Monday, March 8, 2010

Flickr by Sabreen Mukarker

Flickr is considered one of the main social networking platforms of this decade. It is a highly indexed commercial website offered in 8 different languages and owned by Yahoo! Inc.

“It is an image and video hosting website, web services collection, and online community. In addition to being a popular website, the service is widely used by bloggers to host images that they insert in blogs and social media.”*1

Flickr is used as a search engine for people and artists, “It’s all about sharing photos or video with people you know. It is a simple easy-to-use website. You can use contacts to stay in touch with photographers you like, people who share your interests or your friends and family. See new stuff from your friends as soon as they arrive on Flickr. You can leave comments and notes too!”*2. Just like Facebook, Twitter, or any other e-social network, you can personalize your account and control who can see and interact with your photostream, by either making it public or keeping it private, so that only certain people can have access to your account. Having a public account is very beneficial for businesses.

Flickr benefits the business field widely, for “certain kinds of local businesses can take advantage of images that may show up when people search for keywords related to your business, especially travel-related businesses, clothing boutiques, photography businesses, some corporations, etc... Local business owners can share images on Flickr to boost their online brand and increase search engine visibility. Each photo page you create on Flickr will get indexed by the search engines and may even rank highly on its own”*3.

One of the main benefits which Flickr offers is the tag option. You can explore millions of geo-tagged photos which allow the viewer of the image to identify the place where the image has been taken .There’s also the normal tag-function with which you can tag a name or a keyword. You can explore these images by using dates as well.

Tags appear in a specific place. The more a specific word is mentioned, the bigger this word appears in the tag screen. Creating strong, keyword-rich, catchy, unique and descriptive titles for each photo motivates users to click on your image. Joining Flickr groups also increases the potential to drive additional traffic to your site. It helps to connect directly with locals in your area of service.

Flickr provides the user with detailed information about time, frequency and identity of who is viewing the images.

Not only free Flickr accounts are available, there are paid-for annual memberships of $24.95 which offer you with more capacity for uploading.

You can also create your own photo album and greeting cards and print them directly.

These are some main advantages of Flickr, but it has some disadvantages as well, like having to pay to get a wider capacity for images uploading, which is not very practical, especially for us Palestinians. Also sometimes the tags are misleading.

Using Flickr and learning about it is a necessity for everyone interested in business, arts or any other field. Flickr taught me how to take good photography shots. After finishing this assignment I learned how Flickr can offer me lots of information about specific people who can be good potential customers for my dream interior design business. People love socializing. It’s an easy normal everyday thing that we do; so the more we learn about Flickr, the more we learn from it. After all, social media is meant to be fun.


1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flickr *
2  http://www.flickr.com/
3 http://www.wilsonweb.com/seo/doerr-flickr.htm
http://www.ciao.co.uk/Flickr_com__6347999

Flickr by Adnan Abu Diab

Flickr is a photo sharing service, discussing and commenting on pictures which has tens of millions of users; it was developed by a couple from Vancouver; Caterina Fake a very popular American business woman and an entrepreneur and her co-founder spouse Stewart Butterfield, and then this brilliant idea was later acquired by Yahoo in 2005 for almost Thirty million dollars. Also, Ms. Fake ran the Yahoo Technology Department and resigned from yahoo in 2008. Flickr started virtually as an online game in 2002 when the couple formed their Ludicorp Company, an online gaming company in Vancouver. Caterina and her husband Mr. Butterfield created the Game Never-ending; an online game based on social interaction. But when they realized that the social interaction is very important then they changed their direction and this is how Flickr was born. The sense of community their game was supposed to produce was the reason for the successful of their new service; Flickr made Ms. Caterina one of the most influential One hundred lists in the world. According to Ms. Caterina the use of blogging online and surveys were the core tools of spreading flickr very quickly all over the web; this is a true example of E-business and how to be successful on marketing your business online and make money out of it. She says through blogging Eighty percent of people heard about Flickr. Also, through the Web 2.0 and collaborative elements Flickr has become a more productive and a fulfilling experience. Flickr was a success because Eighty percent of the pictures are public! Up to date, other websites don’t share this much of pictures publicly, and that is why some sites didn’t have the success Flickr has. The idea something public changed the whole idea of Flickr. People can see stuff that is going on all over the world, up to date, and share pictures about anything; you can also see how many people looked at the picture, or a movie or a particular document. It is all about sharing and communicating, and social freedom. There are people interested in fashion, or photographers where they can share ideas, information, comments on their work, or find clients online, the same applies on people interested in fashion. Flicker is financially very profitable. Like any other social website, you need to open up an account and build a basic profile. You can also upload pictures and share pictures with the people you like, or family members that you would like to share with them your graduation pictures. If you need for example to print a picture on a canvas you have to upgrade your account and pay $24.95 you can print your pictures, and make a very creative calendar where you can put your family pictures on it, and also through advertising Flicker makes millions of dollars. Finally, I’ve noticed that Ms. Caterina has a BA in English language! Not a software engineer. You don’t need to be computer scientist to come up with an idea like Flickr. A creative idea, the right timing and usage of Web 2.0 and collaborative efforts can be rewarding.

Echoing the optimism of early Nineties web culture. Available from:
. [16 November 2006]


Caterina Fake is an American businesswoman and entrepreneur. Available from
. [15 February 2010]

LinkedIn by Vivian Ghobar

Searching for a business social network? In today’s world, where the meaning of time is precious, more people are looking for qualified social networks, rather than quantity. As a professional you might recognize names such as ryze.com, academy.com, xing.com if not, LinkedIn must ring a bell; considered the most popular social network for professional networking by far. (Founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003 with more than 60 million registered users, spanning more than 200 countries and territories worldwide .)


For many people LinkedIn has proved to be a valuable tool, and in today’s business world it’s all about who knows who. The benefits LinkedIn offers to E – Business are limitless. For example, once you have an account in LinkedIn, you can manage your professional information, and build a credible list of contacts that you trust in business, and who might help in a variety of ways. These are the so called first connections, these connections have a list of contacts that become your second degree connections and so forth. LinkedIn changed the way recruitment is viewed, it allowed companies to search for, and find qualified people for certain position. Companies also distribute job listing that allows job seekers to find new positions that may not be advertised on traditional job boards. In the marketing world it is relevant to find business opportunities in order to have a competitive advantage and most importantly, to sustain a competitive advantage. (LinkedIn also gives firms extra marketing clout, allowing them to promote their products or services, as well as direct other LinkedIn users to specific representatives for questions concerning topics like sales and technical support .) Weather it is to find potential clients, potential partners, or service providers anyone can have access to the site. (If, for example, you have a business taxi service and want to target stockbrokers, you simply tap in the name of the top stockbrokers in your region and LinkedIn produces a list of all the key employees to contact .) Business Social Networks are being warned against scams, and LinkedIn is no special case when it comes to the controversy of the so called “419 Scams”, (A user named Natasha Kone claims to be a 22-year-old woman from the Ivory Coast. Her message goes through the usual scam-artist routine of describing the $6.5 million inheritance left to her by a deceased father, and why she's looking for a foreign partner to help secure the money .) Even if Natasha Kone was removed from LinkedIn, members must understand that it’s their responsibility to share their personal information. With incidents like this it is visible to understand the degree of harm that anyone can encounter in any social network website. The most important thing to know for sure, is who are the members you’re connecting with, for this reason LinkedIn emphasizes on adding people you know well, and who know you.

It’s my eagerness to learn, that drove me to open an account in LinkedIn, and it’s the first business social network that I register to. Soon I will graduate from Bethlehem University, and I believe LinkedIn will help shape my career for the best.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinkedIn (2/3/2010 )
2. http://yorkshire.businessitguide.com/insights/2009/04/28/LinkedIn_a_valuable_ebusiness_resource/ (2/3/2010)
3. http://features.techworld.com/security/4127/linkedin-users-warned-over-419-scam/ (2/3/2010 )