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Flickr Commons marks 5-year anniversary with galleries of most-viewed pics

Jan 17, 2013 at 02:02:34 GMT

OTHER NEWS ANNIVERSARY COMMONS FLICKR IMAGE-SHARING

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Flickr Commons is five years old and, to celebrate, Flickr has created galleries of the most viewed, 'favorited' and commented-upon images. The Commons was launched in 2008 with 1500 photos, in partnership with the US Library of Congress. Five years later, with several more partner institutions on-board, the collection of public domain photographs comprises more than 250,000 images. According to Flickr, these images have generated more than 2 million tags and over 650,000 comments. Click the links below to see the galleries of most viewed, liked and commented-on pictures, as selected by the Commons' member institutions.

Richard M. Nixon and Elvis Presley at the White House, 1970 (US National Archives)

via The Next Web


Click here for Flickr Commons Favorites Gallery #1	Click here for Flickr Commons Favorites Gallery #2

Click here for Flickr Commons Favorites Gallery #3	Click here for Flickr Commons Favorites Gallery #4

Comments

Total comments: 19

Why no cats?

0 upvotes

Very interesting collections. Nice to browse some.

1 upvote

Amazing set of photos!

2 upvotes

Maybe one of the greatest collections of photos ever put together. Nice work Flickr...

Comment edited 12 seconds after posting

3 upvotes

Good thing about Flickr is that many firms browse it for images and I have sold more than enough to justify using it as a keen amateur.

0 upvotes

I fully agree. And not only for amateurs
It's the main reason I made flikr/Getty Images my major stock photo site.

It offers income potential and is in my opinion the most richest and most lively social platform for photographers/photography enthusiasts

0 upvotes

The most awesome thing about Flickr is not the social part but its API (if you know some javascript) for pulling content out of flickr.

It's truly an under appreciated gem.

Basically just host your images on flickr and link them to your web page. Flickr has a sh1t load of globally distributed servers so you always get a good response rate.

Forget the social aspect and use it as a CDN instead.

2 upvotes

This is no comment on the selected images, but :

Flickr is almost entirely a social networking platform. As a photographer, to become distinct from the chaff, you need a strong network of contacts who will like, comment, view and favourite your images.

No matter how good your work, that is the /only/ way to gain any kind of recognition. The real key of flickr is in new users stroking the egos of other users, commenting and favouriting work.. any work.. thus gaining the same in return as payment.

Thus, large swathes of folk who mistake the 'lomo' filter for some talent seem to be rising above other, much more interesting work from people who don't have a network.

If we take flickr as representative of the state of photography, it seems to be fast becoming a hipster, facebook era pastime.

So, that's why I'm sceptical of any 'most viewed' or 'interesting' tags being of any value.

Comment edited 2 times, last edit 3 minutes after posting

12 upvotes

looking through the selected images, you might be right.. of the 250k, i am not sure exactly why some of these should have floated to the top.

they are all either cute or amusing... some are interesting historically.

but i wonder what the other 249,900 +/- are like if these have been, popularly, judged to be the best.

Comment edited 36 seconds after posting

1 upvote

I use Flickr to store photos and as an easy way for friends and family to view them without them coming over my house. Seems like your caught up in the stuff your complaining about. Ha, the irony.

Comment edited 14 seconds after posting

2 upvotes

all these services are crap... they make money with your images.

if you want to show your stuff create your own website.... don´t use such social media crap.

0 upvotes

Flickr has an advantage over other services that a fair percentage of users pay it to just be a sharing service not supported by advertising etc.

But Flickr is still a social networking website and that is of course its primary use.

0 upvotes

Clearly you don't know what Flickr Commons is, and I won't bother to educate you other than to say that many museums, archives, and libraries make their collections partially available there.

By your idiotic rationale, museums are "crap" because they make money on other people's work.

3 upvotes

Id be amused to see the Flickr top choice searches from the non "Commons"- I bet its not quite so interesting...

0 upvotes

Daily, rather than all time, but still "interesting";
http://www.flickr.com/explore

0 upvotes

One really wonders why Flickr et al became so popular: the site is hardly any prety and is a pain to browse (more so if you want to look at more than one picture...) I hardly ever visit these sites; too cumbersome...

5 upvotes

Flikr got established early when the competition was weak. They got critical mass that enabled them to become the standard. Popularity has little to do with usability and more to do with who is the "main" player. Just like Windows and Facebook.
Blame the users for flocking to them.

Comment edited 51 seconds after posting

4 upvotes

/\ Agreed.

0 upvotes

Congratulations!

3 upvotes

Total comments: 19


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