline of Visual Anthropology could use a site like flickr, only more specialized. Meaning, I anticipate Flickr to create susidiaries they can sell to artistic, journalistic or scientific associations. For example, associations such as the AAA American Anthropological Association. This open forum would be much more useful than tools like Photobucket or Kodak Gallery, two tools I feel are best for ameteur photographers wanting to share their photos with friends and family.
As I previously displayed, I am new to Flickr, so I have yet to become public, but, here is a screen shot of my "sets":
Contextualizing Flickr
Using a neat tool called Prezi, I have made a "prezi"ntation about FLickr that might be useful...
flickr prezi
In my original posting, I provided links to the Flickr tour, here is a summary:
Uploads can be made from your desktop, by email, or by your cameraphone ; "via the Flickr Uploadr (available for both PC and Mac), iPhoto, Aperture, or Windows XP plugins our upload web page, email, various free third-party desktop programs."
Editing your photos is easy with their partner, Picnik. "Get rid of red eye, crop a photo or get creative with loads of different effects!" After you've authorized Picnik, you can edit your photo as much as you wish.
Organizing is made comprehensive with their sets and collections grouping options. "The Organizr" is where both Collections and Sets are created. It also allows you to perform common tasks on large batches of photos and videos, such as tagging, changing permissions, or editing timestamps.
Sharing can be done in groups, a way for people to come together around a common interest. "Groups can either be public, public (invite only), or completely private." Every group has a pool for sharing photos and videos and a discussion board for talking. Privacy is easy to control, you can set your own privacy level, usage license, content type and safety level. What's REALLY neat, to me anyways, is you can, like, sticky note on the photos! Don't worry, they only appear when they've been scrolled over by a mouse. Otherwise, that would be lame.
Mapping is cool. It's a way to "map" out photos by place! "Drag-and-drop your photos and videos onto a map (using the Organizr) to show where you took them, or browse a world map to see where other people have been and what they saw."
Making stuff like photo books, calendars, cards, etc. Basically, anything with an image is possible.
Keeping in touch via Flickr means building relationships in an online community. Using the "Contacts page", you can have contacts of friends and/or family. You can even give "guest passes" for non-Flickr members to see your collections.
I hope you enjoyed my "prezi"ntation... Happy Flickring everyone!
No comments:
Post a Comment