What’s interesting is that the library is harnessing the power of the Flickr community takes over, “We want people to tag, comment, and make notes on the images, just like any other Flickr photo. … Many photos are missing key caption information such as where the photo was taken and who is pictured. If such information is collected via Flickr members, it can potentially enhance the quality of the bibliographic records for the images.”, (Matt Raymond, institution’s official blog).

On 18th Jan the blog published a few stats: 392,000 views on the photostream, 650,000 views of photos, aAll 3,100+ photos have been viewed and 420 of the photos have comments. The number of tags applied already is uncountable.

The photos can be viewed on Flickr here.

And this is where things get really interesting, because the software is able to work through the images and when the same feature is found across multiple images it creates a 3D representation by spatially relating each image to each other. It’s very hard to put into words so I recommend viewing the video below, about 4 minutes in the 3D aspect is demoed using images of the Notre Dame Cathedral taken from Flickr, (they simply typed in ‘Notre Dame’ in flickr). The presenter then ‘browses’ through the image.

The Flickr aspect is of course interesting since we are now talking of resources created through social networks using photos taken from any kind of camera (cellphones through to SLRs). As the presenter states we’re taking data from the collective memory of everyone in terms of what the world looks like and linking it all together. A model then emerges representing something which is greater than the sum of the parts (photos). And it will become more detailed as more photos are added. As a photo is added it is tagged with the metadata which allows then person who added it to use it as a portal into the rest of the associated photos.

So we’re talking about images being hyperlinked together on the basis of the image content. One possible future for the web? You enter a term in Google, it returns and image and then you click on the image to travel through related images? Semantic network richness.

I’ve looked at the actual demo software itself. There’s a number of collections to view together with the 3D visualizations, (here’s a link to it).

Thanks to Mike Mylles.

Lots of great things in the article. The items on flickr are particularly interesting.

“I can also see Flickr being used in photography classes allowing students to keep an organized collection of their work, share their photos with the world, and receive commentary from viewers and classmates. And who knows? Maybe all it takes is a comment or a couple views of a students work to inspire and motivate them in continuing with photography.”

The article goes on to explain the Flickr photo annotation tool which allows you to add boxes around specific areas to which you can add notes. You could use this feature to explain key concepts or highlight hidden detail / content. Not only that but the note function also allows other users to add their notes as well.

“Say you are a teacher and you uploaded an art piece that you want your students to critique. Have them browse to the art piece and add notes around parts they want to comment on.”

Beth Harris of the Fashion Institute of Technology, State University of New York, has used Flickr with her art history course. Images (in this case paintings) are uploaded and students are encouraged to add their own notes (and hence labels) and discuss paintings online. Not only that but each photo has a comments feature which the students use to discuss aspects of the painting. The image below shows a typical example. Clicking on the image will take to the actual photo on Flickr where you can see the student comments.

The article provides another example. Ewan McIntosh has uploaded the painting, “Ivory, Apes and Peacocks,”. Users not only label the image but also use the note function to ask questions, which are then answered in the comments facility (located below the image).

Again click on the image to interact with the note boxes and read comments.

Finally the article mentions Alan Levine who uses the annotation facility to create “hot-spot learning objects.”. In the example below shows a range of volcano types. As the mouse hovers over each volcano (hotspot) a note appears providing info. Click on the image below to see this in action.

Interestingly Alan has also used the notes tool to create tutorial on how Flickr can be used and the variety of tools available. Clicking on the image below takes you to the tutorial but it is also worth noting that Alan has provided more links and explanations using the information text slot that comes with the image. The tutorial is actually part of the k12 online 2006 conference with delegates using the comments and annotation facilities to add their views. BLU conference organizers may wish to follow a similar route in future?

For those of you who don’t know what Flickr is – it is essentially a free photo sharing site which allows students and teacher to upload and share photos on the web. Students and staff can search for photos using keywords or ‘tags’ (you assign these when you upload the photo) which is great for research. The photos once uploaded can also be embedded in blogs. A key advantage is also the comments feature which can be quiet effective in terms of students receiving feedback on their work or eliciting a class to make judgments about a given image and its contents.

Anyway here’s a tutorial on how Flickr works (thank you YouTube) together with a static definition for those who are text orientated (thank you Wikipedia).

It’s worth noting that the screencast was made by a school teacher (Jeff Utecht) in China. Jeff created group accounts for his 5th grade students. The students mange the are and add photos on a regular basis. The uploaded photos were then also available for each student to insert and display within their blog.

As Mark Oehlert here “part of me feels like I’m watching the pulse of the Web…”.

Basically what we have here is an animated mashup of Google earth and blogging technology (Twittervision) and Flickr photos (Flickrvision).

Twittervision shows real-time geographic visualization of blog entries on a social network. The map constantly moves to the location of the most recent blog entry. You can create a Twitter account and restrict updates from selected individuals (good for corporations on a world wide basis). Flickrvision (seen below) is essentially a tweak on Twittervision in which it uses geolocated Flickr photos and again the map moves directly to the location of the most recent photo.

And uses? You really could waste a lot of time simply watching it. I cant help wondering however as to how this would look on a more local level. Hertfordshire? Hatfield? UH students? From a sociological point of view it would be really interesting to see what students exchange using this medium.

As Mark Oehlert here “part of me feels like I’m watching the pulse of the Web…”.

Basically what we have here is an animated mashup of Google earth and blogging technology (Twittervision) and Flickr photos (Flickrvision).

Twittervision shows real-time geographic visualization of blog entries on a social network. The map constantly moves to the location of the most recent blog entry. You can create a Twitter account and restrict updates from selected individuals (good for corporations on a world wide basis). Flickrvision (seen below) is essentially a tweak on Twittervision in which it uses geolocated Flickr photos and again the map moves directly to the location of the most recent photo.

And uses? You really could waste a lot of time simply watching it. I cant help wondering however as to how this would look on a more local level. Hertfordshire? Hatfield? UH students? From a sociological point of view it would be really interesting to see what students exchange using this medium.

Web 2.0 not so user-generated after all?
By Reuters

Sobering and brief article on web 2.0 in terms of users viewing and adding their own content. 3 of the main web 2.0 sites are considered:

youTube: “A tiny 0.16 per cent of visits to Google’s top video-sharing site, YouTube, involve users seeking to upload video for others to watch, according to a study of online surfing data by Bill Tancer, an analyst with web audience measurement company Hitwise.”

Flickr: “Similarly, only two-tenths of one per cent of visits to Flickr, a popular photo-editing site owned by Yahoo!, are to upload new photos, the Hitwise study found.”

So as the report says the vast majority of internet suers can be likened to couch potatoes. People who like to watch rather than create. That said collaboratively created content sites such as wikipedia are prooving to be a different story.

Wikipedia: “Wikipedia, the anyone-can-edit online encyclopedia, is the one exception cited in the Hitwise study: 4.6 per cent of all visits to Wikipedia pages are to edit entries on the site.”

Which is very good. The report goes on to say that despite the above are still showing huge gains in internet traffic: “Visits by web users to the category of participatory web 2.0 sites account for 12 per cent of US web activity, up from only two per cent two years ago, the study showed.”

And: “Web 2.0 photo-sharing sites now account for 56 per cent of visits to all online photo sites. Of that, Photobucket alone accounts for 41 per cent of the traffic, Hitwise data shows.”"

This is backed by recent stats released by comScore, particularly regarding social networking and blog sites.

Social Networking and Major Consumer Sites See Marked Traffic Increases During the Month of March

comScore have released the latest stats growth for Feb/March. Social networking sites are showing huge gains.

“Several social networking sites showed notable gains in March, including Tagged.com, which became the UK’s biggest gainer with a 226-percent increase to more than 3 million visitors. In addition, Facebook.com grew 38 percent to 2.7 million visitors, and Six Apart sites grew 30 percent to 3.5 million visitors. Bebo.com grew 9 percent to 7.8 million visitors, and is the only one of these sites to be represented in the top 20 list.” Wikipedia by the way grew by 6% receiving 11.9 million UK unique visitors, (probably bad news for teachers who dont want their students to use the site).

More stats here