URL – www.Flickr.com
What is Flickr?
In essence flickr is a photo management and sharing tool for users to upload and organise their photo collection, however flickr could also be defined as a social networking site. Via a users computer, mobile phone, camera and nearly all photo viewing software, a member can upload individual or a collection of pictures onto the website. Once the user has added all their photos to the site they can use the management tools available to organise them how they wish. Photos can be categorised into albums, location of where the photo was taken, a particular theme or time and many other ways. Flickr could be described as a social networking site as it allows its users to share their photos with friends and families across the flickr network. Members can make their photos public to all that use flickr or private, allowing only friends to view them. Once a friend has been added they can then add comments, notes, tag others and organise the photos for you. Finally the site offers many publishing tools enabling users to be creative with their photos, from creating photo books through to making their own stamps.
Why is it web 2.0?
The reason why this is a web 2.0 instead of web 1.0 site is that it doesn’t just allow users to retrieve and view information but acts as an interactive software tool networking members together. Without user contribution and networking there would be no Flickr and the site would just be an empty canvas. All flickrs features contribute towards making it a web 2.0 application but specifically it allows users to upload and be in control of their data, and become part of a social network which is predominately data driven. One of the key features which make a site web2.0 according to O’Reilly is the concept of tagging which flickr uses to the full. Users can take their own photos or others and tag other members in them or assign key words to them. The photos will then appear if the key words are searched for and when a member is alerted if they are present in a photo. Another web2.0 feature is blogging which is also built into flickr, users can add blog entries along with photo illustrations and fellow friends can leave comments, notes or tags. According to O’Reilly RSS feeds are one of the most significant advancements in the fundamental architecture of the web since web 1.0, which is also an option for members of Flickr. Users can subscribe to particular members pages and be alerted each time its updated. Another important part of what makes a web 2.0 site in reference to O’Reilly is harnessing collective intelligence, Flickr has many features which apply to this. Flickr allows users to add comments, notes and even organise in their own way, fellow members photos. Groups are used to categorize peoples interests and have a pool for sharing photos and a discussion board for talking. According to O’Reilly database management and control are core competency of web 2.0 sites, members of flickr have complete control over their own database of photos. Flickr has many photo management tools such as, uploading from all types of hardware and software, organizing photos into sets or collections, searching through others photos, making your collection public or private and creating groups just to name a few. Flickr is delivered as a service for sharing and maintaining photos rather than a packaged software or product which O’Reilly believes is one of the key principles of Web 2.0. Another principle of web 2.0 design is treating users as co-developers rather than just a customer. In flickrs case members are expected to try out and use all the systems functions, their behaviour is then monitored and any features which are rarely used are taken down and new ones added, therefore its the user which determines the contents of the site.
The Walkthrough
When I load up the homepage my initial observation is the very simple and straight forward layout, I’m greeted with a large logo and a few bold statements telling me how I can use the site. I’m drawn to the create your account button at the top right hand of the screen which I promptly click. I am then faced with a sign-in screen rather than a create account screen which was what I really expected. Another surprise was that this site is part of the yahoo company and if I am a member of yahoo then I can sign in with my yahoo ID. I am not a yahoo member and so duly click the sign in link at the bottom. The sign in form is pleasantly very short and only takes a minute or two to fill in, with very few details being required. One of the negatives with this form is the need for me to create a yahoo email which in my opinion is a waste of time as I will never use it. A few plus points are the way the form determines how strong a password is via a strength measure to the right of the password input field and when I have input my names the form then suggests possible user-names which will save me from filling the whole form in, then coming back to try and create a unique ID. After hitting the finish button at the bottom I come to a confirmation page listing all the details I have input and a print function which is useful. I continue on happy with my account creation and ready to start uploading my photos. However before i can start the site asks me if I would like to create a separate flickr account or merge my yahoo ID with an existing flickr account, as I have not used flickr before I create a new profile.
The site tells me I am ready to go and gives me a list of helpful starting points, Upload my first photo, read the community guidelines or explore flickr. As I am a new user I decide to heed the sites advice of “the best place to get started” clicking on upload your first photo. The upload page is very user friendly using terms and steps which any member, computer literate or not, would understand, such as “choose photos”. I click the first step and browse my computer for a photo i wish to select. All the options are very responsive and the browsing window for example loaded incredibly fast. Once i have added one photo a contents box appears showing all the uploaded pictures i have two simple actions available to me add another picture or remove an existing one. I like the very basic setup of this page just giving me the simple facts about each photo, name, size and total memory used. I decide that I’m happy with the two photos i have selected and carry on down the page, i now have a choice on whether i wish to make my collection public or private. Selecting public is quite straightforward allowing all flickr’s members to view my photos, or private where i have three choices visible to me, friends, family or all three. I decide to make them private viewing for friends and family and click the corresponding box’s. There is then an upload period with a bar illustrating the time remaining. Overall the uploading of photos is made very easy via the sites step by step guide and takes little in the way of time or effort. Next on the agenda is photo description, here i can add tags to my photos or add them to a set both these options again are easy to use however there are no definitions of both terms meaning a less experienced user may become stuck at this point. I add tags to each which allows me to quickly find the photos under a common key word and then create a new album or as the site calls it a set giving it a name and description. I give each photo a brief description, and save my batch of photos, again i like the easy to use interface of this page displaying each photo with a tag and small description box however more commentary about what the tag and set functions do would be ideal. That pretty much concludes the very minimum i can use flickr for and have completed all the introductory tasks.
Flickr now presents me with my profile page and I am left to experiment with the site on my own without the assistance of a step by step tutorial. On the homepage all my options are available to me through link tabs at the very top, Home, You, Organize, Contacts, Groups and Explore. All these tabs have drop down menus when you select them and the amount of options available to me really becomes apparent. Flickr is vast and would probably take me weeks to walk you through all the features therefore I will select a few key, very web 2.0, tools and see how they work. When clicking the organise link I’m directed to a page split into two parts at the top is an empty window and below is a window full of the photos selected from a particular set. From here i can drag and drop photos from different sets onto the empty window from here i can double click them and change details such as name, tag and description. This setup allows me to easily and quickly sort my photos inputting them into different albums or creating new ones. All my options are available to me through drop down menus or search boxes and i had no problem finding a particular instruction. One of the more impressive features on offer in the organisation link was Map where i could select a picture and then scroll a map and highlight the area the picture was taken going into as much detail as i liked for example i could select just Italy or i could give it a particular address. This reminded me of Google world and worked just as well perhaps without the same scope of Google though.
Next on the list was contacts here i could add friends, view current friends, search for people and look at my friends latest photo updates. Adding friends was a simple task just be inputting my friends email address and name, flickr will then send them a message which you can edit if you like telling them I wish to share photos. The friend and can then accept or reject the invitation via their email and add you to their friends list on flickr.
The groups page is again very minimalist, I’m presented with the current groups i have joined, a search box to find a group and a list of the most popular groups. I decide to join one of the groups flickr recommends “Aesthetics of failure and click on the title. The layout of the groups page is very familiar with a discussion forum at the bottom, a description of the group and a collection of photos near the top. I click join group confirm my interest and that’s it I’m officially a member! To add comments you click on the discussion topic and input a reply, the only problem with this is i have to scroll to the very bottom of the page to find the input box which could mean scrolling through hundreds of entries. I looked tirelessly for a way for me to add my own photos to the groups current pool but no such luck, instead i must go back to the organise page and drag and drop the photos i wish to share, which is a bit of an unnecessary task in my opinion.
The Assessment
To sum up Flickr would be to say its a very simple easy to use site which any user of any experience or expertise’s can use. At times there is not enough description or instruction on all the features on offer and the depth of each of these features is kept at a low level to help meet its target audience. The core reasons for using Flickr would be to upload and organise photos, share and communicate with friends and create groups where ideas and photos can be shared with like minded users. Each page is laid out in a very simple and easy to view way with no overly cluttered or distracting areas. Features are mainly organised into drop down menus, text boxes or drag and drop canvases which are all easy to use. Organising my photos into sets was a simple task and there were many details i could add to each such as dates, location, tags, Permissions, groups etc. However changing the presentation of the photos was not an option i discovered i couldn’t re-size or crop a photo instead the site offered links elsewhere to carry these tasks out. Networking with other users was made very straight forward from finding and adding friends to discussing topics via a group forum. All in all flickr is a very competent photo management and sharing tool for the basic user however for more advanced users i feel more photo editing options are needed. For me as a beginner flickr was very easy to use and took literally minutes to sign up and begin adding and sharing content.
