The Peculiar World of Web Photo Sharing

theodp writes "Can't get enough pictures of dogs' noses? Circular objects framed within squares? Newsweek reports on photo-sharing sites and picture blogs, where amateur shutterbugs looking to share their passions with the world happily blast their photos out to millions of people. Fotolog CEO Adam Seifer, who posts a picture of every meal he eats on Get In My Belly!, calls the Fotolog-Flickr-HeyPix-Smugmug phenomenon 'a million reality TV shows, only without the pain and humiliation.'" Update: 03/14 07:09 GMT by T : Reader onethumb points out an important aspect of such sites: "The new breed of photo-sharing services expose their APIs for geeks everywhere to enjoy. Both Flickr and Smugmug have growing APIs with thriving communities around them. Write your own photo-sharing application, sister web service, or software toy today!" (Here's a link to Flicker's API, and one to smugmug's.)

Comments

My experiences with Flickr

[metalhed77]

Flickr, if I may say, is one of the best designed web apps out there. It's quick to use, clean, and very featureful. Additionally it seems to have a semi-open API because I see tons of projects (like the squared circle collage) being made out stuff on there. And, most importantly, the interface makes ample use of DHTML and flash in a way that is genuinely useful. Interface elements that on most sites require loading a new page (say changing the title of an image you uploaded) or changing your navigation style are either javascripted or implemented very elegantly in flash. It feels quite close in many ways to a traditional app.

The groups on it are also good for meeting people and sharing tips / techniques. My one complaint about these groups is that people are *too* nice. Even in the ones where it is required that users include negative feedback, none ever is.