The Flickr Commons Project is quickly becoming one of my favorite things online. There are so many amazing photos to look at and more are being added all the time.
For example, Bibliothèque de Toulouse just joined the project and added 300+ photos from the early 20th century. These are oh so cool.
Enjoy these photos. Tag them. Be inspired by them.
Of this set, which is your favorite?
Now this is REALLY cool. The Smithsonian Institution has joined the Flickr Commons project. They’ve made 862 photos available through their Flickr account, like this one of Albert Einstein.
Please go enjoy, tag, and be inspired by these photos.
I think this is exactly what these institutions should be doing. They should be going out of their way to put their content any where and everywhere that it is going to get the most use.
If people aren’t going to be coming to their Web sites to view this content, put the content where the people are.
At the Library of Congress, their are tons and tons and tons of photos available through the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog. But…I’d venture to say that it has never gotten as much attention as the Library had when it put photos on Flickr.
The future of the Web is distributed.
Speaking of the Library of Congress photos on Flickr. They just posted some AWESOME photos of a “Home Makers Suffrage Parade” in the very early 20th century.
Enjoy!
It’s been such a blast to watch the success and the growth of the Flickr Commons project. Since it’s launch with the Library of Congress back in January, it’s added the Australian Powerhouse Museum to its ranks and just recently the Brooklyn Museum has also joined.
Please go, be inspired, and tag these photos.
Especially tag the photos. Take 10 minutes. The more that people tag them the more that they will be findable and enjoyed by others.
The Library of Congress has continued to add photos to its Flickr account, at a pace of about 20 per week. Enjoy them. Be inspired by them. Tag them.
Here’s a cool photo of the Austrian Calvary:
One question I get asked a lot is “how do I make my content/app/video viral?” Everyone wants to know the formula or the secret sauce. While I can’t tell you the formula (because I don’t think there is one), I do think there is a pretty foundation element that you’ll have to have.
If you want your content, to go viral it has to be shareable. People have to be able to pass it from one person to the next.
This week Flickr has made the move of making their content more easily shareable. In the upper right portion of each page, there is now a big “Share This” button. You can quickly e-mail the photo, grab a link, embed it, or blog about it.
So yeah… Flickr has launched Flickr Video and the big surprise is that the videos can only be 90 seconds long. Before you start moaning and groaning about it, let’s sit back and think about this.
Didn’t we all moan and groan when we found out Twitter had a 140 character limit? Now Twitter is a Web 2.0 darling.
Constraint brings simplicity. 90 seconds mean that most likely the video is raw and unedited. It’s the video that comes from the digital photo camera or from your camera phone.
Constraint can also bring great beauty. Think of haiku. Think of Twitter. There is a certain level of clarity in what you say when you have a limit on how you can say it.
I’m confident that if people keep an open mind Flickr Video will be a medium for creativity and expression for many years to come.
While at the Library of Congress, I had the pleasure of helping with the Library’s participation in the Flickr Commons project.
It’s very exciting for me to see that the Flickr Commons project has expanded to also now include 200 images from Australia’s Powerhouse Museum.
These look like they equally beautiful photos. As described by George Oates from Flickr, these are “wonderful old photos of Sydney and New South Wales from the turn of the 20th Century.”
So enjoy them, be inspired by them, tag them. Contribute to this AWESOME project.
Also… the Library of Congress is continuing to add to it’s Flickr account. Go check those out also. Currently those are additions to the Bain Collection.
(Photo from the Powerhouse Museum’s Flickr account)
After much waiting, the Library of Congress has FINALLY added more photos to it’s Flickr account. The 50 new photos were added to the 1910s Bain News Service set.
Hopefully the love and excitement, that started with the Library’s foray into Flickr in January, will continue here.
Go there. Enjoy the Library of Congress photos on Flickr. Tag them.
Okay… so a lot of crazy things have happened in my life but this is on a whole new level… The Library of Congress/Flickr project that I helped architect got a mention in this week’s Newsweek magazine.
This week has been kind of crazy. At the Library of Congress, we made 3000+ photos available on Flickr and the level of positive and warm responses has exceeded all of our wildest expectations.
It’s been thrilling to watch as people from around the world have gone back in time to the early and mid 1900s and gotten to know eras of decades ago.
Also… it’s been rewarding to see in some instances these photos are starting to spark creativity and discussion in the folks that have enjoyed them.
Well, I look forward to seeing what the future of this project will hold.
Here is a sample of some of my favorite photos from the Library of Congress sets that were made available on Flickr:
