Wednesday 25 July 2012

Research on photo sharing websites and applications

I have found several websites and applications for phones other than Instagram that allow users to post and share their photos including, Pinterest, Tumblr, Flickr and Hipstamatic application. All these websites and applications serve the purpose of photo sharing and they contain plenty beautiful and worth-sharing photos that allow users to view or share or reblog/repin. They share the similar functions which is the users can upload their photos or share other's people photos. But there is a problem which is copyright. Many users share and post pictures but did not give any credits to the photographer/owner/original sources. Below are the researches done on the photo sharing websites and applications. The way I found all these websites is through Google.com. When I typed one of the website in Google.com, it appears several related searches to what I've typed and I eventually found all these similar websites. 

Research on Pinterest


Pinterest, the latest social phenomena to hit the masses, is a sharing platform in which you “pin” pictures to your board. The picture sharing site allows you to create categories of photographs, pin your pictures, and share them with other people.

Initially, Pinterest began as a type of scrapbooking website in which users could post pictures of their family, pets, or vacation and share them with others. As such, it was seen as more of a spare time or hobby type website. However, as the platform began to grow, users started to see the potential that it really held. With new features included, individuals are now using Pinterest for a wide variety of things such as wedding planning, interior decorating, and even marketing.


As stated previously, Pinterest started as a platform for everyday users who wanted to organize and share their pictures with the world. Since then, business owners have began to see the potential of the platform and are now using it to market their products and distribute their brand messages.



There are several different reasons that one might use Pinterest:
  • To share photos with family and friends
  • To share information – Many people use Pinterest to post their recipes and ideas, or showcase their talents through photographs.
  • To gather inspiration – Individuals from around the world use Pinterest to showcase their best ideas. So whether you are looking for wedding ideas, cake ideas, decorating ideas, or other forms of inspiration, Pinterest is a great place to find it.
  • To promote a business – Pinterest can be a great way to share your products with the world. Post your product pictures, or use Pinterest to showcase the talents that you have to offer. Even better, use it to create a visual brand personality for your business. Make people fall in love with who you are and what you do.
source: http://www.mymagneticblog.com/what-is-pinterest/

In this case, Pinterest would be a platform that provide pictures/visual references/inspirations to people using mostly images. People share beautiful images such as fashion, home-deco, photography, food, and many other to maximise the purpose - SHARING. People share pictures for many purposes, such as to promote certain thing, to share information to other people and many more. People are allowed to repin pictures to their pinboard from the other websites once they are the members of Pinterest. Basically it means Pinterest members can pin any pictures from anywhere to their pinboard.

photo source: screenshot of Pinterest.com webpage (www.pinterest.com)

Research on Tumblr

Tumblr is a micro-blogging service. This means that blogs on Tumblr are better suited for sharing things like photosvideos, and links than long, text-based posts.
Blogs on Tumblr can seem a little different from blogs hosted on other websites. For one thing, Tumblr contains a lot of images: the Tumblr team says that half of the posts published on the site are photos. According to this Tumblr infographic by Mashable, Tumblr is also a place where people post about humorfashiondesignart, and other specialized subjects.
  • Tumblr is elegant. Many of Tumblr’s themes are designed to showcase images and video in a simple, beautiful way. While these themes wouldn’t be ideal for posting lots of text, they’re perfect for highlighting a few meaningful images, as this couple did on the Tumblr they created to introduce their newborn daughter.
  • Tumblr lets you share. One reason why Tumblr hosts so many images that “go viral” and spread quickly across the web is its Reblog tool. Simply click Reblog on a Tumblr post you like, and the post will be published to your own Tumblr for your readers to see.
sources: http://blog.gcflearnfree.org/2012/02/16/what-is-tumblr/

Another research found said that: most creative types would agree that a selection of pictures is more likely to inspire them than a bunch of text links. For instance, you could use delicious tagging to collect and organise recipe ideas, but reading that wouldn’t be anywhere near as inspiring to most of us as a collection of pretty pictures of food.
Another research/article found said that: "If you look at the Tumblr of its quirky founder and creator David Karp, you'll notice that it's squeaky clean and includes mostly pictures"
Tumblr is open, allowing you to share posts back and forth between popular apps like FacebookTwitterInstagram, and even other blogging platforms.
source: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-use-tumblr-2011-5?op=1#ixzz21tO27Ton

photo source: screenshot of Tumblr.com webpage. (www.tumblr.com)

Research on Flickr

The folks at Flickr describe Flickr as a place where you can:

  • Organize your photos in a meaningful way
  • Share your photos and stay in touch with your friends and family
  • Form a group for a wedding, reunion and eventFind beautiful, cool or intriguing photos
  • And much, much more
source: http://www.stephanspencer.com/flickr/

Flickr is an online photo management and sharing application. Its primary goals are to help people make photos available to those who matter to them, and to enable new ways of organizing pictures. 


Flickr is one of those ideas that depends on interconnectivity. Your pictures are of interest to your contacts; your weather pictures are of interest to other users of the weather photos group. 


source: http://macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2005/08/02/flickr.html

photo source: screenshot of Flickr.com webpage (www.flickr.com)

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