Discovering Flickr

Photo sharing websites have been around since the 90s, but it took a small startup site called Flickr to catapult the idea of “sharing” into a full blown online community. Within the past couple of years, Flickr has become the fastest growing photo sharing site on the web and is known as one of the first websites to use keyword “tags” to create associations and connections between photos and users of the site.

For this discovery exercise, you are asked to take a good look at Flickr and discover what this site has to offer. Find out how tags work, what groups are, and all the neat things that people are using Flickr for.

We will be using Flickr to record milestones and events in the Talking Visurals Project. However, you can have a lot of fun with these tools, so have a play and see what interesting images you can produce.

Discovery Resources:

Flickr Tutorials Series
Starting with Flickr
Signing up for Flickr
Uploading Photos to Flickr--01
Creating a Flickr Web Address
Who is Scooby Gooseberry?
What are Flickr Sets?

Flickr Learn More tour (6 steps)

Flickr: Popular tagsInteresting- Last 7 days

Flickr Services (3rd party applications & mashups)

Discovery Exercise:

In this discovery exercise, you have two options…

Take a good look around Flickr and discover an interesting image that you want to blog about. Be sure to include either a link to the image or, if you create a Flickr account, you can use Flickr's blogging tool to add the image in your post.

-- OR --
If you have access to a digital camera you might like to upload a picture to Flickr.

I have created an account for the project. http://www.flickr.com/photos/talkingvisuals/

To upload a photo, first save your photo to your computer (or USB).
Then:
Go to the Flickr website at http://www.flickr.com/
Sign in (using the login and password I have emailed to you. If you have forgotten it, please email me and I will send it to you).
Click on upload photos.
Click on browse and locate where you have saved your photo (you can upload more than one photo at once).
You can add tags describing your photo at the bottom of the page including the project tag - Talking Visuals
Click upload to complete the process.

Something else to look at: You might also like to take a look at the National Library Picture Australia website
Click on the Flickr icon on the front page and you will be led to a display of images the National Library have used from Flickr. This is part of the National Library's vision of building a comprehensive pictorial record of Australian history.

Other photosharing and photography websites include http://www.snap.com/, http://www.fotolia.com/, http://www.slide.com/, and http://www.dumpr.net/.

PS: A quick word about photo posting etiquette - When posting identifiable photos of other people (especially minors) is it advisable to get the person's permission before posting their photo in a publicly accessible place like Flickr. Never upload pictures that weren't taken by you (unless you have the photographer's consent) and always give credit when you include photos taken by someone else in your blog.
Don't forget to label this post on your blog “Flickr” and talk about what you have learned doing this activity.