Flickr – Page 3 – Ciaran Laval

August 2, 2013

Are Yahoo/Flickr Trolling Their Members?

I was reading the Flickr forums the other week when I saw a comment along the lines of “I think Yahoo are just trolling us now“, which made me laugh. However I’m now starting to think that the comment is squarely in the “Many a true word said in jest” category.

There has been much criticism of the new Flickr design from users, tech bloggers heaped praise on it but the comments from users tell a different story. Two quick examples of this, The Torygraph ran an article about the great new revamped Flickr, and below the line you see Flickr users disagreeing about the new awesome, with comments such as: “Check out the 139 pages of mostly negative comments on the changes on Flickr’s help pages. This isn’t an improvement. It’s a downgrade.”

There’s a similar pattern from The Grauniad article on the new Flickr, where we see comments like this: “It’s a terrible change. I used to be able to carefully curate my beautiful photostream, now it’s just a mass of photos. All the descriptions have gone too. I think Yahoo have made a big mistake. It’s like they don’t *get* Flickr.”

So Yahoo/Flickr have somehow done something political parties crave, they’ve united the right (Torygraph) and left (Grauniad), I suppose they deserve some sort of credit for that! The Flickr forums have heated up again this week, because not content with unleashing the new awesome on photostreams, search and explore, they’ve now hit groups. Some people who were all “Neener Neener” when people complained about the redesign have now had the penny firmly drop, because they largely use groups so put the complaints down as whining, but now they see the new awesome in all its glory.

The problem with the new Flickr is one that should ring a bell with Second Life users. Sometimes we land in a sim and it’s busy, we see grey people, it’s slow. One of the factors for this can be too many large sized textures loading, Linden Lab even have a page on texture usage that explains the problem. So when Flickr started serving up larger images, I was not surprised to see people complaining they were seeing grey boxes!

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July 20, 2013

Three New (To Me) Enjoyable Second Life Related Flickr Streams

First of all, new Flickr still sucks! I’m still not talking to it and I think it has been a very naughty boy. However I can use it, and I am using it. I’ve also discovered photostreams of people whom I don’t know inworld, the photostreams of the people I do know are excellent, but this post is about some new folk, two of which are a bit adult, one is very adult.

Anyway, first up is Sadbab Shan’s Flickr Stream (alternative link for lower bandwidth version). Now I am rather artisitically challenged generally but Sadbab produces images that make me go “Wow” .. I’m not sure this is a good plus point considering my knowledge of art! However the stream is very eyecatching and attracts lots of awards from other digital photography groups.

Sadbab’s images are more scene based than some, you won’t see close up portraits of avatars but you will see wonderfully constructed scenes.

Next up is Benjamin Glendale’s Flickr Stream (alternative link for lower bandwidth version). First things first, Benjamin’s stream involves some adult imagery but you should not see that if you’re not logged into Flickr and even then the adult images will not be viewable unless you’ve selected the preference to view adult content. Benjamin posts male nudes sometimes and sometimes the male nudes are a little bit, shall we say, pleased to see the camera. However if that’s not your thing, then fear not because Benjamin has a vast array of stunning photos from within Second Life, his recent images from Mad City really capture the noir feeling the creators would want to be exemplified in a stunning fashion.

Benjamin captures avatar portraits and landscapes to stunning effect and there are some superb examples of what can be achieved in Second Life by creative minds.

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July 12, 2013July 14, 2013

From Here To Ipernity

I’ve decided to open an account on Ipernity, which is a photo sharing site similar to Flickr. I’ve decided to do this because quite frankly I feel that Yahoo/Flickr have lost the plot. I say this with rather a heavy heart because I’ve long loved Flickr, but the justified only views really are irritating and the fact that they are removing choice to view streams in different sizes all over the site, including the new groups system, is beyond baffling.

The worst thing about the new groups is that initially, you could view group pools in small, medium, large, justified etc. They inherited your last setting from the old group system, but Flickr deemed this a bug and rectified it so that justified is the only view. Flickr have also now decided they are working on counting photo views based on a viewers intent ….. I’m not making this up!

Now I’d joined Ipernity a few weeks ago, uploaded a few screenshots but I was a tad wary as to whether they really approved of Second Life type images. This week I contacted their support and after showing them a couple of example snapshots they said that sort of content is fine, as long as it’s not inappropriate, I take that to mean no boobies, which is fine for me as I don’t snapshot them!

Anyway Ipernity isn’t Flickr, it doesn’t have as many users as Flickr, but it does have a nice simple to use interface. If you want the full kit and caboodle you’ll have to pay and this means joining the club, UK rates are:

3 months -£5.49
12 months – £19.99
24 months -£34.99

Now this is slightly more expensive than Flickr pro, but it’s a lot less than the new Flickr Ad Free option. One point to note is that embed codes aren’t available for free members, so for bloggers, it’s a bit of a pain but club members get embed codes apparently.

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June 18, 2013

The Flickr FIC?

The greatest trick the FIC ever pulled was convincing the world they didn’t exist.

The controversy over the Flickr redesign has revealed some very FIC like behaviour, that is if you believe the FIC exist. A discussion on what exactly the Feted Inner Core means can be found here at SLUniverse.

One of the feedback threads on the new redesign got a bit messy with accusations of paid shills and Flickr staff alts posting supportive feedback, you see this sort of thing happens on all forums and Flickr and Second Life forums are rather tame compared to other places, but wild conspiracy theories can rear their heads on both forums. As things got heated, Flickr staff updated the main post with:

“Since a select few in this thread seem to be having a tinfoil hat day, I want to emphasize that all posts by Flickr staff are clearly identified as such by a gray background and the staff tag underneath the buddy icon.

Flickr staff does not use alter egos to post. Even if there are many knowledgeable Flickr members that are willing to help by responding to questions and feedback, none of them are “Flickr staff in disguise”. Please treat each other respectfully.”

Some took umbrage at the tinfoil hat swipe, personally I found it amusing and if people are going to give Flickr stick over the redesign it’s only fair that Flickr staff can poke back at times. That should have been that, but a twist emerged when pictures emerged from a Flickr meetup in San Francisco, just prior to the rollout of the new site. Some of the most vociferous supporters of the changes are seen in the pictures….. oooh!

However that’s not all, some of them were certainly there by invitation from Flickr, although there’s no suggestion that Flickr paid for the trip.

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June 8, 2013June 8, 2013

Follow The Bear

So you’ve got your new free SL10B avatar from Shopkeeper Linden on The SL Marketplace and now you want to record the magic of being a bear in Second Life. There are ways to share the love, one way is to post pics in blogs, especially when it’s a Strawberry Singh bear on a moped! I wonder if that would get more feedback if it was Strawberry Singh bare on a moped, but I like the bear!

However there are other places to share photos of the bear and one place is Flickr, yes I said Flickr. I know that some people are watching twirling balls and singing along to the Three Degrees singing “When Will I See You Again” as they try and battle with the new “More Awesome” Flickr but groups are still the same as they ever were and Crap Mariner has created Second Life SL10B Bear Avatar Photos group where you can share the love of all things SL10B bear related.

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