A picture tellz a thousand (key)wordz

After doing a case study of Flickr for my thesis, one of the key points regarding connectivity is Flickr’s view of photos as a tool that prompts interactivity. As expressed this post's diagram, photos no longer lie dormant in photo albums, online they become “living entities” that are used as a resource that foster online activities. They add description to Websites, they enrich online libraries, they attract our attention in self-made slideshows, and they even become the instigator of dialogue between users. Photos once relegated for private collections have now been opened up for public consumption, and Flickr has upheld such opportunities by developing places “for the audience to take part in the action” (Shedroff 227), by permitting them to generate metadata to the library of the service.

To visit my user foto-sets on the Flicker Website, plz follow the link below:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chasing-sandcastles/sets/

Your Web 2.0 Soup is served!!! Users, hurry up and grab a spoon ;-p

A useful analogy of the social milieu of Flickr could be being similar to a bowl of soup. In this analogy the bowl itself is represented as the Web, where the soup’s broth comprises of the entire Flickr community in which each member adds their own distinct flavour. The user’s contribution can be viewed as the force that moves the spoon, where the spoon itself represents the users ideas and messages. As users participate, the spoon mixes together all the ingredients in the bowl, aggregating together the constituents of the soup, constructing trails that direct back to them whilst overlapping with trails that lead to other users.

In Web 2.0 services, Design is the work of Multiple Authors. .. .

In open-sourced communities as this diagram illustrates, “the order comes from within these communities not from the top” (Leadbeater 5). In such an equal platform, ‘Consumers turn out to be producers as creativity becomes a mass activity not just an elite one.’(Leadbeater 5-6).

In the photo-sharing site Flickr, user participation flows in both directions, where contributions are circulated and re-circulated. In Flickr it its not the photos, but what users do with the photos that puts the mechanism of Design into action. In this user-generated medium, the enrichment of a user experience becomes the primary focus, as our methods of content exposition gives our online activities meaning and purpose.


Summary of findings from Flickr Case Study in Thesis:

Strengths
• There are strong levels of feedback, since all users are in fact contributors.
• Flickr’s open API allows for the development on new features, through the modification of JavaScript.
• Flickr facilitates for creative dialogues between members, where users practices tasks of listening, thinking, and speaking.
• Flickr’s responsive and participatory nature helps to immerse users into their engagement of the service.
• Flickr’s multiple approaches to organization supports greater navigational variations.

Weaknesses
• A folksonomy has a tendency to be ambiguous, as users assign the same tag to different items.
• Users are only granted a finite amount of control of the system, which hinders autonomy and self-expression.
• Users without knowledge of JavaScript can’t make sophisticated modifications.
• Flickr chooses to ignore, rather than devise solutions for members who user Flickr for non-photographic material.

Opportunities
• A folksonomy allow all users to have a “voice” to negotiate the value and meaning of communal content.
• Flickr offers users various choices for archiving, annotating, appropriating and recirculating their generated content.
• Flickr allows users to utilize their content, in and amongst other Web 2.0 services they belong to.
• A designer belonging to Flickr can aim to respond to the challenge of multiple ways that users access information.

Share Your Photos Y'all!!!

As a designer acting a user, it was important to promote the need to be community active (figure 39), as user participation has become the new vehicle for designers to enrich the understanding of Web 2.0 audiences. This should be an objective for any designer acting as a user; this should be the objective for every ordinary Flickr member.

As ‘Interaction is a cyclic process in which two actors(users) alternately listen, think, and speak (Chris Crawford in Shedroff 142), the role of a designer in a user-generated medium is to uphold the conversational and participatory nature of the community. They can achieve this be being community active in their own designated groups (figure 40, 41, 42), and being visible in accumulated community resources.

To view more of my photo-collections, plz follow the link below:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chasing-sandcastles/