Thing #71: Flickr Your Photos

I set up a Flickr account years ago for a project, but never really used it after that. It had been so long, I had to dig around just to find my account log in. It has been so long, I don't really remember many of the features that "Old Flickr" offered. All that being said, I was able to get in and play around-though I'm not sure how some of those pictures wound up on Flickr in the first place. After signing on, the first thing I did was to get the Flickr app. That made it super easy to upload the pictures I had on my phone. After I did that, I tried playing around with some of the features in Flickr. I edited a few photos using Aviary. It has some nice options, but there is a little delay making the experience kind of awkward. I've been using Picasa for photo editing and I like that much better. I took the photos I uploaded and created a set titled NE 2.0. I can see how this would help to organize photos-Vacation, Graduation, Camping, etc... I went to try and share a photo on Facebook, but really did NOT like that I had to agree to let Flickr have access to my public profile, my friend list, and my news feed. As far as I'm concerned, that is none of Flickr's business-so I did not do it! Too bad because that is a feature I would use often. I did e-mail a photo and that worked well. I would say it is much easier to share in Flickr than it is in Picasa. I found where you could order prints from Snapfish right from Flickr, which is very handy. I shared a photo from Flickr to my blog, but now I need to go and find out where it shows up. Overall I would say that there are good and bad features in both Flickr and Picasa-but neither one is a good fit for my needs, so I probably need to keep looking. I am terrible with organizing pictures. All of my print pictures are in shoeboxes and I am just starting to organize them because I can't remember which baby is which anymore-it's so fun getting old! My cousin is excellent keeping her photos organized online, with captions, in monthly folders. She shares them with family so we can watch her kids grow, important events in their lives, and tag along on vacations. She lives in Chicago so sharing regularly helps her family to feel a little more connected. I wish I was more like her! As far as how libraries can use photo sharing???? I am interested in learning some creative ways others are using it. Our library just shares some historic pictures, pictures of events, pictures of our art exhibit. That is the way I would think to use it, but like I said, I am not very original. That is why I really enjoy the Tech Talks that Michael Sauers gives. He shares so many interesting ways that libraries can use these new technologies- ways that I NEVER would have thought of!