Sites like Flickr?

August 26, 2005 7:00 PM

I’m writing an article about Flickr and I’d like to point to similar sites.

I'm particularly interested in sites that evoke the feel of Flickr’s “Interestingness” feature. I’ve already got Photo.net and Worth1000.com. Others you think are worthwhile?

posted by showmethecalvino to Computers & Internet (15 answers total)

You do know that "interestingness" is a very new feature? Also that it has been a bit controversial. So I'd say those other sites aren't like Flickr at all but then I don't know what the angle of this article is...
posted by vacapinta at 7:28 PM on August 26, 2005

zoto.com

One of the best.

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posted by Independent Scholarship at 7:30 PM on August 26, 2005

Can you explain the connection you see between Flickr's "interestingness" feature and these other sites? I can't see a relationship, except that all three sites center around photographs.
posted by jjg at 7:35 PM on August 26, 2005

What's the controversy over "interestingness"?

The angle of my piece is sites like Flickr acting as sort of virtual art galleries. It's more of a profile really.
posted by showmethecalvino at 7:37 PM on August 26, 2005

I think it's ugly (and don't know much about it), but I'v seen someone on MeFi say that Buzznet is better than Flickr.
posted by teece at 7:39 PM on August 26, 2005

maybe fotolog?
posted by amberglow at 7:41 PM on August 26, 2005

I second showmethecalvino's question -- what controversy? I regularly read the Flickr forums, and I'm not aware of any.
posted by danb at 8:05 PM on August 26, 2005

I've seen some Flickr folks complain that "interestingness" was too simple, and that photos they thought weren't that good were marked as very interesting. The "_rebekka tossing an apple" photos were the ones where I saw that, I think. It doesn't seem like much, but I guess it might be a bit of a controversy.
posted by teece at 8:15 PM on August 26, 2005

see also:
photosig
photographica
maybe even deviantart
posted by Hackworth at 8:27 PM on August 26, 2005

interestingness looks to be a combination of most views, most comments and most favorited, so it is a statistically derived version of interesting, rather than an actual consideration of whether or not something is, in fact, interesting. so, I don't think people should be surprised if everything that shows up in the interestingness section is "good" (loaded term to being with). not really controversial, if you ask me, but rather a quirk of the system.
posted by Hackworth at 8:32 PM on August 26, 2005

isn't* "good", that is.
posted by Hackworth at 8:33 PM on August 26, 2005

Regarding the "interestingness" feature, there's been some debate in the forums about it. This thread has long-time Flickr supporter Striatic publicly stating that "it does more harm than good," with some interesting comments from Heather.

Anyway, back to your question, the other big social photo sharing sites are Smugmug, Buzznet, and Heypix.
posted by waxpancake at 11:31 PM on August 26, 2005

I'm surprised none of the big online photo posting sites have yet introduced a collaborative filtering system... "People who liked photos by Fred also liked photos by Jane".
posted by normy at 12:31 AM on August 27, 2005

Maybe you will get to know more about Flickr after seeing this Flickr Tools Collection.
posted by webmeta at 5:25 AM on August 27, 2005

Just wanted to say thanks to Independent Scholarship for that zoto link. That site is great! Unlimited daily upload, so I had to choose it over flickr. The UI is terrific.
posted by blendor at 5:53 AM on September 8, 2005