Archive: October 29th, 2005

Back in July, a Flickr member posted a photoset of a commercial he was working on. The spot involved the release of 250,000 superballs down a hill in San Francisco. Other Flickrites also documented the release.

The advert is now finished and online. It looks very pretty but also quite unreal… even though I know it is real. Somehow, the original photoset, with its juxtaposition of the mundane with the extraordinary, has more impact for me. Your milage may vary.

But I think we can all agree that there’s nothing finer than a photoset of squirrels.

Ah, Flickr! Slowly but surely, you have taken over my photographic life. Without fanfare, I quietly removed the link on my journal to my photo galleries here on adactio. I don’t think I’ll be adding to them. I’ve found there’s far more incentive for me to upload pictures quicker and more often to Flickr (especially using the iPhoto plugin).

Normally I’m a complete control freak about how I publish stuff online (hence, this home-rolled blogging system I use) but Flickr, in true Web 2.0 style, allows me to do whatever I want with my content. So, if I’d rather use my own front end for viewing photos, I can. That’s what really won me over.

To paraphrase Princess Leia, the more you tighten your grip, the more users will slip through your fingers.

To paraphrase Sting, if you love somebody, set their content free.

Lest you think that the API is the only thing that endears Flickr to me. The community aspect is what makes it the king of photo sharing sites (and, I would argue, the king of social networking sites too). The real joy in photography doesn’t just come taking a picture, it also comes from sharing it with others.