{"id":780,"date":"2008-11-30T15:35:26","date_gmt":"2008-11-30T05:35:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/?p=780"},"modified":"2008-12-03T00:52:30","modified_gmt":"2008-12-02T13:52:30","slug":"online-photo-db-stage-4n-evaluation-of-flickr-pro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/2008\/11\/30\/online-photo-db-stage-4n-evaluation-of-flickr-pro\/","title":{"rendered":"Online Photo DB: Stage 4n – Evaluation of Flickr Pro"},"content":{"rendered":"
This post is part of the Online Photo Database project documentation<\/a>. Learn more about the project’s current status<\/a>.<\/div>\n

Which requirements<\/a> does Flickr<\/a> meet?<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Id<\/th>\nPri<\/th>\nRequirement<\/th>\nPass?<\/th>\nNotes<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
GEN1<\/th>\nC<\/td>\nAccessible by a typical web-browser<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
GEN2<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nActive development of new features<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
OWN1<\/th>\nC<\/td>\nOwnership of photos is retained by me.<\/td>\nN<\/td>\nKeep backup<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
OWN2<\/th>\nC<\/td>\nFuture-proofed against money running out: mine or yours<\/td>\nN<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
OWN3<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nOwnership of meta-data is retained by me.<\/td>\nN<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CAT1<\/th>\nC<\/td>\nPhotographs grouped into albums by event<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n“Photosets”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CAT2<\/th>\nC<\/td>\nPhotographs tagged with people<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CAT3<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nPhotographs tagged with locations, objects, activities<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CAT4<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nPerformers tagged with real and stage names.<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CAT5<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nAttribution of photographer details<\/td>\nN<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CAT6<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nAttribution of copyright owner’s details<\/td>\nN<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CAT7<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nRating of photographs<\/td>\nN<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CAT8<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nSorting\/Filtering by rating<\/td>\nN<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CAT9<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nAlbums grouped by type<\/td>\nN<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CAT10<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nAlbums grouped by date<\/td>\nN<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CAT11<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nAreas or points of photograph tagged<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CAT12<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nSimple contact management of subjects<\/td>\nN<\/td>\nAlthough there is friend tracking.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CAT13<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nHidden fields on contacts to distinguish like-named people<\/td>\nN<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CAT14<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nTagging of anonymous people to enable searching<\/td>\nN<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CAT15<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nCorrections to names update everywhere<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CAT16<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nAttribution of copyright details<\/td>\nY<\/td>\nSelect from CC set<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CAT17<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nControl over (default) ordering<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
S+L1<\/th>\nC<\/td>\nLink to other photos with same tag within an album<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
S+L2<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nAssociate URLs with subjects, that are displayed.<\/td>\nN<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
S+L3<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nLink to other photos with same tag across my albums<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
S+L4<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nSearch of tags by keyword<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
S+L5<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nCross-promotion of other albums and sites.<\/td>\nN<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
S+L6<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nLink to other photos with same tag across other photo sites<\/td>\nN<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
S+L7<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nSearch of album names by keyword<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
S+L8<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nUser-generatable URLs to search tags by keyword<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
COMM1<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nMulti-user Tagging<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
COMM2<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nNotifications of appearance in photos<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
COMM3<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nComments permitted<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
COMM4<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nNotification of comments<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
COMM5<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nRSS or Atom Feeds for comments<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
COMM6<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nRSS or Atom Feeds for subjects<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
COMM7<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nRSS or Atom Feeds for new photos<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PQ1<\/th>\nC<\/td>\nWeb-quality images shall be displayed by default.<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PQ2<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nPrint-quality images shall be available.<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PQ3<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nAutomatically generated thumbnail and web-quality versions.<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PQ4<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nArchive-quality images shall be stored.<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PQ5<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nCustom thumbnails (e.g. choosing to crop over shrinking.)<\/td>\nN<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PQ6<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nSupport for short video<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PQ7<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nSupport for long video<\/td>\nN<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PERF1<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nQuota > 0.5 TB, if any<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PERF2<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nLow-cost<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n$US24.95 p.a.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PERF3<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nFast response time<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PERF4<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nScale to thousands of tags<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PERF5<\/th>\nI<\/td>\n< 1 minute face-time per photograph<\/td>\n<\/td>\nN<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PERF6<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nFree<\/td>\nN<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
UI1<\/th>\nC<\/td>\nForward\/Backward navigation between photos in album.<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
UI2<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nSlideshows<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
UI3<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nDisplay of many thumbnails at once<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PRIV1<\/th>\nC<\/td>\nTheir email address should never be published on the web.<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PRIV2<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nRegistration and logging in not required for general use.<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PRIV3<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nRobust privacy features for photographs<\/td>\nN<\/td>\nFamily\/Friends\/Public<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
WF1<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nHint to original location on my harddrive<\/td>\nY-ish<\/td>\nFilename used as default title\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 until I retitle it.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
WF2<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nAuto-complete or partial search on tags during input<\/td>\nN<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
WF3<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nRead EXIF data from image<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
WF4<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nSupport unpublished draft state <\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
MIGR1<\/th>\nC<\/td>\nAPI to add photos<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
MIGR2<\/th>\nC<\/td>\nAPI to add tags<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
MIGR3<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nTags can be non-specific to areas of photo<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
METR1<\/th>\nD<\/td>\n“How many visitors?” metric<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
METR2<\/th>\nD<\/td>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153How long does a visitor stay?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d metric<\/td>\nN<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

Summary<\/h3>\n

Before I started this evaluation, Flickr Pro was the favourite contender, and it is easy to see why that is.<\/p>\n

Flickr provides a very mature set of functionality, it provides a professional looking site, and the price is much more than free, but considerably cheaper than some of the other professional sites.<\/p>\n

The main drawbacks are the standard ones with 3rd-party hosts; the data and the meta-data is handed over to another organisation that then have me over a barrel if they want to start charging me more, or if they go out of business.<\/p>\n

Flickr has two advantages here. Their sheer size means they are less likely to disappear suddenly without warning. They also provide sufficient APIs to make backing up the data to a local machine feasible.<\/p>\n

Flickr’s popularity and API access has ensured that there are a large number of tools; I haven’t looked at these directly, but I am sure I can find techniques to link it to my Facebook and similar accounts.<\/p>\n

Flickr normally uses spaces as a tag delimiter (which I am not fond of<\/a>), but it is smart enough to notice that I have used spaces and commas in the same text box, and it automatically added the quotes around the spaces, which was a nice touch.<\/p>\n

Flickr has the concept of friends, so you can monitor their new photos additions. However, it strangely doesn’t allow you to associate a tag with the owner of another Flickr account.<\/p>\n

The levels of privacy seem to be very primitive – you can choose between friends only, family only and the general public. There’s no way of ensuring that “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” by limiting photos to an album-specific group.<\/p>\n

While notes can be put on selected parts of the photo, the notes are unrelated to tags, which was another surprise.<\/p>\n

My final gripe (common to many tagging sites) is that there is no way that I can associate information (such as a URL) to a tag, so people who are impressed with the performance of Krusty the Clown, for example, can see his booking page.<\/p>\n

Still definitely a contender.<\/p>\n

Note: Chris at BrainSnorkel<\/a> had a stab at this same evaluation<\/a> using an early draft of the requirements. I was impressed that he was “at least two weeks ahead of me<\/a>“, 5 1\/2 months ago!<\/p>\n

EDIT:<\/strong> Corrected sentence that suggested other sites were more professional.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Which requirements<\/a> does Flickr<\/a> meet?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[285,47],"tags":[284,48,376],"class_list":["post-780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photography-geek","category-review","tag-online-photo-database","tag-photography","tag-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=780"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":841,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780\/revisions\/841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}