Thing 4: Flickr and other photo tools

Like all things created 90% of it is crap.  90% of all novels are terrible, 90% of art generated is terrible etc.  That being said, probably 99% of what is generated on the web is also crap due to the fact that it is so easy and requires little to no talent.

I find what people post on to Flickr to be pretty much crap.  However, if you mine Flickr and sift out the slag there are some precious gems to found.  Unfortunatly it takes some time, effort and equired skill on how to appropreatly search.  When those three come together... you can find some cool stuff:

*This is an artist that outlines shadows of immagies in chalk and colorizes them.  Very cool art that might not get noticed if not for Flickr.

*Here’s a sweet little photoset: A collection of street shots sassed up to evoke the HDR-stylized look of ‘Sin City’ and ‘300′ using Adobe Lightroom: The Street as Graphic Novel, by San Diego photographer Steve Gubin. 

It’s worth reading Gubin’s comments on the set, as he admits some distaste for post-processing while revealing how he achieved the effect.

*A collection of advertizing, illustration, cards etc. from the 1950-1970's.  

*Another example of cool use of Flickr is the posting of "Wanted posters" and Mug shots.  For some reason these photos are really fascinating.  take a look.

This is probably one of my favoite posts:

*Flickr’s The Commons project seeks to showcase publicly held photography collections from around the globe, and they’ve just launched a pilot program with the Library of Congress. Currently there’s some 3,500 photos available (a mere drop in the bucket considering the LoC’s massive archive, but a good start) across two sets: News in the 1910s and 1930s - 1940s in Color. 

These are the kinds of projects I like to see. Neat stuff, and I can’t wait for more to be made available. 

Lastly, and defintly not least:

*László Kozma adapted the excellent Flickrvision API gadget for Wiki use. By using Google Maps and the publicly available IP information Wikipedia logs for every edit, WikipediaVision displays on the world map where edits are coming from, and what subjects they’re contributing to. All just shy of real time, to boot.

Now, what is being show here isn't that great.  What it does do is show the power of using three or four great peices of web technology and merging them into one solution.   Albeit in this case a sort of lame use, but as a test case... super cool.

On to other tools

Now I know I'm supposed to make a "trading card".  Although cool and I have thought of some cool games to make with the cards (Electoral College game) etc.  And I would agree alot of those tools are fun to use.  They are not particularly "advanced" and are really specific in their usefulness.  Again, don't get me wrong.  I had a fun time playing with them, but there are other treasures out there.

So, I would suggest the following:

1. On Line Media God:  Here is a sweet collection of apps and gizmos: Mashable’s Online Media God post has a collection of over “400+ Tools for Photographers, Videobloggers, Podcasters & Musicians”, nearly all of which are either free or dirt-cheap to use.

• When exploring this post (which I have explored less than 1% of) it is broken into parts:
• Photography God: which has over 90 programs dealing with photography.
• Video God: which features over 150 tools for video bloggers
• PodCasting God: which features 70 plus tools for making and delivering podcasts including helpful hints etc.
• On-Line Music God: this has 90 audio and music site that will help you either download, mix, mash and or create your own music.

1. Google Sketchup:  I have only spent a short time playing with this tool, but WOW is it impressive.

This is more, but I think I am signing off on this one.

I wish I had more time to play with some of the features.  Wow are they great.  I think I will spend many, many a month exploring the richness around ON-Line Media God.  Whew!