I just learned about this photo sharing site. It allows you
to share your photos and view those of others. See details below.

Perhaps when we get internet access for our meetings someone would
like to do a presentation on this site.

Charles Burkett
--------------------------------------
TAO OF TECH: Online photo-sharing takes bold step forward with flickr

Andy Zeigert
February 16, 2005

The Internet is one of the first places anyone looks when they want
to find an image. That's because the Internet has become the premier
place to store and share photographs.

Several companies offer online services to do just that, but none of
them perform quite like the flash-based Flickr, located at
www.flickr.com.

Flickr allows users to upload and store photos for personal use.
Each photo can have a caption and can be divided into "sets," which
act like albums, helping to keep photos organized.

But the real magic comes with sharing.

Users can decide who can look at each photo that is uploaded. Photos
can be open to everyone, closed to everyone but the person who
uploaded it or open to different user-defined categories of people.

All photos can be set to allow comments to be posted, so people can
compliment your West Coast vacation photos. In addition, viewers can
add "notes" to photos, meaning they can highlight an area of a photo
by drawing a box, and then add a comment. For instance, in a group
photo, a viewer could draw a box around the face of someone they
recognize.

Flickr, like fellow social networking Web site del.icio.us, also
allows users to assign "tags" to photographs. For example, a picture
that was taken in San Francisco of a friend standing in front of GAP
while wearing an orange T-shirt might be
tagged "sanfrancisco," "orange," "gap" and "friend."

Assigned tags place a photograph in a larger group of photos that
are all assigned the same tag. For example, if you go to
www.flickr.com/photos/tags/sanfrancisco, the page will show you all
public photos on Flickr that have been assigned the
tag "sanfrancisco." This works for nearly any word.

Flickr also allows the creation of user groups, so users can upload
photos into common "pools," which act like community photo albums.
For example, there is a group specifically for posting photographs
of things that are square, located at
www.flickr.com/groups/squareimg.

There is also a Ball State University group. Sadly, it currently has
only two members (I'm one), and no photos in the group pool.

In addition, every group has a fully-functional forum, where any
member can post and reply to topics. One of the most popular is the
group FlickrCentral, where people post topics about new things
happening with Flickr and new ways to use the service.

This is only a sampling of some of the things that Flickr can do.
The site is set up to encourage users to explore and find new
features. One thing Flickr does not do that other online photo
sharing sites such as Kodak's Ofoto do is allow you to order
physical prints of uploaded photos. But according to their site,
that is not what Flickr is for.

A free Flickr account lets you upload only 10 MB worth of images
every month, but a "pro" account has far fewer restrictions. The
site is currently in beta, but already offers more features than can
be found on nearly any other photo sharing site, offering you a
revolutionary place to store and share your own photos, as well as
search for photographs from all around the world.

http://www.bsudailynews.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/02/16/4212f5e398
301