Slashdot Mirror
Photoblog Revolution
An anonymous reader writes "How about doing a story based on photoblogs? They're quickly becoming the next cool thing in the blog world. A photo a day - a visual diary. It would just be interesting, especially since you're interested in blogs and art. The links included are some of the more popular ones from database photoblogs.org."
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I love how every pet project becomes the "next cool thing"...?
With each breath in, a flower somewhere opens; with each breath out, a flower withers away. In between lies beauty.
The story is that it's no big surprise that graphics-intensive Web sites can't survive a good Slashdotting.
PepperHacks - Hacking the Pepper Pad
of the picture-a-day kind a nice way to get you to go out and shoot a ton of pictures. I don't think there is a better way of actually learning to take half-decent pictures. I've run mine for just over two months now and it is not as easy as it seems.
My photolog
The real good news is, Roland Piquepaille will be forced to follow the new blogging trend to stay cool, and therefore whoever hosts his lame blog now (Primidi, it seems) will make him pay dearly for the bandwidth at the first sign of self-redirected Slashdot traffic, therefore negating the advertising revenues he derives from the activity.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Blogging isn't new. Photoblogging isn't new either. What is new is a site called Multiply which is a convergence of digital content publishing and management, and the "six degrees of separation" of sites like Orkut and Friendster (heck you can even import your Orkut contacts if you want).
;-)
How many of you maintain a blog that nobody reads? As someone most cleverly put it, most blogs are "the sound of one hand clapping." But because of the integration of social networking, the people that will read your blog on Multiply are your roommate's sister, your friend's cousin, and your buddy's brother -- people like that. Of course there are tools to control access as well, so if you want to publish something just for your contacts (or even a subset of that), you can do that too.
Similarly if you are a photographer, the photo printing sites like Shutterfly and oFoto almost go out of their way to make it painful to share your photos on-line (you see, they only make money if you print them, and if you share them on-line you might not need to). With Multiply on the other hand sharing your photos is as simple as a few clicks. When I uploaded pics of my halloween party, for instance, over 200 of my friends (and their friends) read it within a day of me posting. Now *that* is cool.
Finally, if you're a lurker, there's no better place... you get to see what's going on with everyone in your network, and get to see things you never would have otherwise. One of my friends has a cousin stationed in Iraq who posted pictures of Sadam's palace -- unbelievable! And I never would have seen them if it wasn't for the connection on Multiply. That's only one example out of dozens and dozens.
Try it out... you won't be disappointed.
MASSIVE DISCLAIMER: I'm one of the founders of Multiply. That doesn't mean I think it's any less cool though!
Check out my Multiply site for an example of what you can do.
The problem with photoblogs is the same problem with regular blogs - lack of focus. Precisely because it is so easy to web-publish, there are far too many people posting without giving any thought to producing a thematically-consistent portfolio of work. This shouldn't limit your creativity:
- A photo-a-day blog can be very compelling (I'm thinking of the album made by Harvey Keitel's character in Smoke).
- Build your blog around something offbeat like things your dog brought home or food that looks like Elvis - whatever turns your crank
- Take pictures of doors, sidewalks, homeless people or whatever it takes to produce a thematic arc
- Go out and blitz a city with 500 pics in one day, and show us your best 10 (or better yet, 5)
Your equipment doesn't even matter - use your crappy phone cam, but use it well. The ability to edit your body of work, not just your pictures, is what will separate your portfolio from the rest of the drek that's out there.
When you have nothing left to burn you must set yourself on fire
The next cool thing in the blog world is pretty damn far from the next cool thing in general.
Blogs suck, and I can say that with authority since I have one. At least I don't delude myself into thinking anyone wants to look at it. Hell, I don't even want to.
Wouldnt a photoblog be a phlog?
Yup.. pictures with no explanation and no info is what we need more of on the internet :)