Flickr: Gallery, Portfolio Manager, Showcase
As the web has developed, so have some of the functions that initially drew us into the virtual community. Case in point is portfolio management, which has made the transition from a simple “hey, look at this,” to source of information to be enjoyed, managed, and processed. Take, for example, the photo gallery Flickr. Once just a posting site for photos, Flickr has developed with web 2.0, becoming much more. Now it offers portfolio management tools, tagging, and new ways of exploring.
Flickr can be enjoyed as a casual surfer; even without joining the Flickr community, one can explore what people are sharing, but it’s after you join that the real fun begins. After signing in, you can join groups, connect with friends, and save your favorites. Love that pic that looks like an album cover, or a logo that you think is perfect for your startup? Save it as a favorite (one click button on top of the photo), and you can easily access it anytime. It’s that openness that is the strength of Flickr - and the reason why some artists and photographers use it as a portfolio manager.
Flickr is very searchable. With tags, keywords, and even indexed for search engines, Flickr can be a resource for the portfolio manager but with a significant detraction — no matter how searchable it is, Flickr is extremely popular (”logos” returned with over 382,000 results), and getting that business contact to your portfolio is unlikely without a direct link.
Yet, it’s when you want to bring images in that Flickr truly shines. Flickr supports batch uploading, which means that whether you’re bringing in one or ten images, you can upload, edit, and tag them as you like. The process is truly simple. You’ll notice that Flickr has divided the pull down menus on their site into categories (home, you, organize, contacts, groups, and explore), select “You” and head down to upload your photos and videos. Fairly straightforward. Choose as many as you like, and set one of the privacy settings: Public, Friends (your Flickr friends), or Family.
Now is where things get interesting. If you go over to Organize, you’ll see the option to “Organize all your content.” This opens up the batch editor, where you can drag images into sets, tag them, set permissions, or set the type of image (photos is default, but there are also screenshots, illustrations, and other). As you move across the tabs you’ll see Sets, for creating and managing a series of images, then Groups. Groups allow you to join like-minded people or pursue interests as well as join into a group so that you can see images unique to that group. Last, on the right, is a tab for Map. This is the same world map that you see from the Explore menu, but when you are in the batch editor, you have the option of placing your photos in the geographic region that they were taken in, making them searchable in a new way. Yahoo! has provided the map for the mashup and so it is a truly international map with only a few grey areas (North Korea).
Flickr was designed with the idea of exploring and finding new images, so it is not surprising that their options for searching and browse are so well developed. Search by tag, keyword, or by the map for images. Additional links to bring you chronological options - see what was flagged as interesting within the last seven days or go back by month.
One of the newer features in Flickr is the ability to create “notes”. Notes require permission by the owner, but if enabled (either for public, or group), they allow the visitor to place a note within the photo itself, so that others can see it. Take, for example, some of Brandbucket logos. If you wanted to flag a particularly good feature of one of them you could create a note, move and resize the box that appears in the image, and then type a note. When someone rolls their mouse over that part of the image, your note appears. Flickr has long had the option of commenting below the image, but this allows dialogue over particular aspects of a photo, making it more interactive.
No matter what you come to Flickr for - managing your photos, sharing your videos, or maintaining a portfolio of your work - Flickr is a gallery and portfolio manager with an extensive range of capabilities. Batch editing, map placement, comments and notes, tagging, and a partnership with Yahoo! have Flickr a robust application. Recently Flickr has developed a relationship with the photo editing application Picnik so that you can edit the images themselves and them slip them right back into Flickr. Find Flickr and applications like it with the Listio search manage+portfolios.
Next in this series: Viewbook: Online Presentation And Portfolio Tool
Application: FlickrListio Profile: http://www.listio.com/web20/app/Flickr/
Website: http://www.flickr.com
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Tags: Add new tag, explore, manage, mashup, photos, portfolio, search, share
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