Recent advancements in technology has allowed more people to communicate, discuss their ideas, and stay connected with the rest of the world. Through social network websites like Facebook and Myspace, its members can stay in touch through comment boxes on individual profiles, or by tagging friends in pictures. Youtube users can record video blogs, while Xanga still offers the traditional form of blogging through words. Flickr offers a completely different approach to communicate with others. It took me awhile, but when I realized what the "Flickr experience" is about, it is actually quite refreshing.
When my group members initially alerted me that our project was going to be about Flickr, I had my doubts. Its intentions was not quite as obvious to me as the previously named websites. I had never heard of this website, and what its objective is. It never occurred to me that a website dedicated specifically to people uploading primarily photographs has any correlation to the concept of "staying connected.". Only after an hour of surfing through Flickr did I begin to understand the concept behind it. Flickr's slogan is "Share your photos. Watch the world." It also has 4 main options new users can choose from, two of them very similar to that of the website's slogan: "Share & stay in touch" and "Explore...". These phrases gave me a much clearer understanding of this kind of networking.
Instead of leaving a one sentence comment on Facebook, or taking a picture with a "myspace pose", Flickr users can truly be who they are. Some people takes pictures of themselves, friends and complete strangers that interests them, while others take artistic pictures of objects. Sharing photos and forming groups is how Flickr users communicate. The website revolves around the pictured uploaded, and only those picture. While there is a comment box on the bottom of each picture for people to comment, what makes this website unique is that it allows people to choose a specific section of a photograph by cropping it and commenting on just that section. With Flickr, people can once again become individuals. In the world we live in today, many people choose to criticize others based on who they are and not by their personalities. Many users has nicknames to stay anonomous and disguise their identity so they can truly express themselves without the fear of others recognizing who they are. This way people can critique each others work (photographs) rather than criticizing the person behind it.
Recognizing the intended audience for this particular style of media has multiple parts to it. Very straight forward, they are people that share similar interests in photographs; whether it is the use of lighting in one photo, or the complete randomness in another. However, as I further explore this website and read some of the comments of certain people. The intended audience is for anyone who uses Flickr. Initially, I prematurely assumed that the only people using Flickr are those who truly felt they have something to express, but I noticed that some people just want anyone to see their photographs. I would like to refer these types of people as attention seeking individuals since they do not belong to a specific group but rather seeks attention from everyone. Lastly, there are the unintended audience. These individuals bombards photographs with useless and distracting comments like "you're so hot, I just want to marry you" and takes away the focus of the author is trying to express in her photograph.
The medium for Flickr is definitely different than other forms of media. It creates a virtual world that allows people to be whoever they wish to be without the fear of being noticed by others. Its users all have different identities, and with each different identity, there is a specific intended audience for the most part. Still there are the unintended audiences who disrupts the focus of the intended audience.
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Dean, I really appreciate the strides you have made in this post. Your tone is more formal and I can see that you are aware of your organization: you have a definable introduction and conclusion and you make use of examples to illustrate certain points.
I do want to push you on several general points you make. The post relies on the reader accepting your first sentence, "Recent advancements in technology has allowed more people to communicate, discuss their ideas, and stay connected with the rest of the world." First, please note the grammatical error, which you commit throughout the post: the subject and verb do not agree in number. You should write "advancements in technology *have* allowed" instead of "has" because "advancements" is plural. Conceptually, what do you mean by "recent" and "advancements" and "technology" and how are you going to substantiate your claim that people can stay more connected with these media? This question is particularly important later when you claim that "With Flickr, people can once again become individuals." You argue that other technologies allow people to disguise themselves and their "real" identities, but how does Flickr necessarily avoid that? How is this medium truly geared toward the art of photography rather than simply photo sharing?
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