As a personal service to all here on FriendFeed, I encourage you to blame me for anything bad that happens today. Just say the words "DAMN YOU STEVEN PEREZ!" and you'll feel much better.
strangely, yes. I do. And I guess that I have you to thank for that, huh? DAMN YOU STEVEN PEREZ FOR MAKING ME FEEL BETTER BY TYPING DAMN YOU STEVEN PEREZ!!!!
- Morgan
I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's Steven Perez fault Mark doesn't have internet at work....DAMN YOU STEVEN PEREZ! </had to be said>
- Christian (Simply X)
Ole, I hadn't heard that certain groups penalized photos but have seen Flickr staff in the past mention that posting your photo to too many groups will reduce it's visibility with their algorithm.
- Thomas Hawk
Good point on EXIF data Ole, yes, photos in Explore are required to have EXIF data. My own guess as to why this is is that if a photo has EXIF data it is more likely to be your own photo vs. something you simply ripped from the web. Not foolproof of course but I'd guess that this policy is in part due to a desire to increase the authenticity of the photos promoted on Explore.
- Thomas Hawk
If you look at the photos in Explore, the only "Leave a comment" groups that I see with any regularity are TWTME and 1-2-3 groups... what makes them special I'm not sure, other than they're amongst the largest groups in general. But you see very few of those award groups or "leave x comments" groups in the photos in Explore, so I suspect that Flickr must be penalizing them.
- Eric P
Thomas, that's a great refresher on the original article. Some great tips.
- Tom Quinn
And Thomas, throwing reciprocation in as a "bonus"? It should have been #1 or #2. The vast, vast, vast majority of comments and faves that I receive are from people whose stream I previously visited. The only real exception to that is when a photo is high in Explore, which results in a torrent of views/comments/faves from strangers.
- Eric P
Yep Eric. Reciprocation is very high. Bonus tip might not be the best place for it. It's very important. Faving back when people fave your work, commenting back. Adding people back as mutual contacts, etc. All encourage activity on your photostream.
- Thomas Hawk
Eric, participation groups don't penalize your photo from Explore best I can tell. This photo http://www.flickr.com/photos... from a few weeks ago was in the Deleteme Uncensored critique group and was #3 on Explore as well.
- Thomas Hawk
In fact just searching flickr for the save10 tag from the DMU critique group along with "explore" brings up a number of photos: http://www.flickr.com/search...
- Thomas Hawk
Good post, *IF* getting attention is important to you, as opposed to using it as a vehicle to just share photos with people
- Eric Rice
After I read your original article on Flickr popularity a while back, I began reciprocating every comment received. That worked very well.
- Tom Harrison
Eric, true. Some people have no interest in their photos receiving attention. I do think that the majority of people posting on Flickr though do appreciate when their photos receive some attention. Lots of people do not though. I have friends that only publish private photos that their friends can see and opt out of every public aspect of Flickr. I think these people though are the exception rather than the norm and think that Caterina's quote is pretty typical of the most active users on the site.
- Thomas Hawk
interesting Ole. I hadn't seen that. I think it would be difficult for Flickr to manually track every group that encourages tags and comments as participation. Per the links above though, photos in DMU have definitely made it into Explore anyways.
- Thomas Hawk
Here is an example of tagging. I did not know this woman was a celebrity until after got this shot. It appears on the first page of the image search engines and it has received over 12,000 views. http://flickr.com/photos...
- Russellreno
So far I got 3 (!) photos into explore. Their common factor? They all were faved by you (TH) soon after I posted theim.
- Guillaume Lemoine
Flickr used to say "who" faves your shots was a part of the Explore algorithm. It wouldn't surprise me if the algorithm weights faves by different people from the Flickr community differently. For instance, Pro accounts where people actually have paid for the service might be weighted higher than non-Pro accounts. More active users might carry more weight with their faves then less active users. Just speculating on this part.
- Thomas Hawk
Thomas - I don't think that participation in all groups gets a penalty, just that there are some groups that are penalized as far as Explore is concerned. I simply don't see Explore photos in "Post 1, Comment X" groups - so either there's no explore-worthy photos in those groups (not likely IMHO), or Flickr is penalizing the photos in those groups.
- Eric P
As a note to certain groups penalizing your photos...I had a photo (http://www.flickr.com/photos...) that went to explore spot 150 or so. After, I added it to a few groups to see if I could bump it higher. It had the opposite affect and immediately dropped off. I can't say which group exactly did it or if it was the number of groups I submitted to, but adding to groups definitely does come with some sort of penalty.
- Justin Korn
If you use FeedBurner, you can splice your Flickr photos into your blog feed. I have it splice my last two photos and I find those have at least 5x the number of views as the ones that aren't in my spliced feed.
- Mike Hussein Cohen
Awesome post Thomas. I signed up for Flickr a couple of years ago, but only started using it more regularly after the purchase of a digital SLR camera - so this post is particularly relevant to me. I am still patiently waiting for that first comment/favourite on one of my photos to truly experience the emotions as described by Caterina Fake.
- Jeff Smith
Thanks for this post, Thomas. Great tips!
- Eric Johnson
Great article Thomas... I was also wondering about what my friend calls 'Shooting for the 75'. That is, a great majority of people only ever see a 75 x 75px thumbnail of your photo. When he processes, he always does a square crop to test how it looks in the frame. Would you like to see proportional thumbnails as an option?
- Johnny
I actually really like the square thumbnails. Heck I really like the square crop period. I think I'm cropping more and more of my photos 4x4 these days. Maybe it's just that I've always loved medium format photography so much, not sure why I'm so drawn to the square crop right now though. I much prefer Flickr's square thumbnails actually. Still would love to see larger sizes on FF like SmugMug's thumbnails.
- Thomas Hawk
you're right though. Frequently it's the thumbnail that draws people into a photo. A good looking thumbnail is more likely to be selected by viewers for clicking through to full size viewing, commenting, faving, etc.
- Thomas Hawk
One of my very first Flickr experiences was someone in a critique group cutting me down for a square crop. It was a rose in a perfect spiral petal pattern, could only be cropped square as far as I was concerned. LOL...I didn't change it either.
- Karoli
Haha, that's funny Karoli. so much of the criticism in critique groups on Flickr is so lame. You should have seen the deleteme critique group ravage a Henry Cartier Bresson photograph who is probably considered by most photo historians as the greatest photographer who ever lived. Read some of these comments on this photo for a laugh: http://www.flickr.com/photos...
- Thomas Hawk
I used to work to get photos into explore. I think I probably take better pictures now, but I don't have the time at the moment to put in the work. Lots of community building and commenting went into the mix. I confess, there's a real rush to hitting the front page. I had three in the top 10, and it was a lot of fun.
- Karoli
I have been doing a lot of panoramic shots over the past year and I have started to play around with vertical cropping. Taking a portrait photo and cropping a really tight vertical crop: http://www.flickr.com/photos... It's all about how the picture looks to you in the end. Square, circle or hexagon, it's about the sensory reaction :) (and now I'm going to square crop for this week just to try it out, thanks guys)
- Johnny
Thomas, those comments are a hoot! I met some nice people in some of the critique groups, but it didn't take me long to know the critiques weren't helping. I do love Flickr's community...even if I haven't spent a lot of time in it lately.
- Karoli
yeah, the attention from Explore can be fun. But I'm pretty unimpressed with a lot of the photos there. I think Flickr could do a much better job with that algorithm. I do find filtering explore just by my contacts though produces more consistently interesting photographs for me. I use this script to do just that: http://www.drewmyersphoto.net/flickr_...
- Thomas Hawk
Agree on the photo quality on Explore. Seems like a lot of the same sort of gimmicky stuff lands there. Looking forward to trying the script.
- Karoli
Thanks for the article, that opened my eyes up a lot
- Alex Carpenter
Hey Karoli, here's you and your daughter by the way. I uploaded this to Zooomr a while back when I was taking a break from Flickr but uploaded it tonight on Flickr. Great fun on that photowalk. http://www.flickr.com/photos...
- Thomas Hawk
Hey, cool! Thanks for the pointer. It was a great photowalk, would love to do another sometime soon!
- Karoli
Here is one more way to get attention: Comment on this post with a link to one of your photos. I received a hit today from the comment about. http://www.flickr.com/photos...
- Russellreno
I suggest you read the two speeches before you pass judgment. McCain may not talk about Obama in his but that's because he barely says anything of interest at all. His speech comes in at a whopping 549 words and even in that short dialogue he manages to wander all over the place and not say anything of real substance. Seriously... read the two speeches.
- Jeff Jones
Thomas - Great to see you joining the dialog here more lately, although the photos have been a great addition to Friendfeed all along! Thanks.
- Charlie Anzman
Obama vs McCain : Oil Energy vs Need Job. Intriguing.
- Igor Poltavskiy
Dude, Aaron. You don't even know. That may quite possibly be the number one pick up line I get. "DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMN You got *ss for an Asian" ...and people wonder WHY I hate clubs/bars
- Mona Nomura
@Cyndy: How do you read a numbered list where 9 items are blank?
- Derick Valadao
from feedalizr
Mona: When I do finally meet you, you better bet you know what I'm saying now :)
- Justin Korn
JK: I will drop kick you in the head ;) @Aaron: It's the same, all over the country (NYC/LA/SF/Boston/DC) but then again, this is at clubs/bars.
- Mona Nomura
Mona - I've had an avatar in SL since Nov 2006. What's your av's name?
- iTad
I'll see in a few weeks, bitch! ;) SEA, you're going right? @Tad: SECOND LIFE = DO NOT WANT
- Mona Nomura
Seattle, dude. You're not going? Aug. 21~ RE: SF, Wordcamp?
- Mona Nomura
WORD. See you thurrrrrr. JK: You going?
- Mona Nomura
Nope, just looked at my calendar, I'll be in Tahoe :)
- Justin Korn
Justin: "There will be a cocktail party starting at 9 p.m. at Pete’s Tavern, about 1.5 miles from the venue. (Closest Muni stop is King St. and there are plenty of parking lots around)." http://2008.sf.wordcamp.org/schedul...
- Mona Nomura
LEGO + bacon + Star Wars + FF (both FriendFeed and Firefox) + anything and everything with a power switch = insta-date. Unfortunately, I get the WORST pick up lines. EVER
- Mona Nomura
What's to like about this type of mindless crap polluting Friendfeed these days...? *gawd* why is it that if women wants attention it has to be some sex inspired bullshit...? FAIL!!!
- Mario Olckers
I would add "11. Women know men better than men know themselves."
- Hayk
worst pickup lines Mona N? I cannot imagine you getting all the worst ones with that personality of yours..
- Fred Grott
Ones that women don't know, and vice versa:)
- Igor Poltavskiy
or "I can do that" Um, I know you CAN. But do you WANT to???
- Mona Nomura
Amen! I worked with someone who always said that. And then got offended when I wasn't impressed with what she had to say. I also don't think saying "I'm a blunt, honest person" excuses what is generally tactlessness.
-
JMS: AGREED, words may be forgotten, but one can never forget how it makes them feel.... I still do that... work in progress =\
- Mona Nomura
Yeah, exactly. "Tell me this..." is up there with those too. While we're at it, people that start off with "So..." ALL the time really get on my nerves.
- donato
from twhirl
JMS, my motto is life is too short to mince words. :D
- Cyndy
Sounds like they're trying to prepare you for some bad news. But I agree, just spit it out!
- Zulema ❧ spicy cocoa tart
In all seriousness though, how do you approach a friend with a criticism that is intended to produce a positive influence. If i say "Your a dinglehopper" if that is all I say it sounds more like an attack.
- Geoff Schultz {TF}
Or are we assuming that this is a statement from someone who is not in the position of trusted adviser.
- Geoff Schultz {TF}
Don't give advice unless it's asked. I learned the hard way and still working, since I can't keep my bacon hole shut ;)
- Mona Nomura
I have a similar beef with "Honestly, ..." or "To tell you the truth, ...". It implies that you're not usually honest or truthful. Everyone should omit these excusatory prefixes from their lexica.
- Kevin Fox
How about "I hope this doesn't come out wrong, but..."
-
JMS, if you have to use that prefix, you *know* it will come out wrong ;)
- Robert Blum
from Alert Thingy
Exactly! :-)
-
I've often said, once you use the word "but" it means to ignore everything you just said up to that point.
- Jason Shultz
from twhirl
my favorite, used often in The Wire, is "With all due respect....." followed inevitably by a debilitating diss.
- J450N
my Perfect Bitch Sister starts everything with "I dont mean to be ugly, but..."
- MLx
Marianne: You must be in the South. "Actin' ugly" and "bein' ugly" are the first thing we're taught not to do!
- Paul Reynolds
the wedding picture. the guy on the horse statue in the water fountain. omg. hilarious.
- Christine Lu
Sorry - Tad's been busy CODING. I only photobomb any photos lindsay's trying to take... and i do that all the time until she punches me... and then a couple times more.
- iTad
Dude, so what'll happen if photobombers take a group picture? Imagine me, you, Chris P in a picture together? Wow. Terrible.
- Mona Nomura
my favourite is the one with the toilet paper in the foreground -- if you've already got a roll of tp in the frame, why not photobomb it?
- Trent Olson
I think, according to the picture, you're supposed to clap to encourage the device to produce the bacon. Just make sure to catch it before it hits the floor!
- iTad
Okay, I'm sick of all the bacon stuff, but this really did make me LOL!
- Louie
I will have a 12-year old moment and cross-off the '-on' so it says PUSH BUTT RECEIVE BACON cuz that's how I rol--- er, nevermind that last part.
- Eric Rice
Eric, that might invite receiving the bacon in an undesired orifice.
- iTad
Holy crap - I sure hope Lindsay's happy now. She's in the other room giggling like a little girl.
- iTad
Lindsay omg i love you. i can't stop staring at this
- Mona Nomura
hover over my name (damnit, it's a tad cut off)------->
- Mona Nomura
It's funny that so many of you haven't seen this. I've seen this in men's rooms tons of times. Maybe girls don't deface their restroom accessories. That said, it doesn't take away from this image's pure unadulterated awesomeness.
- iTad
Mona - Sacrilage (or some other accusation). Bring back the older profile pic - it was, ugh, way better.
- Yuvi
Tad: I've seen the image plenty of times, but not with a bacon makeover. lol
- Louie
i don't care if it's old, i'm Lindsay's best friend for life. Hey -can I come over?
- Mona Nomura
It's a long drive, but sure. I seem to remember you offering to clean and cook too. :D We'll pay in bacon.
- iTad
I had bacon and shrimp for dinner (seriously... this new diet is kinda strange). But I won't be making any more bacon until Wednesday. I'll make you some if you come over, Mona.
- Lindsay
And of course I'll be bringing some... bacon! :) -starts packing bags-
- Mona Nomura
@Mona - Please tell me that the "going over" thing is a joke and you two live on the opposite sides of the world.
- Yuvi
Mona is probably within a 2 or 3 day drive from here. Or a 3 hour flight. And Mona - we can get the GOOD bacon from Whole Foods. ;)
- iTad
@Tad - Thankfully - I was getting a bit envious ;)
- Yuvi
Whole Foods? EF that rip off excuse for a supermarket. I'll bring you some fresh bacon with my ninja skills. HIYYYYYY-YA ....o wait, that's Street Fighter. Nevermind
- Mona Nomura
Mona, please record a song about how you feel about Bacon and post the video here on FriendFeed.
- iTad
Hah! do it! That would be worth it's weight in bacon!
- Lindsay
LOL when I get a FF shirt, I'll post one up on my Seesmic
- Mona Nomura
for Mona? how about push button abortions? oh no wait... I'm conservative. I'm against that,... I guess. darn
- NoahDavidSimon
I think Mona should start her own startup called BaconFeed.com :P
- imabonehead
darn, spewing my coffee out all over keyboard .. great wit !! white shirt ruined .. :(-
- Peter Dawson