Thing 4: Photo Sharing and Editing--Flickr

Just as with RSS Feeds, I have tried earlier permutations of products along the lines of Flickr; I don't recall the names, but they were commercial sites with the primary purpose of selling prints and enlargements from images uploaded by customers. In general, I'm not a big fan of photo sharing sites, partly because I just don't seem to have the need for them. In the past, if I've wanted to show presentations online, I would put them on my Web sites. The question is whether Flickr will have enough features to inspire a change in my own use or a desire to share this tool with others.

Strange photo in upper righthand corner is a view of my media center's skylight.

And the verdicts are in . . .

1. the tag tool is useful in categorizing and accessing photos, just as the tag has shown its value in blogs, wikis, etc.;



2. although I'm not a great source of photographs, I do like to be able to access photos by others who want to share them;



3. that it's interactive adds a certain degree of flexibility and depth that could make sharing photos more exciting;



4. that it's another Yahoo! product makes me wonder whether Google and Yahoo! are dominating the free online tools industry--and whether in the long run that's a good thing;



5. when a product claims to be the best, it sort of reminds me of the claim "hand painted" on antique china; if it claims to be hand painted, it usually isn't--and the best usually don't have to say so; CNN loves to say that it has the best political team on TV, so often in fact that it becomes something of a joke--as if "the lady doth protest too much (or in the case Wolf Blitzer)";



6. 100 MB isn't a lot of space; so it may be tempting to start purchasing additional space;



7. inviting others to join, and just all the other features are certainly easy to use; and I'm impressed by how much a person can do with this tool. It's worth returning to and exploring further.

What's also becoming apparent is that some of these tools can easily be integrated. For example, I placed Flickr as an RSS on my Google Reader, which can also house my blog. It's sort of like one-stop shopping. URL: Flickr