What is Flickr?

Flickr is another bookmarking site dedicated to achieve the best online photo management and sharing application available. In the Flickr system, you will have your own pages wherein to show off your photos. Photo sizes vary from thumbnail, medium and large. Photo rotation is very easy. There is a choice with regards to privacy levels on each photo so you get to decide who gets to see them and comment on them. Uploading can be done by email or from a camera phone. You can even post your photos to just about any blog there is.

People would have various reasons in wanting to post their photos in the internet. It could be that they would want to show off their best pictures to the whole world or would want to keep a blog of treasured moments captured on their camera phone. It could also be that they would want to be able to securely and privately share personal photos across the country. Flickr is able to do both as it readily adjusts to the preferred level of privacy of its users.

Flickr aims to be able to get photos in and out of the system through the most number of ways. With photos either coming from the web, mobile devices, user’s home computers and whatever software is being used to pushing them out either through the Flickr website, RSS feeds, email and outside blogs, Flickr never stops of thinking of ways that haven’t been thought of yet. Its main objective is to make it easy for photos to get from one person to another through their own transmittal option.

Another thing Flickr aims to do is to provide a better way of organizing photos than putting them in albums. While albums remain a reliable way of keeping pictures, it may no longer be practical for those who find themselves overwhelmed with the great number of photos they have. This is one result of using a digital camera and having an itchy trigger finger. Through Flickr, organizing photos can be a collaborative activity with your family or friends as each one is able to provide comments, notes or tags as you share your photos.

Basic Dos and Don’ts

Flickr has been acquired by Yahoo! Inc. and all members are required to abide by its existing guidelines for use. Those who still maintain a Flickr username and password that was not created by the Yahoo! ID are asked to create a new one. Respect for intellectual property is very much emphasized while using Flickr.

Do respect the Flickr community. Its membership is made up of varied types of people who have their own feelings, thoughts and beliefs which may not necessarily be the same as yours. If you yourself expect respect then do it yourself. Do upload only the photos which are yours. Do not attempt to pass off others’ work or photos collected through the internet as yours. While Flickr is primarily for photos, other images such as illustrations, screenshots and diagram may be posted. However, if majority of your photo stream are not photographs, your account will probably be marked as Not In Public Site Areas (NIPSA). This means that although your photos will still be visible on your pages, groups and contacts, they won’t be appearing in photo searches.

Do make it a habit to link back to Flickr when you post photos elsewhere. Do not use your account to host web graphics such as logos and banners as this will be a reason for termination. Flickr is not intended for commercial use thus selling products or services or even yourself through the photo stream is another cause for termination.

Flickr should not serve as a venue for venting personal frustrations that would harass, abuse or intimidate others in any way. Uploading photos depicting frontal nudity, intimate moments and the like are only for private photostream. Persistence in making such photos public will also result to termination of account. Do not upload illegal contents whether in public or private areas of Flickr. Aside from having your account deleted, appropriate action shall be taken including reporting to the proper authorities.

You will be exposed to different people through their behavior and photo content. Some items may be offensive and objectionable to you which you can just click-away or flag as “offensive”. Any immediate cause of concern, however, should be reported to the Flickr staff. Remember that Flickr was developed to provide convenience and fun, so do enjoy using Flickr without causing harm to anyone.

Public VS Private

Photos are an archive of shared memories. This is the reason why people love them so much that they would want to be able to invite friends and family to take a look at them. Some photos are simply exceptional that a person would want to share it even to those he/she doesn’t know.

People who visit Flickr will have access to all public photos. Photos can be shared by blogging any of your own photos or setting up your own Flickr web addresses. You can also choose to send individual photos to people either as attachments or by sending a link. Your personal addition to the whole Flickr collection is possible by adding tags to your own photos so they will be included when people surf around for photos of related topics. Having a group is another way to share photos.

Your photostream is considered private if your photos are set only to be visible to your friends and family. This group is not necessarily limited to actual relationship as you can designate who you count as your friends and family. Generally, anybody can comment on your photos except when there is anyone in particular you don’t want to receive any. Comments can be blocked or deleted as you want.

You can also control who gets to download the different versions of your photos. The application of a Creative Commons license to your photos shall be taken to mean that you are permitting others to download them. However, there are variations of the extent of application of such permission. Attribution would mean that you are allowing others to copy, distribute, display and perform your copyrighted work and its derivatives only if they give you credit. Non-commercial is similar to attribution except that it is solely for non-commercial purposes. No derivative works mean that you are allowing verbatim copies of your work and not derivative works based on it. Share alike means that you are allowing others to distribute derivative work under a license similar to that governing your work.

A photo stream will only display the last 200 photos uploaded if a free-account is used. A paid account displays everything. This is essentially a history of everything you have uploaded in Flickr.