Is Flickr On The Bubble At Yahoo?

I have a Flickr Pro account for which I pay $25 annually and it gives me great piece of mind. Not that I believe that I am the next Annie Leibobvitz (gender aside) it's simply that I have had a photo disaster. I now find that having more than a backup on a usb drive allows me to sleep at night knowing that I am fully protected on and off site. Most of my photos are set to private and that's the way I want it. For many very good photographers Flickr is the only choice on line, but for most internet users Facebook is rapidly becoming the spot where you upload and share your photos.

This increase in photo sharing via Facebook, combined with Yahoo's recent layoffs and shedding of other web services and properties has caused for much discussion regarding the fate of Flickr. The nytimes.com has quoted Jordan Rohan, an analyst with Stifel, Nicolaus & Company as saying “The Internet is starting to rotate around the axis of Facebook — not everything, but everything social,” Mr. Rohan said. “Yahoo and Flickr don’t really have the gravitational pull that would make Flickr the axis that they once imagined.” 

Doesn't sound promising for Flickr yet I believe that they will remain relevant and apparently so does Yahoo: “Is Yahoo committed to Flickr?” Blake Irving, Yahoo’s product chief, wrote in a message on Twitter. “Hell yes we are!”

Trimming The Fat On Social

A new social network, like we haven't heard that before, has emerged that aims to trim your friends list to a mere 50 people. Imagine!

Path is the brainchild of former Facebook executive Dave Morin and is "a photo-centric social hub that limits the number of friends you can have to 50."

The number is in fact based on an Oxford University Professor's research. Professor Robin Dunbar suggests that 150 is the maximum number of social connections that the human brain can sustain and that 50 is roughly the outer limit for our personal networks.

The average Facebook user has 130 connections but very active users, with very fragile egos, can have an average of 1,000 "friends".

"Facebook set out to be a social network of the real world full of friends and acquaintances together," said Mr Morin.

"Facebook is about society and I think the need we are seeing at Path is that people still want to share more and share more openly with the people they trust the most and that is why we put this 50 limit on the service."

Path's vice president of business development Matt Van Horn says "Networks have grown to become too large in scale and that means people start sharing with people they might not trust or truly know. That influences their sharing behaviour and changes entirely what they are willing to post and share online". 

Check out the BBC article, Path seems to have a lot of heavy weight investors and former Facebook players. The beauty is it seems to be centered around mobile as opposed to a website that supports mobile. iPhone is supported now and the company plans to release android and Blackberry versions soon.

Flickr Adds New Full Screen Slideshow

The official Flickr blog announced on Wednesday the release of a new and improved slideshow feature that they promise will conjure up memories of vacation slides viewed at your grandparents! There are some nice improvements that include the additon of video and embeded code for display on other sites. "One of the main improvements we’ve made is that you can watch videos as they appear in a slideshow. When we come to a video in a slideshow, we’ll play it before we move on to the next item. You can also embed a slideshow on another website in bite-sized form. Just click the “Share” link from any slideshow, then copy and paste the embed code wherever you want." This is nice... I love Flickr!

Canadian Military Warns Soldiers Not To Post Info Online

The Canadian Defence Department is warning soldiers about the dangers of posting information to sites such as Facebook and of posting photos from the battlefront in Afghanistan. In a memo obtained by CBC News the military says "Al Qaeda operatives are monitoring Facebook and other social networking sites," and that "This may seem overdramatic … [but] the information can be used to target members for further exploitation. It also opens the door for your families and friends to become potential targets as well." Some question the motives and whether or not this is prudent advice or just the military's attempt at controlling the imagery of what is really happening on the ground. I think that if I were in the forces I'd be thinking long and hard about what I was publishing, we are all aware (or at least we are lead to believe) that there are cells operating within our borders, regardless of where we live in.

Good Sameritan goes to extreems to solve mystery

The Globe and Mail has one of those stories that restores your faith in man kind. Finding a camera in the back seat of a New York city cab and using the clues that were available to him, Brian Ascher viewed the contents of the camera to piece together a trail of clues and identify the camera's owner. Perhaps it's no coincidence that Ascher is a law student or maybe he should consider other job posibilities?

Pleasantly Pleased With Canon Selphy CP740

On Friday I received my new Canon Selphy CP740 photo printer in the mail. I'd not done the research that usually would have gone into a gadget purchase on my part. In this case, I was cashing in points from one of my many rewards programs and was pleased to find that I had enough for this device. The order went in and I'd thought little of it until receiving notification that a parcel had arrived.

The Selphy is a tiny device dwarfed by my HP Officejet 6210 All-in-One, it is capable of printing postcard size (4 x 6) 100 year prints in 16.8 million colors. It's very easy to load both the print cartridges and paper, and prints either via Direct Print which is very handy or USB. I love the prints! I'm not one to print photos normally, just post them online or e-mail them around, but since the printer was not really costing me I thought why not? The only knock on it that I can see after very limited use is the speed of printing, about a minute per print, but it's amusing to watch as it lays down the colors in separate passes. If you are old enough to remember the Polaroid cameras it's a little like watching those pictures come to life... I'm sure there are better photo printers available, but this little guy has found a spot on my desk!

Photographer Allowed Into Worlds Not Viewed by Many

I've rediscovered my love for photography with the recent purchase of a Canon S5 IS. With this renewed affection, I find myself spending a lot of time on Flickr gazing at shots of all sorts of things and finding beauty in the strangest of subjects. I am definitely taking more pictures than ever before, and my photo abilities are benefiting from the practice and study of the works of others. Perhaps this is why I find this Wired article about photographer Taryn Simon so fascinating? Simon convinced authorities to grant her access to some very secretive research facilities and government offices usually hidden from the public and set about to photograph her exploits. There are some interesting pictures even though some of the subjects are disturbing.

Polaroid goes back to instant prints

Polaroid is planning to go back to printing pictures with the upcoming release of a portable printer for images captured on cell phones and digital cameras. According to CNN the printer connects to your camera via Bluetooth or USB, and requires less than a minute to produce a 2-inch-by-3-inch picture. I guess at $150 for the printer and about $0.40 per sheet there will be some appeal, but I think I'd prefer just to e-mail my photo's or post them to Flickr...

Street View is addictive, in a voyeuristic way!

Google has recently unveiled it's Street View feature for Google maps. The application takes maps to the next level, well... street level. It is impressive technology, developed by Immersive Media, that enables you to explore relatively good quality panoramic photos. The idea is not new, I've virtually visited the inside of the Louvre on a couple of occasions since 1997 or so, but what makes this impressive is the fact that the camera was mounted on a VW Beetle capturing images as it traveled the streets. At the moment there are 5 cities that you can view in this mode; New York, San Francisco, Miami, Denver and Las Vegas. Now the race is on to spot the first topless sunbather or burning building... I spotted a motor cycle cop issuing a ticket in San Francisco!

flickr = fame and fortune?

Like most true geeks, I have a flickr account, well two of them actually! For those of you who have been hiding your heads in the sand for the last few years, flickr is "the" photo sharing site. I love it because it's a Canadian success story, it's very easy to use, and its largely credited for popularizing the concept of tagging content on social networking sites.

Most of the pictures I upload are private, for family and friends only, but I have published a few pics to be viewed by the public. I do enjoy taking pictures but I've never considered myself much of a photographer, and I take far fewer pictures than I should. The ones that I have released to the public are mostly shots that I consider reasonably interesting for any number of reasons. Generally they are of places I've seen and usually they don't include family members.

Imagine my surprise when I received an inquiry from McGraw-Hill this week regarding a photo I uploaded to flickr almost two years ago! The photo, included below, is one that I shot of my youngest son skateboarding at the local skate park. I was particularly proud of this shot because it was an action shot that was framed reasonably well, free of blur , and by chance, featured some graffiti art. As it turns out, the photo editor who contacted me is working on a mathematics text book and wanted to use the image as a "Unit Opener" in the book. In the interest of curiosity, I asked her about their flickr trawling practices! She informed me that

“

We generally try to obtain images from stock sites, but on occasion we can't find what we need and we search elsewhere. The only thing about sites like flickr is that, on occasion, the images are not hi-res, or we never hear back from the people we contact.

”

© All rights reserved ;-)

Just goes to show that you never know who's watching you online! As for fame and fortune… I’ll be receiving a credit in the book and a copy to show off to friends and family when it’s published. Very cool!

p.s. I'm still using the Canon PowerShot A300 that I used to capture this shot, it's a 3.1 megapixel point and shoot style camera. While it does the job, I've been longing for something more feature packed for some time now. Perhaps I'll get the okay to buy something more sexy now that I'm going to be a published photographer!