Google has added Communities, the ability to create topic-focused groups, to its Google+ social network. The Communities option makes it easier for people with common interests to discuss and share photos around themes. Connect has highlighted a couple of photography-related groups that have already started to attract members.
News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
This morning Google+ launched communities. It will be rolling out to users over the course of today. I don’t have it yet this morning but my Pal Trey Ratcliff does and has written a blog post about it here.
Over the past year, the photographic community has come together on Google+ probably more than any other site on the internet. Many of the most active of these social photographers early on migrated over from Flickr to Google. While there have been some great conversations that have gone on in many Google+ posts by individuals, what Google has lacked is a town square sort of feature where individuals could congregate around a shared idea. Today’s launch of communities addresses that and it also offers photographers a direct competing platform for Flickr groups for the first time.
I haven’t tried communities yet, so I don’t know how robust it is compared to Flickr groups, but one thing Google seems to do really well is quickly innovate and improve new features on G+ after they launch them. I’ll write a follow up post once I get a chance to try them out. I’m sure I’ll be joining Trey’s new community and probably creating one of my own. Stay tuned. 
Thomas Hawk Digital Connection
Photo from Nicole S. Young’s G+ stream.
One way you can judge the health of a social network is by the relationships that come out of it. There has probably been no more vibrant social network for photographers this past year than Google+. Google+ attracted the most social of photographers early on last year when they launched and they’ve succeed in capturing the soul of social networking for photographers since. There are many sites where you can post photos, Flickr, Facebook, Instagram, 500px, but none have quite the social magic that Google+ has in quite the same way right now.
I remember when Flickr first launched back in the day, back when they seemed to have a simliar magic. One of the first things you saw coming out of Flickr were romantic relationships — many people were meeting on Flickr, getting involved and in some cases even getting married. Google+ is only a year and a half old at this point, but today I saw the first photographer marriage coming out of the network that I’ve noticed so far, photographers Nicole S. Young and Brian Matiash announced that they tied the knot.
For those of you who don’t know Nicole and Brian, they are wonderful photographers and contributors to G+. Nicole is a photographer and author who specializes in stock and food photography and Brian works for photo processing company onOne Software and like me loves to shoot abandoned and urbex type photography.
From Nicole:
“Every once in a while something that is seemingly small comes along that makes a difference in your life, and other times it changes your life completely. In the summer of 2011 Google+ was brought to life, and with that the beginning of Hangouts and a swarm of amazing people from all over the world. This community here on Google+ has impacted my life so wonderfully and drastically, and in the process I’ve made many life-long friends and connected with people I barely knew before, but through the popularity of Hangouts I was able to actually interact with.
One of those people was +Brian Matiash, and just a few months ago we officially tied the knot!
Yes, it’s true. He got down on one knee and asked me to marry him, and I said YES!!! We had a simple ceremony on what we call “Marriage Day”
My good Pal Trey Ratcliff got the assist for helping to introduce them to each other on, yep, you guessed it, a Google+ hangout.
Congratulations to Brian and Nicole both on this excellent news! I’m curious as to whether or not they’ll be registering at B&H or Adorama.
And for the rest of you, before you pony up for that match.com or eHarmony account next month, you just might want to reconsider and head on over and check out Google+ instead. My money’s on Scott Jarvie being next, btw. 
Thomas Hawk Digital Connection
For the last few weeks I’ve been thinking a lot about online conversations. It feels like I’m constantly in one somewhere on some site.
More and more for me these are happening on Google+. I used to spend almost all of my social time online in Flickr group discussion threads. I stopped visiting Flickr groups for a while due to personal harassment — but you know what, it wasn’t just me who left, the velocity of quality conversations in Flickr groups have gone wayyyy down more broadly speaking in the past year.
This is not just a subjective thing — it’s easily measured ojbectively as well. Flickr Central is one of the oldest/largest/most active groups on Flickr. Over there years (as counted by threads) 11,503 conversations that have gone on there. Some are very successful, some are not.
If you look at Flickr Central today you’ll see that the time stamp for discussions on the first page goes back two weeks. This was not always the case. It used to be that the entire first page of discussions in Flickr Central were from the past 48 hours. Clearly the velocity of conversations in this Flickr group has gone way down. I suspect the same goes for other groups as well. Many of the groups recommended to me as “groups that Flickr has noticed” on the groups page haven’t had conversations in months, in some cases even years.
Meanwhile, over at Google+, in the past year I’ve been involved in some of the best conversations that I ever remember happening anywhere on the web. Interesting conversations about photography and art and meetups and hangouts and all kinds of fun things. it seems like there is always some great conversation somewhere on Google+ to jump into.
Over the course of the past few weeks I’ve jumped back into a few Flickr conversations to see what it feels like. What I’ve noticed is that the tone of conversations on Google+ feels so much more positive than it does at Flickr. There’s so much less snark and bitterness and negativity overall. I hadn’t seen the difference so dramatically before, but after having been gone awhile it felt more evident.
This made me think about what Google+ was doing right for community that Flickr is not.
When I first joined Google+ one of the things that I noticed is that some of the more hostile individuals from many of the old Flickr groups showed up. Some personal attacks took place, they aired their gripes about different things, typical BS hater stuff — but you know what? These people were quickly marginalized and moved out of the way to create a more positive environment. I blocked many of these people and so did so many other photographers on G+.
A few weeks went by and these people were just as hostile and negative but they were basically shouting to an empty room. The majority of positive forward thinking photographers on G+ had tuned them out with the tools that we were given. What we were left with was a more positive filtered G+ experience. I went back a few days ago to look at a few of the accounts of people that I blocked and you know what — they are gone. They quit G+. By empowering a mostly positive oriented community these people found no audience to bitch at and they left. Meanwhile, more constructive social photographers on G+ carry on.
Now, one worry with filtering out criticism is that it hurts meaningful conversation because all conversation is not always puppy dogs and roses, but that also hasn’t happened on Google+. Lots of criticism has gone on in tons of threads. The difference is though that the criticism feels much more respectful than some of what I’ve experienced in Flickr groups. People disagree on Google+ they just do it respectfully.
By giving users more powerful blocking tools on G+ Google has built a nicer community. A nicer community feels so much more enjoyable.
Every so often I’ll find someone new who comes along and leaves some sort of assholish comment in a thread on Google+. It’s almost delightful at how easy it is to block them and make them invisible.
In poking around Flickr Groups over the past week I did find what felt like some high quality conversations to me, I read them, I lurked — but I didn’t participate. The reason why I didn’t participate was that I noticed some of the toxic types that I’d run into previously on Flickr or G+. I’m sure I would have jumped into these conversations if I hadn’t seen them there, but what’s the point of jumping into a conversation about fine art photography when you know someone is just going to be a jerk?
Thomas Hawk Digital Connection
Late last week over at All Things Digital, Kara Swisher reported on the appointment of the latest high profile Yahoo exec, Adam Cahan. In addition to reporting directly into Marissa Mayer and overseeing mobile for Yahoo (super important!) it was also announced that Cahan would be put in charge of Flickr, the photo sharing site that so many of us love.
On the surface this is great news. The fact that the guy who is now overseeing Flickr reports directly into Mayer may mean that Flickr’s profile is moving up internally at Yahoo. After a few years of Flickr layoffs and shrinking, it looks like Yahoo once again is staffing up in photo sharing!
In addition to staffing up, over the past year Yahoo has probably improved Flickr more than any other year in its existence. They’ve added a really nice new justified page layout for your contact’s photos and favorites (hopefully coming to search, photostreams and sets soon!), they added a new meet up page where they are getting active with photowalks again (check out this shot from their Austin photowalk this past weekend), they created a new liquid photo format that expands photos to the size of your monitor (slick!), they also increased the maximum size for photos for paid accounts to 50MB! (Facebook and Google+ downsize your photos).
So my question is, why with so much excitement going on around Flickr, why don’t Yahoo employees use or care more about the service?
A lesser known thing about Adam Cahan, the new Yahoo exec in charge of Flickr, is that according to the San Jose business Journal he’s a former National Geographic wildlife photographer. So here’s the guy who is in charge of Flickr, definitely talented with a camera, and where is he choosing to share *his* photographs? Yep, you guessed it Google+! Here’s a photo he posted earlier this year there for the 75th Anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Of course, Cahan is just following by example really here, his boss Marissa Mayer chooses to post her own photos over at Instagram instead of Flickr.
Why is Flickr such a pariah that Yahoo’s own executives (even the one directly in charge of Flickr) won’t dare to use it personally?
Certainly Google and Facebook employees share their photos on Google+ and Facebook. So why aren’t Yahoo executives doing the same thing?
I believe that leadership is done by example. I also believe that every company should encourage dogfooding and should encourage their employees to use their own products. I think this sends a better message to users when you feel like people who work for the company use it too.
The message that Mayer and Cahen send when they shun Flickr and instead post their photos on competing photo sharing sites is that those sites are better than Flickr. The exact message that they should be trying to change if they really care about Flickr.
Now I’m all for Yahoo executives testing out the competition. Actually I think that’s smart. They *should* have accounts on Instagram and Google+ and Facebook and all that — but they should *also* have accounts at Flickr and they should be acting as Flickr’s biggest cheerleaders in the same way that Vic Gundotra does for Google+ over there.
There is a current conversation going on over at Flickr in their highest profile discussion group that Flickr is dying. Yahoo should care about discussions like this. Yahoo employees should actually be involved in them and trying to convince people that Flickr is not dying, that a comeback is just around the corner — but in order to be involved in conversations like this Yahoo employees need to actually, you know, have an actual Flickr account.
It’s not hard, really, you can even use your Facebook or Google+ account to sign into Flickr these days. Directly from the Flickr sign up page: “It takes less than a minute to create your free account & start sharing! Have a Google or Facebook account? You can use them to sign in!”
Flickr’s tagline is “almost certainly the best online photo management and sharing application in the world.” That’s been it’s tagline for years now. So if this is true, why don’t Yahoo execs want to use it to manage and share their photos? If that tagline isn’t true anymore maybe Yahoo execs should think about changing it to “almost certainly *was* the best online photo management and sharing application in the world.”
I was thinking yesterday back to all the excitement that was around Flickr back in the olden days. Natural disasters tend to be things that galvanize social sharing, and especially photos. Back in 2005 when Katrina hit, Flickr was the go to place for people to post photos online about the disaster. Not only were the best user generated photos flowing into Flickr, they were flowing in fast and furious. Flickr was recognized for the Katrina photos in the national press. A group was started on Flickr to do a print auction to raise funds for Katrina survivors. The very next year Time Magazine named Flickr co-Founders Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake as two of the 100 most influential people in the world! Butterfield and Fake both had Flickr accounts by the way.
More recently hurricane Sandy hit New York. Was Flickr the go to place this time for photos? No. Everywhere you went in the national press it was 24/7 Instagram. It’s telling that Time Magazine — the very same Time Magazine that recognized Flickr and their founders/managers after Hurricane Katrina — recruited five professional photographers this time around to cover hurricane Sandy for them on… Instagram, the same photo sharing site where Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer shares her photos.
By the way, photos taken after Oct 15th tagged Sandy on Flickr? 36,000. Photos tagged Sandy on Instagram? Over 800,000. Now just today Instagram announced photos on the web.
On a personal level, my photos at Facebook and Google+ get far more views and engagement than they do on Flickr — not just a little more, a lot more — as in hundreds of times more. I’m still rooting for Flickr though. They were the photo sharing service that I started out with back in 2004. They still have the best photo organizational tools on the web and at $ 25 for over 70,000 full high res photos of mine they are a bargain. Competition in the photo sharing space is good for all of us. It benefits the user. I just wish I felt like Yahoo actually wanted to win more with Flickr. Maybe this will change though and some day soon I’ll be able to add Mayer and Cahan as contacts of mine on Flickr. I bet as a former National Geographic pro Cahan has got some great shots.
Comments on this post at Google+.
Thomas Hawk Digital Connection
My day with the T-Mobile G-Slate with Google, by LG. I’m in love. Spec highlights: 1.5 lbs, 8.9 inch screen Android 3.0, Honeycomb 3D video capture with the stereoscopic camera on the back 3D video playback, and a mini-HDMI port to watch all content on your TV 5.3 megapixel still shot capture Front facing camera for video chats 1080p HD video capture 720p video playback
Video Rating: 4 / 5
A detailed 3D Google Earth model of the ancient Inca city of Machu Picchu has been created using data from a laser scan of the site conducted by the University of Arkansas (see below). The model contains every building, every structure and every terrace in the entire city and is accurate to within 10cm (4″) over most of the site. The model also includes all structures and terraces at the top of Wayna Picchu, the mountain that is in the background in most photos of Machu Picchu. The video includes a series of photos of Machu Picchu together with screen shots of the model to show the accuracy of the model. (The dark coloured texturing of the grass etc. is taken directly from the Google Earth satellite image, which is required by Google.) There is a stereoscopic 3D version of the video at www.youtube.com Data developed under the authority of the Instituto Nacional de Cultura, Vladimir Dávila – Arquitecto del PAN Machu Picchu, Director del PAN Machu Picchu Direccion Regional de Cultura Cusco and Fernando Astete – National Archaeological Park of Machu Picchu. Data acquired, processed and distributed by the Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies staff (Snow Winters, Malcolm Williamson and Katie Simon) and by students in the 2009 Cotsen Institute for Archaeology (UCLA) Cuzco/Machu Picchu Field School, Alexei Vranich Director. Created by Peter Olsen, Brighton-le-Sands, Sydney, Australia.
Eric Bidelman, Arne Roomann-Kurrik We’ll share the strengths and extents of HTML5, showing magnificent demos of bleeding-edge features in Google Chrome. Digging into high-fidelity graphics, performance, and system integration, we’ll break each demo down on the big screen to show how it was constructed. Then we’ll show you how to use Chrome to its full potential in your own projects.
Video Rating: 4 / 5
Get an inside peek at Google’s data centers and the people who keep them operational.
Though many large enterprises may choose to keep information about their data centers private for security and competitive advantage reasons, Google has opened their doors at the site “Where the Internet Lives”.
For those interested in Google’s inner workings, this website offers a gallery of images focusing on technology (routers, water cooling pipes, cables), the people behind the data centers (fixing cooling systems, diagnosing computer issues, maintaining power generators), and the locations (including Ohio, Oregon, and Finland)….
Read more at MalekTips.
New Computer and Technology Help and Tips – MalekTips.Com
While Google’s social experiment may not have taken off for other users, photographers have flocked to Google+ and somehow transformed it into one of the most vibrant photographic communities in recent years. What makes it so attractive to photographers and how are they using the platform to interact?
News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)