Crowd Pleasers

Anouilh

Many photos uploaded to Flickr get ignored. Post a flower macro and comments pour in. This has often been debated. Has anybody worked out why this should be?

http://moderntwist2.blogspot.com/2008/11/mandatory-link-back.html#links

City-Exile

I often find that comments and "awards" are left by people seeking to prompt you to "award" them, or comment on their shots.

I don't take much notice any of it.
flickr is more of a depository to me than anything else.

dakar

It's genetic.

By one of those odd coincidences of nature, the 'gene for liking macro flower pictures' (from somewhere in our evolutionary past as hunter gatherers) shares a DNA locus with the 'gene for commenting on flickr' (another hangover from the past linked to seeking approval and its role in social infrastructure).

That's my story and I'm sticking to it:)

Shinjuku

Lots of people like flowers.

Hugh_C

Anouilh wrote: »

Many photos uploaded to Flickr get ignored. Post a flower macro and comments pour in. This has often been debated. Has anybody worked out why this should be?

People like flower macros.

PS shoot! Shinjuku beat me to it by a heartbeat

DaireQuinlan

Yeah its a bit of a mystery, not withstanding the above. For example, I hate babies (with the possible exception of my own), but my new baby-themed flickr stream is going from strength to strength. One recent shot got up to #6 on explore, which is of course the sine qua non of flickr popularity.

Dragan

Some shots are just easy to relate to. And it's pretty easy to take a shot that you know people will like.

Stick to basic rules + pretty colours = success on Flickr.

homerun_homer

How do you get on explore anyway? I've only had one photo featured and I can't figure out why. Is it the combination of views/comments/favs?

DaireQuinlan

homerun_homer wrote: »

How do you get on explore anyway? I've only had one photo featured and I can't figure out why. Is it the combination of views/comments/favs?

According to flickr, the magical interestingness donkey actually picks the 500 pictures to appear on explore each day.

On a more sober note, what happens is that each picture is assigned a certain 'interestingness' The 500 pictures uploaded each day with the highest 'interestingness' end up in explore. How this is calcuated is a secret, hence the above. However its probably something to do with views, comments, faves, how interesting the rest of the persons stream is, how quickly this all happens, whether or not the photo is geo-tagged, negatively influenced by some groups etc etc etc.

In short, no one really knows

City-Exile

Explore seems to have something to do with ratio of views to time.
More views in less time.

Phototoxin

Some people like simple oooh its a nice flower/doggie etc that has no technichal skill required other than putting the dial to macro [yore ma]

Some people like the above that are a bit different and have a little bit of technical knowledge but dont apply it in artistic ways, ie instead of a flower stamen, a bee's arse or something. [Me!]

Some people are arty with no techichal and have some werid emo pictures that similar emos seem to like [insert disliked persons name here]

Some people have technical and artistic skill and can take good photos, but they aren't accessible to the average punter alienating them to the more artsy crowd and breeding the sort of elitism that tends to be found amongst Lecia users on deviantArt

Then some people are just photographers and they take photos and make them in to nice pictures.


OF course my little theory could be balls-ology as the more something is viewed the more popular it becomes so more people view it and it snowballs ..

And of course judging people by their flickr/pixie/whatever is wrong, as some people use it as an online backup and so put their best and worst on it.

Valentia

homerun_homer wrote: »

How do you get on explore anyway? I've only had one photo featured and I can't figure out why. Is it the combination of views/comments/favs?

I have had a number appear in Explore and there is no pattern. A shot having as few as 20 views can get in. I haven't posted much on there in the last year but the last one I put up a few weeks ago suddenly popped up in Explore. Very weird indeed. It certainly has nothing to do with quality.

As for the original question. Why do so many people watch Coronation Street? Or watch the X factor or...

Anouilh

This might help:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/challengefactory/discuss/72157607901740911/

I have had 9 photos in Explore.
It's useful to join BigHugeLabs, as all your Flickr work (or almost) is contained on one page for easy access.

The Explore photos are found by scrolling down the page.

http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/dna.php?username=77969956@N00

sineadw

Its pretty much all genetics and survival and sex TBH. Flowers are a classic sexual symbol and as such we're drawn to them. Same with babies - their facial proportions, pretty much everything about them has been developed by evolution to make us attracted to them. The big dark eyes give a perfect framing for large pupils (a HUGE element in attraction) and so on. Desmond Morris and the like have some very interesting books on it all..

We're slaves to the chemicals. We call it art but its all about sex, food and shelter at the end of the day Maybe that's why there are so many pictures of homeless people too

DaireQuinlan

sineadw wrote: »

Its pretty much all genetics and survival and sex TBH. Flowers are a classic sexual symbol and as such we're drawn to them. Same with babies - their facial proportions, pretty much everything about them has been developed by evolution to make us attracted to them. The big dark eyes give a perfect framing for large pupils (a HUGE element in attraction) and so on. Desmond Morris and the like have some very interesting books on it all..

While true to an extent, I've trained myself extensively to be completely objective with regard to my son. Taking this into account, objectively comparing him to other babies leads me to the inescapable conclusion that he's just cuter than any of the other kids :rolleyes:

sineadw

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

While true to an extent, I've trained myself extensively to be completely objective with regard to my son. Taking this into account, objectively comparing him to other babies leads me to the inescapable conclusion that he's just cuter than any of the other kids :rolleyes:

Funnily enough, so were mine! What a coincidence

DaireQuinlan

sineadw wrote: »

Funnily enough, so were mine! What a coincidence

I'm actually off on maternity* leave for the next two months. With any luck the weather will be the usual cold and clear, I'm thinking of bolting a tripod mount to the handle of the buggy and taking him to see the sights. ALL the sights !


*Everyone else insists on referring to it as 'paternity leave', I don't know why.

lostexpectation

shots of wrinkled old people are worse and more cliched

Anouilh

I started a thread on the Boards.ie discussion area in Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/boards_ie/discuss/72157610226157401/

Flickrites might like to post their most viewed photo there.
The small size seems to look the best and hitting it links instantly to a larger image.

The "flower" "baby" connection is one that has certainly caught my attention. Psychologists would probably find it worthy of study.

Anouilh

Phototoxin wrote: »

Some people like simple oooh its a nice flower/doggie etc that has no technichal skill required other than putting the dial to macro [yore ma]

Some people like the above that are a bit different and have a little bit of technical knowledge but dont apply it in artistic ways, ie instead of a flower stamen, a bee's arse or something. [Me!]

Some people are arty with no techichal and have some werid emo pictures that similar emos seem to like [insert disliked persons name here]

Some people have technical and artistic skill and can take good photos, but they aren't accessible to the average punter alienating them to the more artsy crowd and breeding the sort of elitism that tends to be found amongst Lecia users on deviantArt

Then some people are just photographers and they take photos and make them in to nice pictures.


OF course my little theory could be balls-ology as the more something is viewed the more popular it becomes so more people view it and it snowballs ..

And of course judging people by their flickr/pixie/whatever is wrong, as some people use it as an online backup and so put their best and worst on it.

This is a great post.

The trick with uploading is to tick some photos as private.
That way the viewer is not overwhelmed by too much information.

It has been advised to avoid uploading several versions of the same photo. I do not stick to this, as I use Flickr to record changes made to photos SOOC. When working on a new photo editing skill, it is useful to have links to what was learned.

Anouilh

After flowers, landscapes and skyscapes seem to top the bill when it comes to popularity.

Bui

There are so many factors come into play with this.... This is quite similar to another thread recently regarding your photo with the most hits... If you take a look at your referrers you can see where a lot of the hits come from, and I find that some of the more "commercially" tagged photos eg. singer /band names etc will come up on a general browser refers.

There are some great ways to search and browse through photos on flickr, but you are also subject to hits from internet searches etc, and therefore more commonplace subject types or tags will logically get more hits than a more artistic shot, as this is more difficult to just stumble across.

While I find the stats on flickr interesting, I find that any photographs I get emailed about or that I personally think are better photographs do not get as many hits as say more commercially tagged photos.

You also have to take into account your viewers, why and what they are viewing the photos for etc etc etc..... so many factors!

artyeva

Massive apologies in advance here as I'm going to sound like a complete DIV -:D but if your images do make it to explore are you notified in any way?

Or do you need to sit on flickr all day refreshing that page every 10 seconds in the vain hope that some 'bot' has deemed your image interesting?

I'm relatively new to flickr...

Anouilh

If you take a look at your referrers you can see where a lot of the hits come from, and I find that some of the more more commonplace subject types or tags will logically get more hits than a more artistic shot, as this is more difficult to just stumble across.[/QUOTE]

Joining the various arts and science groups solves this problem. The "Collective Dream" group has some very interesting and imaginative work.

Explore in Flickr changes a lot in 24 hours, as this video explains:

http://bighugelabs.com/blog/explore-video/

The only way I can keep track of my Explore activity is to key my user name or code name into the BigHugeLabs search. The people who post to my photos don't comment on this and Flickr does not alert you when you are "Explored".

This goes further than vanity publishing.
Flickr's tagging system has been compared unfavourably with del.icio.us, while there are many other new systems that are claimed to be even better.

http://jyte.com/cl/the-tagging-syntax-on-jyte.com-are-better-then-del.icio.us-and-flickr.com

While this may seem to have little to do with the art of photography, SEO is increasingly important for anybody working in the commercial world.

If nobody sees your work, it may as well not exist.

Also, the geographical aspect, location, is very important on the Net. People look at photos that are culturally significant to them (see Barthes) with more insight and enthusiasm than those from "foreign" cultures.
Since Ireland has such a small population, anybody posting images of local interest to Flickr may expect to have less hits, overall.

A tip to extend one's audience is to join groups in a foreign language, post now and again on a photo from the Far East, where photography is truly thriving and to a very high standard, and invite photos that you admire to groups where you are subscribed.

I very much like a group called "Mare d'Inverno" ("Winter Sea") where, since it is Italian, so much work looks as if it comes from a Fellini film. Also, Ireland is a remarkable place to take Winter seascapes.

(I'm looking at this closely as it is the only way I have worked out how to improve computing skills.)

DaireQuinlan

Explore is also a bit wierd sometimes though.

This shot got up to #6 for the 14th, then dropped to #9, and stayed there for a few days. Then disappeared. So I thought no more about it. Then up it pops at #9 again, and periodically disappears and reappears, at #9 each time. I don't undertand why it doesnt drift down the rankings and then disappear, popping in and out at the same number doesn't make much sense. Unless their position is fixed after 7 days or something, thats my current theory. Its a picture of a baby, naturally :-)

Anouilh

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

Explore is also a bit wierd sometimes though.

This shot got up to #6 for the 14th, then dropped to #9, and stayed there for a few days. Then disappeared. So I thought no more about it. Then up it pops at #9 again, and periodically disappears and reappears, at #9 each time. I don't undertand why it doesnt drift down the rankings and then disappear, popping in and out at the same number doesn't make much sense. Unless their position is fixed after 7 days or something, thats my current theory. Its a picture of a baby, naturally :-)

Perhaps it would be worth chatting on the computer forum about the logarithms that cause this.

Logarithm seeks babies?