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 new photo blog

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashshot.org - My photo reactions to every Slashdot story.

I don't see any photos...

[EnronHaliburton2004]

Funny, I don't see any photos. I just see numbers like '404' and '503'. ...

Does my screen not support those types of images?

Re:I don't see any photos...

[Spoing]

Try this link! It's never failed me! Slashdot THAT! HA-HA!

It has transformed photography for many people...

[SlideGuitar]

What's so strange about it?

You find something that you love... you share it with the world.

http://portlandground.com/

Without the pain and humiliation?

[datastalker]

"Fotolog CEO Adam Seifer, who posts a picture of every meal he eats on Get In My Belly!"

I hope this guy gets to be known for more than just that... ;)

Re:Without the pain and humiliation?

[nacturation]

Four hours later, he posts another picture on his blog "Get Out Of My Belly!"

Oh, I get it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Blogging for people who don't know how to type! It's a brave new world.

Why are we interested in this sort of thing?

[SteelV]

I can't believe that 20,000 people visit Adam Seifer's site every week, just to see pictures of his meals. It's such a useless thing, and fotolog.net just has countless, random pictures. I know art is subjective, but I don't think they have that much subjective value.

I guess it's the same reason we like reality TV: we get to live vicariously. It's good entertainment. And stuff like that.

Personally, I waste enough of my own life eating meals (usually 3 square / day); I don't want to waste even more watching what others eat (or observing other mundane activities).

That's just me though.

Re:Why are we interested in this sort of thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

I eat macaroni and cheese with catsup everyday, eh. I could just take one photo and leave it up all the time.

Re:Why are we interested in this sort of thing?

[prichardson]

It's not about living vicariously, it's about validation.

'These people on this reality show are total incompetent assholes, I guess I'm not such a horrible person after all.'

'This guy eats take-out a lot, I guess it can't be all bad.'

'Look, this person isn't perfect, I guess it's ok not to be.'

The healthiness of these vary.

Re:Why are we interested in this sort of thing?

[Lord_Dweomer]

I think you hit the nail on the head about living vicariously.

You see, thanks to all the recent advances in media technology, we are able to experience the lives of other people in ways unimagineable a century ago.

If life is about growing, learning, and experiencing, what better way than to peek in on the lives of others and learn from what they go through?

This is doubly true for those of us who may not be that social and may not leave the house very often. I'm not trying to pass judgement on those people, i'm just saying that if it helps make someones life interesting to look at the life of another, what is so wrong with that?

Re:Why are we interested in this sort of thing?

[ggvaidya]

You actually rtfa???

*shock and horror*

This too shall pass

[Ars-Fartsica]

How long until the novelty of photographing your dinner and posting it on the web fades into oblivion?

Not long, I figure, even for the CEO of the company.

Re:This too shall pass

[superdan2k]

And sadly, six years ago, if he'd taken the idea to a venture capital firm, they'd have probably dropped a check for $10 million in his lap.

riiight

[The Amazing Fish Boy]

"only without the pain and humiliation"

I know of a few photos this guy hasn't seen yet. If he sticks around Slashdot he'll certainly run into them, though.

The guy doesn't make his own food?

[bourdeau]

It's interesting to note that almost every item that he has taken a photo of is some sort of take out food. Very little homecooked food is shown. Is that now a typical diet?

Re:The guy doesn't make his own food?

[SoLO]

And this question right here is the reason that these sites are popular. You get to view every little detail and compare it to what you do or what the "norm" is.

Re:The guy doesn't make his own food?

[kamapuaa]

I believe slightly less than 50% of meals in the US are home-cooked?

There's a tone of condescension in your question, but when you're cooking for one or two people, it's easier and cheaper to eat out, particularly when you factor in time of preparation. In the cities I've lived in (Oakland Chinatown, Honolulu, Tokyo, & New York), the food can be quite interesting and healthy. Most of the people who cook do it more as a fun activity or hobby than a superior way of eating.

I'm aware that in many areas, restaurants are intended for special occasions rather than everyday eating, or are fast food. So people from different areas may have different predjudices.

I like internet pictures.

[delirium of disorder]

When you spends a certain ammount of time on the internet, you eventually realise there are pictures besides pron and goatse out there. I personally have taken a recent interest in photo art on the web. My favorite artist is Jenni Tampanila. Check out her work here:

http://www.suzi9mm.com/

Re:I like internet pictures.

[trawg]

You would probably direct more users to her site if you added "... and yes, there are boobs"

Sad

[CosmeticLobotamy]

a million reality TV shows, only without the pain and humiliation.

It's sad when you have to start explaining reality (and pictures thereof) to people as "kind of like reality TV."

IMO...

[goss]

"a million reality TV shows, only without the pain and humiliation"

Aren't those the main components of "reality" tv shows?

Re:It has transformed photography for many people.

[Anonymous Coward]

...I think I'm gonna take pictures of the people who take pictures of wierd things...

And I'm gonna take pictures of people driving gas-guzzling foriegn SUV's with "Support our Troops" magnetic yellow ribbons (made, of course, in China), for a Blog called "Support our Shieks".

Flickr has huge potential

[Pyr05x]

I finally got the digital camera I wanted for Xmas '04.

I tried out Flickr, and signed up for a year about an hour later... It has an amazing simple interface for organising/tagging etc.

Better still though, is a published API: http://www.flickr.com/services/api/

The best usage of this i've found so far is Colrpickr: http://www.krazydad.com/colrpickr/index.php?group= flickrcentral

How about a ...

[ggvaidya]

Slashdot-like website, except that every article *has* to be a single "shot" - a one line single statement, with either a word or sentence limit? So the front page will be like:
* Google changes dictionary provider [categories: google, business, wikipedia, dupe]
* Adam West in new Batman cartoon [notserious, batman]
* Apple litigation in ending stages [legal, apple]

Some suitably smart mechanism will make the categories be votable (allowing category tags like "w00t", "dupe" and, heck, "boobies" to be added by readers, for instance). The most visited websites will get onto the front page. People posting crap will get categorized "crap", and stuff which is silly but funny can become "unintentional-funny" or something.

My rather worthless two cents :P. But slashshot.org sounds cool - keep us updated. Why don't you write about it in your journal?

Re:How about a ...

[ggvaidya]

Oh yeah :P ... thought my idea sounded kinda familiar.

Well, categorization would be better, commenting would be more slashdot-like, and the site would be more SFW. Also less squirrels with big nuts :P

Also, getting stuff up on the site would be more of a community thing (yes, like K5) and would be tech-focussed (like /.). Sorta like the quicker, faster, neater younger brother /. never had ...

I could be just dreaming. It's all I ever do at college, anyway :P.

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.

I phlog hard.

[Anonymous Coward]

Another photo-sharing site not referenced in the original article is http://www.phlog.net/ (as in PHoto webLOG or PHone webLOG).

I've been using that site for a few months now (refer http://www.phlog.net/user/OzDJ) and I'm hooked. Family and friends often ask me "why would you bother?" and I tell them that I look at it this way....

I reckon that the extraordinary events/times/places that we experience typically occupy less than 5% of our conscious lifetime. The other 95% is very mundane day-to-day stuff, yet it shapes who we are and - ultimately - how the world itself advances (or otherwise). Photos of the day-to-day make up some of the best historical photographic exhibitions I've ever been to.

And when I'm on my deathbed in (hopefully many) years to come, I anticipate that my loved ones will care more about "the little stories" than "pix of Grandad's xxth birthday" or "pix of Grandad standing in front of the Taj Mahal in 19xx". And I'm far more prepared to trust those stories to an online blogging service than my already-alzheimers-affected grey matter. :-)

Cheers

OzDJ - Sydney, NSW, AU
http://www.phlog.net/user/OzDJ
OzDJ@phlog.net

Less amateur works: photo.net

[jpatokal]

For more serious photography, check out photo.net, started by Philip Greenspun of ArsDigita fame. Still lots of random pictures to be found, but the quasi-moderation system of ratings does a pretty good job of sorting out the wheat from the chaff; check out the last three day's top-rated pictures for an example. The service is free to use, but people with popular pictures get more disk space -- or you can get it the old-fashioned way by paying.

Obligatory own gallery whoring: me! me! me!

And psst: since this is Slashdot, you'll want to know that there's some pretty damn good free pr0... err, I mean kinky photography out there too.

Cheers,
-j.

Host your photos yourself

[SKPhoton]

It's so much nicer hosting your photography yourself. No worries about how much of your work you can put online, other than how much hard drive space you can cram in. I've had great luck hosting with Gallery.

My Photography, for example.

LiveJournal Image Theft

[madmancarman]

I'm sure it's been mentioned before, but one of my favorite things now and then is to load one of the LJ Image Theft pages that are out there. It grabs the last 200 images posted to LiveJournal, and even though it's largely quizilla results and photos of teenage girls attempting to convey some sort of random emotion, occasionally some interesting memes occur. Recently, when Hunter S. Thompson died, a bunch of people posted photos of him or from the movie Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and one linked to his piece "The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved", which I probably never would have read had I not stumbled across it through LJ Image Theft.

However, it's important to note that some people post some pretty weird shit on LiveJournal - especially the Russians! - so it's not always work safe. Actually, sometimes that's what makes it so interesting - you can almost put your finger on the pulse of what's going on in people's heads across the world by scanning through the photos, and the time of day makes a difference, too. For example, St. Patrick's Day is coming up, so I'm sure there are going to be more and more images with shamrocks and leprechauns in them. Needless to say, Valentine's Day was an interesting one as well - lots of broken heart graphics and photos with faces scribbled out. Just get used to seeing this photo of a cat passed out next to a bottle of booze, because it's in there every other time I load the script.

Re:It has transformed photography for many people.

[janbjurstrom]

Apparently, the main idea behind it is the slideshow - makes perfect transitions when every "squared circle" is identically cropped.

Other than that, I don't get the 'point' either.. just something to do, probably.

of photo sharing & published APIs

[onethumb]

Of particuarly interest to /. readers are probably those sites with open, thriving, growing APIs. smugmug's got one, as does flickr.

The result, of course, is tons of user-created uploaders, organizers, applications, and even sister web services. Pretty sweet, if you ask me, and lots of fun. There's not many things more rewarding than a customer discovering the API and coming up with something brilliant.

Disclaimer: I co-founded smugmug, so bias is present, but I've been a geek my whole life, so open APIs still get me excited. :)

Great...

[drigz]

'a million reality TV shows, only without the pain and humiliation.'

so just leaving the relentless boredom? - sounds accurate.