What is flickr.com?

Flickr.com can be regarded as a typical example for a Web 2.0 application. The flickr.com website offers the user a platform for uploading, storing, and sharing photos within the online community. The main business of flickr is photo-sharing. Pictures could be organized in different photo albums and could be made accessible to different kinds of groups. The commercial website allows the user to organize and to file one’s own photographs by using another service that is offered on flickr.com which is called organizr. The user could select between different levels of protection, which allows a publication accessible only by selected members up to an unlimited access to worldwide users. Additionally the user will get a license that will protect the users’ pictures against unauthorized use. Also the user has the choice to join groups which are public or groups that are private. All groups fall back upon a pool of their group members’ photographs which should lay the basis for getting in contact with each other or starting a discussion about something. Photos can be uploaded via using the upload function of the website, the flickr uploadr (what else should it be named?), but it is also possible to upload new pictures by using writing an email via mobile phone, which allows the user to upload new shots from nearly everywhere. It is possible to sum up one one’s pictures in a specific photo album, but it is also possible to make thematic organized collections accessible. The most interesting function may be the service of connecting photos with maps, so the user may browse for different photographs via navigating a virtual map. Using this function, virtual walks throughout the whole world are possible. The function do also show where different users stay, which gives other users an insight into user’s movements. The community also allows grouping other users as relatives or as friends of one’s own. By making pictures available to friends, those are allowed to comment on different pictures.
The possibility of browsing through pictures from known or unknown users is quite interesting, although it would be more interesting to look for pictures from friends or relatives, but this specific function is also available in other social networks. The main aim of sharing photos however might be interesting, but other social networks offer additional services that would make it more interesting to use those instead. On the other hand, the service of linking photographs to pictures is brilliant.

2nd session

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