The Internet is one of the first places anyone looks when they want to find an image. That's because the Internet has become the premier place to store and share photographs.
Several companies offer online services to do just that, but none of them perform quite like the flash-based Flickr, located at www.flickr.com.
Flickr allows users to upload and store photos for personal use. Each photo can have a caption and can be divided into "sets," which act like albums, helping to keep photos organized.
But the real magic comes with sharing.
Users can decide who can look at each photo that is uploaded. Photos can be open to everyone, closed to everyone but the person who uploaded it or open to different user-defined categories of people.
All photos can be set to allow comments to be posted, so people can compliment your West Coast vacation photos. In addition, viewers can add "notes" to photos, meaning they can highlight an area of a photo by drawing a box, and then add a comment. For instance, in a group photo, a viewer could draw a box around the face of someone they recognize.
Flickr, like fellow social networking Web site del.icio.us, also allows users to assign "tags" to photographs. For example, a picture that was taken in San Francisco of a friend standing in front of GAP while wearing an orange T-shirt might be tagged "sanfrancisco," "orange," "gap" and "friend."
Assigned tags place a photograph in a larger group of photos that are all assigned the same tag. For example, if you go to www.flickr.com/photos/tags/sanfrancisco, the page will show you all public photos on Flickr that have been assigned the tag "sanfrancisco." This works for nearly any word.
Flickr also allows the creation of user groups, so users can upload photos into common "pools," which act like community photo albums. For example, there is a group specifically for posting photographs of things that are square, located at www.flickr.com/groups/squareimg.
There is also a Ball State University group. Sadly, it currently has only two members (I'm one), and no photos in the group pool.
In addition, every group has a fully-functional forum, where any member can post and reply to topics. One of the most popular is the group FlickrCentral, where people post topics about new things happening with Flickr and new ways to use the service.
This is only a sampling of some of the things that Flickr can do. The site is set up to encourage users to explore and find new features. One thing Flickr does not do that other online photo sharing sites such as Kodak's Ofoto do is allow you to order physical prints of uploaded photos. But according to their site, that is not what Flickr is for.
A free Flickr account lets you upload only 10 MB worth of images every month, but a "pro" account has far fewer restrictions. The site is currently in beta, but already offers more features than can be found on nearly any other photo sharing site, offering you a revolutionary place to store and share your own photos, as well as search for photographs from all around the world.
Write to Andy at ajzeigert@bsu.edu
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