Popularizing the Network: Flickr and the Digital Age
Rather than create a place where individuals can share interesting
details, news clips, anecdotes, and their personal lives, why not create a
digital market for pictures which incorporates all of this? A picture is worth
a thousand words, right? Flickr, a photo sharing website which incorporates a
little bit of all of the aforementioned details, chooses to operate on the
premise that popular content drives progress for a social network. The fact
that individuals can freely share their work or interests, or interact with the
photos and interests of others attracts a large audience with such a diverse
manifestation of styles that it almost boggles the mind. Perhaps most intriguing
is the fact that the pictures actually bring a network together, rather than
simply providing a gallery database which allows users to store images and
forget about them. The active process of reciprocating interests in various
things presented in these pictures drives traffic.
Perhaps a reflection on real life might suffice to explain the
driving interest of Flickr. Real life is full of sounds, senses, and most of
all sights. A beautiful sunset might elicit an “Ah! That’s gorgeous!” from a
rather enrapt individual or a grunt of pleasure from a passerby. Regardless,
Flickr enables these expressions to manifest themselves in the shared network
which it set up where users may comment, interact, and popularize material
based on hits and interest. Flickr seems to appeal to a very strong desire in
each of us to say something when we see a particularly poignant, creative, or
beautiful work of art. Without others around, the satisfaction is considerably
less because we cannot communicate our emotions to others. However, by creating
a social link, the power of the pictures is communicated to the community more
intensely through user commentary and interaction. It heightens the
appreciation for photos found on Flickr as well as drawing users to each
others’ interests, creating an exciting, popular, and intensely sensory
experience.
Flickr is a tool for social networking, drawing people together
through visual expression. We attract to visuals because they are immediate,
and this, in part, has been what has made Flickr so successful; that and the
ability to share ones expression with others drives this particular social
network forward, popularizing the network and creating yet another way to
connect in the digital age.
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