Thomas Hawk Digital Connection

I know you’re not supposed to have a favorite crop, but the square crop is my favorite.

I’m not sure if anybody’s noticed or not, but I think in the past few days Facebook has added a few little redesign elements into our timeline views. Most notably it seems like the “your contacts” that they show you are better positioned. More and more these days I’ve noticed that from a design standpoint facebook seems to be favoring the square crop. I love this.

Look how square all of the photos look on my Timeline screenshot above. I get a big bold photo (square). I get thumbnails of 8 of my friends (I have no idea how Facebook chooses who to show here do you? — but again square). I get avatars of 58 friends I’ve added recently (again square). Square, square, square. Of course Facebook also just bought the most square photo site of all Instagram.

I’m not a designer, but personally I think this page looks GREAT. I can’t believe how far Facebook has come. I remember when I used to bitch at Facebook all of the time because they gave us these microscopic thumbnail sized photos on our pages and that was it — but now we get these gorgeous oversized square photos on our timeline page. We also have a tool to “feature” a photo on Facebook now (just hover over a photo on your timeline and push the star button).

Facebook also now has the absolute best full screen photo view in the business. (click on a photo, click on options when it comes up big, click on enter full screen). From here you can just use your arrow keys to go back and forth through someone’s full screen photos.

Now next Facebook needs to increase the size of the photos in the regular feed. They are still way too small there.

One thing for sure with photos online is that bigger is better. I love that on Google+ the photos keep getting bigger too. The recent redesign there showed us a big bump up in landscape sized photos in our stream. It also came with the introduction of the black bars that people don’t seem to like. I like them for some reason, but I’m weird.

There is one very simple way G+ could improve the photo though and that is to make square photos even BIGGER. If you let a square photo on G+ fill the entire envelope on a post, you’d make the square photo the largest photo of all on G+. This would look great. Look at my Flickr stream here. Notice how the square photos are bigger than the other photos. Smart, smart, smart flickr. Look how much better the square photo looks than the other ones simply because it’s bigger.

Again, bigger is better (just ask Jeff Wall or Richard Serra).

The other thing that I like, besides the square, are photo mosaics. This is my favorite page of my photography that exists on any site, anywhere on the internet. So many photos and with infinite scroll. You know what else is cool? The hover over fave. Hover over any photo on this page and click on that little +1 button (hey thanks for the +1 by the way!)

Flickr’s new justified view is another example of this. Look how cool my favorites on flickr look as a photo mosaic. Flickr also uses this view for the photos from your contacts. Flickr pretty much ripped off Google+’s page design here but that’s ok because Google then ripped off their hover over fave/+1. I love it when photo sharing sites rip each other off and take the best elements of design. Flickr does need to remove the photographer name from their mosaic views though. That looks ugly. They should only show the name if someone hovers over the photo. It looks too much like a watermark the way they are doing it now and we all know how ugly photo watermarks and signatures look on photos. Also Flickr still needs to give us more infinite infinite scroll. Six pages of photos is not enough. Maybe if they bumped it up to 25 pages that might work.

I’d love to see sites do more and more mosaics like this. That’s what I want to see in the future of online photo display — more mosaics and more squares. What about you?

On Friday I started a poll — similar to one I’d done several months back asking a simple question. Where is the best place to share photos? I was frankly surprised to see how well Flickr did, garnering the first place result with 41% of the poll. 2nd place went to Google+ with 36% of the poll. A distant third place went to 500px.

Given their size, both Facebook and Instagram seemed really poorly represented in the poll, garnering 6% and 3% respectively.

I posted the poll to my G+ stream, to my Flickr stream, to Twitter and to my Facebook account. I have lots of followers on all of these sites. The poll is not at all scientific of course and there are a million reasons why it could be horribly flawed, but it got me thinking more about flickr.

A few months after Google+ had launched I penned a dramatic post entitled “Flickr is Dead.” My feeling on Flickr at that time was that it was a sinking ship — a former photo sharing heavyweight who simply refused to innovate no matter what. The site felt poorly managed with an anti-user ethos. It felt like it had been left to it’s own devices by a dying parent company that was simply unaware or didn’t care.

Against an increasingly competitive backdrop of new and old photo sharing options (Google+, Instagram, 500px, SmugMug) it felt like users were jumping ship. Unique users were/are down as measured by compete.com at Flickr. But lately it’s starting to feel a bit like Flickr might be ramping up a bit.

In February Flickr rolled out a refresh to their photos from your contacts page — one of the first significant refreshes the site has had in years. The page still feels a touch clunky (infinite scrolling doesn’t feel quite as infinite as things like Cool Iris — or does any remember Flickrleech from years ago?) but it’s a huge improvement over the old page that was there. You can now see reasonable sized images in an attractive mosaic where they are easy to fave. Flickr should consider taking away the “more photos” paging button for paid Pro accounts who don’t abuse it — that would be a nice distinction to get people to upgrade to Pro. They’ve also rolled out their new page design to users’ favorite photos section as well.

Flickr also seems to be stepping up a bit in the community management area. They’ve set up a very nice new photo meetup board with meetup.com. They held a few successful photowalks on the East Coast and have a big San Francisco photowalk coming up on this Saturday (I’m attending this one myself).

In January Flickr Chief Markus Spiering promised us a renewed Flickr. So far I like what I’m seeing. I think more work still needs to be done (flickr needs circles/buckets, more robust blocking tools, notifications, an improved mobile experience that includes a group thread reader, and lots more) but they seem to be headed in the right direction. I’ve also noticed what feels like a pick up in activity on Flickr. I’ve noticed that the views on my own photos there recently seem to have picked up a bit.

Flickr seems to be doing better with fewer employees as well. At the end of 2010 flickr had 56 staffers. Today, after a couple of rounds of layoffs, Flickr has 41. They lost at least three people in Yahoo’s big restructure last week and they laid off a number of people in their customer service dept earlier this year. Nolan Caudill, a former Flickr staffer, blasted Yahoo after the January layoffs, but more and more I’m of the opinion that those layoffs were a good thing for Flickr, not a bad thing. In many regards Flickr’s customer service folks were some of the most disliked people by actual users. Getting rid of some of the staffers that were making things bad for users could have actually been smart management.

Which brings me to my next point.

Google should buy Flickr.

Now is the time to get this done. Facebook paid $1 billion for Instagram and I actually think that Flickr has far more potential than Instagram. Google’s got a ton of cash. Yahoo is dying. Facebook is Google’s biggest competitor now and Yahoo is officially at patent war with Facebook. As odd as it would be for these two former search foes to come together for a deal, Flickr makes all the sense in the world for Google who could throw some amazing engineering talent and legitimacy to the site.

More than anything else at Google, Google is betting big on Google+ — and for good reason. Google+ provides Google very valuable data that can be used for advertising. Yesterday I was talking with my friend Robert Scoble about the money Facebook paid for Instagram. Robert said that he thought Facebook bought Instagram for so much because they want the data that’s in the photos.

Think about all the data that is in our photos: who you are photographed with in a photo (maybe an algorithm should show you more of these people’s posts), when it was taken, where it was taken, what concerts you go to, what restaurants you eat at, etc.

What about the photos that you favorite or comment on or like? Isn’t this even more data and more signal that you provide? Do I favorite lots of photos of ice cream? Maybe I like ice cream. Do I favorite lots of photos of fashion? Maybe I care about fashion. Do I fave lots of photos of Nascar, or bicycles or surfing, or… you get the idea. By analyzing what is in the photos that we take and post and what we like and favorite, we provide an amazing amount of information about who we are as human beings. What we like. What we might buy if it were advertised towards us.

So what would Google get with Flickr? For starters they would get the largest highly organized library of images in the world with an impecable pedigree and social DNA. Other sites like Facebook may have more photos, but nobody has a library as organized as Flickr’s. For years people have tagged and organized their photos in all kinds of ways. This data around the photos is very valuable for Flickr. It tells us what is inside of a photo without having to resort to image recognition software.

Google would also get alot of potential high profile accounts. President Obama is on Flickr. The Royal Family is on flickr. The Library of Congress is on Flickr. Lots of big institutions, libraries, art museums, etc.

They would also get Flickr’s excellent photo organizational capabilities. This is one area where Flickr shines compared to anyone else. I have almost 1,700 sets on Flickr now. Why do I use Flickr for my sets instead of Google+ or Facebook or other sites? Easy, I can use Jeremy Brooks excellent program SuprSetr to organize my sets by keywords. Imagine if your Flickr stream could just autopost to your Google+ stream in full big size just like Google+. How cool would that be?

Facebook buying Instagram is upping the ante in the photo sharing game. Facebook paid a billion for Instragram. Google is sitting on over $44 billion in cash. The entire company Yahoo is only valued at $17 billion. Of that, most of the value is related to the positions that they own in Yahoo Japan and Alibaba.

If Instagram is worth a billion, Flickr is worth more. By selling Flickr to Google, this would allow Yahoo to unlock some value for shareholders with an asset that likely contributes very little to Yahoo’s bottom line.

You can follow me on Flickr here.

“From my perspective, Google+ is to Facebook and Twitter what Macintosh is to Windows: Better, but fewer people use it, and the pundits prophesy that it will fail. As a lover of great products, this rankles my soul.

The year 1987 was the last time I wrote a book about a product (The Macintosh Way). After using Google+ for a few months, I felt the need to write another product-oriented book. This book explains “what the plus” makes Google+ as special as Macintosh.”

– Guy Kawasaki

Spent some time yesterday going through Guy Kawasaki’s excellent new book “What the Plus! Google+ for the Rest of Us.” This book is probably the most comprehensive book I’ve seen so far on Google+. It’s chock full of really great advice on the various best practices that users should consider as they navigate the site. It’s written in an easy to comprehend and familiar way that I think will be especially helpful for newcommers.

The book is 137 pages long and is full of great screenshots that show examples of how Guy and other successful users have navigated and understood the site. It’s pretty cheap as an eBook at only $2.99. It covers not just the technical “how to” material around posting, photography, hangouts, circles, etc., but it also covers a lot of the etiquette on how the community uses Google+ and helpful tips to make your experience on Google+ as fulfilling as it can be.

Most of you know Guy of course as the the former Chief Apple Evangelist. From this perspective I thought it was interesting in the book that he made the comparison above that Google+ is the Mac.

I feel the same way as Guy does. It’s hard to describe why Google+ feels like a better product to me. I know Facebook is improving more these days than ever before and trying to get better and better, but for me it’s so many of the little things (like the little things that make me like my Mac more than the PC). For example, on Facebook I have to press option-return to get a new paragraph (grrrrr… that just bums me out every time I have to do that) it’s a wonky workaround to have to use in order to do something that you want.

Google+ flows better, feels better, etc. Google+ is by no means complete, but I find it an easier place to have a conversation than Twitter where I seem to be running around trying to load new pages to get what anyone is talking about when they @thomashawk me a lot of the time.

Anyways, check it out. It’s a great read and an especially great thing for you to send to someone who isn’t on Google+ but who you know would be someone who would love it once they make the switch. Sometimes making a switch is hard. I was a PC user for years before I finally broke down in August of 2006 and bought a Mac. It was one of the best things I ever did. I needed a push though. This book may be just the sort of guidebook that you could give to a friend of yours who needs that push as well.

Wow! I just heard from my good Pal Ivan Makarov that the Plus One Collection sold almost 100 copies in the first day of taking orders. That’s pretty impressive for a $200 limited edition book. I think the book probably got a nice boost when Google Social Chief Vic Gundotra himself posted about it and bought a book yesterday.

What is the Plus One Collection? Well 520 photographers got together on Google+ to create a collaborative book for charity (so far we’ve raised over $5,000 for Kiva). These are some of the very best photographers on the site and each submitted their best photo of 2011. A panel of 11 editors (I was one of these) using blind ratings then edited this down to 193 single page photographs (all 520 will be in the ebook but only 193 would work in the print book).

There are two editions of the book being offered for sale. A numbered limited edition 11×13 fine art book, printed on fine art paper, including tipped-in print, made to museum standards, available for only 9 more days — and another less expensive book that will follow fulfilled through Blurb after the limited edition sale. Each limited edition book also comes with a print from the book and a certificate of authenticity.

All of the work on this book was done by photographer volunteers on Google+. Ivan probably did the most work of all, but so many others in the community helped as well. Especially notable was the amazing design work on the book that photographer Andy Lee did. Ingo Meckmann designed the great website for the book.

100% of all net proceeds go to Kiva.

I’ve loved seeing this project come together as photographers from all over the world have contributed (literally only 65% of the photographers are from the US/Canada, the rest are from all over the world including Europe, Asia and as far away as Oceania!). The book shares a love for photography and fine art along with a way that we have been able to give back to the world that we all find beauty in and photograph every day. Thanks to everyone who bought a limited edition book yesterday, the price is steep but I think you’ll be proud to own a highly collectible edition of some of the best photography from 2011 while helping to support a very worthwhile cause.

Facebook’s New Lightbox View

Google+’s Lightbox View

Today for the first time I noticed that Facebook has rolled out a new lightbox view for photos. There were rumors of a new Facebook Lightbox view coming already out in the wild, but this was the first time that I saw it myself.

At first blush it looks like quite a bit of it was copied from inspired by Google Photos. Remember Vincent Mo, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

The biggest change is that that comments on Facebook photos have been moved over to the right. Also it’s interesting to me that they seem to have dropped adverts on photos that have enough comments to require scrolling. This probably makes sense as it’s a way to reward high value (i.e. highly commented) photos on Facebook and below the fold adverts (where the adverts go under the comments) probably wouldn’t fetch as much as above the fold adverts anyways.

Also now, when you hover over the photo it gives you the opportunity to “like” or “tag” the photo. This is in addition to the options already to like and tag the photo that are to the right of the photo and always showing. Facebook really must want to drive “likes” and “tags” to their photos, which does actually make a lot of sense as increasing social activity on photos will drive engagement.

Simply clicking off the photo to the empty space around the photo or pressing the escape key will bring you back to the regular page you came from.

Personally I like the new lightbox view by Facebook. It’s better than the old Facebook lightbox. It’s still not as good as Google+’s which still has a larger photo — but along with the new much larger photo thumbnails in the timeline view, it’s a step in the right direction. It also tells me that Facebook has probably noticed the success that Google+ has had with photographers and is looking to try and find ways to make Facebook more attractive to the photography crowd. Facebook’s photos have come a long way since pre-Google+. Back then photo thumbnails were ensy weeny — the size of a postage stamp.

If I were Facebook I’d still make the lightbox view much larger though (like Google+). When it comes to a photo in lightbox view, bigger is definitely better.

Facebook also still needs to give us a way to crop photos in the Timeline view. Right now the imposed square crop doesn’t always best show your photo and the “resize” feature (press the star above your photo in timeline view) weirdly crops just the top half of the photo. Facebook already does have a cropping tool that you can use for your main cover photo in timeline view, so I’d think (and I hear) that better cropping ought to be coming for timeline photos at some point.

What do you think? Do you like the new Facebook lightbox for photos? And which do you think looks better, Facebook’s or Google+’s? Any other thoughts on today’s new Facebook lightbox design?

Update:

Comments on the new change from Google+ users.

Update: Mike Schroepfer from Facebook comments in the comments below: “Thomas and everyone else – thanks for the feedback.

If you have any other comments or suggestions I’d love to hear them.”

Yesterday Louis Gray shared an interesting post based on a discussion kicked off by Thomas Morrfew and Thomas Tenkely. The post showed how to find out how many +1s you’ve handed out on Google+. I reshared the post here. So did my good Pal Robert Scoble here.

I thought it would be interesting to go around to the various posts and put together a list of the top 20 people who +1 on Google+. This list is wildly inaccurate in that it only includes the people who responded to these posts, but I thought it would be an interesting list of folks nonetheless.

I love +1ing on G+. It’s like handing out little pieces of candy for everything that I like. Some people have asked for a list of their +1s. Personally I hope that if Google gives us this list that they give us the option of making it public or private. I don’t like my favorites on flickr being stalked by people and would prefer to keep my +1s private.

Anyways, that’s neither here nor there, but here are the top 20 +1ers that I was able to sort of sort together based on these posts. Thanks to everyone who +1′s on Google+ and shares the love!

1. Kev Isabeth, 112,161

2. Dirk Talamasca, 98,240

3. Mark Esguerra, 61,072

4. Kerry Murphy, 56215

5. Billy Wilson, 51,602

6. Lotus Carroll, 46,196

7. Chelsea Leland, 44,823

8. Sandra Parlow, 40,541

9. Daniel Chen, 36,000

10. Louis Gray, 33,000

11. Rachel Blum, 33,000

12. Jaana Nyström, 32,239

13. Kol Tregaskes, 30,592

14. Jenn Kirkland, 25439

15. Lars Clausen, 25,251

16. Turtle Qiu, 24,270

17. Cameron Siguenza, 24,198

18. Celine Chamberlin, 23,184

19. Brian Kemper, 20,650

20. Mihailo Radičević, 20.000

You can find out how many +1′s you’ve handed out by going and checking here. Lots of other interesting Google analytical information here too. I’ve done 45,802! Whew!

Earlier today I shared 1,500 kick ass photographers that I follow on G+ and that post got a lot of response. Ken Zuk posted a comment asking how I find the photographers to follow on Google Plus and what my criteria is for following other photographers. I started writing out a long comment as a response, but it felt more like a blog post so I thought I’d write one up here and then share it as a link response to Ken’s question.

The Google+ Photography Community is absolutely the most active, engaged, positive group of photographers I’ve ever seen anywhere on the web. It is rich and vibrant and active and full of amazing art. Over the past 7 months or so I’ve added tons of great photographers who I get to enjoy work by every single day.

So… where do I find these people?

1.) Probably the number one place I find photographers from on Google+ is reshares. Usually when someone reshares a photo it’s a pretty high quality photo. When I see these (if i like the work) I’ll click through to the photographer who was shared and explore more of their work. If I like it and they meet my criteria (see below) I’ll start following them.

2.) Comments — and not just comments on my photos. I’m frequently reading the comments on Google+ — on my photos, but even more on other people’s photos. If I see two active photographers who seem interesting and engaging and who are chatting with each other, I just might check them out. I like following active, engaged photographers and so if I like their stuff I’ll usually add them. Go Wolfpack.

3.) Outside resources. Jarek Klimek’s Photo Extract is AWESOME! Each day he puts up some of the best photographs on Google+ in huge full sized glory. Definitely check out his site and you will be blown away by some of the quality of photos showing up on Google+. GROUP/AS is another fantastic resource to find tons and tons of photographers currently posting to Google+.

4.) Contact diving. I love diving into other people’s contacts. Both who they are circling as well as who are circling them. It’s nice because if you click on that window it already shows you all the people you are already following. So if you are not following someone you can cmd-click on a link to their posting page and check them out to see if you like what they are doing.

5.) #hashtags. There are a lot of special hashtags that people use on Google+. There are different themed photography projects that are curated — #TuesDecay, #MacroMonday, #WeAreParents, #GrassTuesday, the list goes on and on. Frequently I’ll click on these hashtags that Google+ hyperlinks and explore the work of other photographers there. If I like them, then I’ll add them.

6.) Real life contacts. I’ve hosted hundreds of photowalks over the past decade. I’ve also participated in a number of group photography trips. Alot of times through photowalks and trips you end up getting to know people super well.

Some of my best friends today have come through real life photography meetups. I met my good Pal Robert Scoble almost 10 years ago at a meetup that he hosted at Barney’s Burgers in Noe Valley in San Francisco. Other times though the photowalks are short and big and hard to get to know everyone — but I always do try to go back after these walks and trips and check out people’s work (again through hashtags). #Yosemite2011, #DV2011, #FordNAIAS, #SJPhoto2011, etc.

I find alot of the people that I end up following through these walks/trips/walk tags/etc.

7.) Hangouts. I’m pretty active with hangouts — both mine and other people. Hangouts are a great way to meet people and how I’ve gotten to know alot of people better. So many of my great photographer contacts have come from hanging out.

8.) Popular Posts on Google+. It’s harder to find new talent here, but I’ll frequently check out the most popular posts on Google+ in the past hour over at SocialStatistics. Inevitably alot of the most popular posts are great photographs. I’m already following a lot of the people posted there, but every now and again I find someone new who I am not following yet.

9.) Other people’s shared circles. I’m constantly checking out other people’s shared circles. Here is how I manage that process and do it most efficiently. Usually if I trust someone’s opinion I’ll add the entire circle that they shared — but… I *WON’T* mix it in with my other contacts — instead I just keep it labeled as “their” circle.

After I’ve added their circle, I’ll browse through that stream and cherry pick people out of to integrate into *my* other circles that I like. I might do this for an hour. I might just let the circle set there for a week and get to it over time. After I feel like I’ve adequately examined the circle, I’ll just delete it. The best photographers I found in it I’ve integrated into my own and the rest of those who I’m not as crazy about from there get dropped.

10.) Other social networks. I like to spread the good word about G+ so I’ll frequently post about it on other sites — on Flickr, on Twitter, on Facebook. The other day I posted on Flickr asking which of my flickr contacts were on Google+. Alot of people responded with links to their G+ page. When they did I went and checked them out on G+. If I liked their stuff I added them there too.

So… as you can see I find people to follow on Google+ from a lot of different places.

Now… as far the criteria for what I’m looking for when I follow someone on Google+

1) Non-watermarker/signature photographers. I hate watermarks and signatures. They drive me bonkers. Nothing personal, it’s just a pet peeve of mine. My eye is drawn to the watermark almost every time. I can’t enjoy the photo. I get agitated. They usually look big and ugly and like something a low rent cheap hack wedding photographer would use. The bigger the signature/watermark the worse. Some people hide them so well that I don’t see them. I’m ok with that — but… if I see them…. GAWD! AWK!

Unless I know you really well and am willing to overlook it because I’m in love with you, then I’m probably not going to follow someone that is using watermarks.

2) Photographers who mostly post their own photographs. I want photographers in my circle who mostly post photos. It’s ok if they post other things sparingly — a post here or there about a photographic subject, a shared photo of someone else’s, a circle, a rant about whatever they had for breakfast (sparingly is the key here) — but… if a photographer is mostly posting what I consider noise (bad gifs, too much resharing of texty sort of articles, too much stupid stuff, etc.) then it’s hard for me to want to follow them — at least in my photographers circle. I may follow them in a different circle (like the stupid gif circle) that I never check, but I don’t really want super noisy people in my photographers circle.

Again, there are exceptions to all of these rules if I love you enough.

3) Photographers who are active. If the last time you posted a photograph on Google+ was last November, I probably am not following you. I want to see work by current, active photographers who post every week.

4) Good photography. It sort of goes without saying, but I want to see work that is aesthetically pleasing to me — interesting, creative, inspiring work.

5) Someone who is positive and not a hater/stalker/harasser/etc. Nothing turns me off more than seeing someone who tears apart others. I’m not just talking about my own work here. If I see someone say something awful to someone else, especially someone else that I respect, I’ll probably drop them. If it’s bad enough I might even block them. The online photosharing world unfortunately has a very small minority who are petty, jealous haters — fortunately for us on Google+ there is a very robust block tool which can keep them away from us most of the time.

You can follow me on Google+ here.

Over the last three days I’ve posted three circles of 500 each of all of the photographers that I’m currently following on Google+. For the most part these are active, engaged photographes on Google+ and represent some of the people that you may want to get to know if you want to participate more in the Photo Community that has emerged on Google+.

The Google+ Photography Community is the most active, engaged, positive group of photographers I’ve ever seen anywhere on the web. I’m constantly blown away and humbled by the quality of the work that people post there day in and day out. More than just the work, the photographers that I’ve met on there, that I’ve hung out with on there, that I’ve hung out in real life with on there (HIRL), are such amazing people that I’ve been so fortunate to have gotten to know.

Alot of people ask me how they might get more involved with Google+. I’d say that you can start with checking out these folks and I think you’ll find most of them are pretty easy to get along with and interact with. You can check out these circles here:

1,500 Kick Ass Photographers on Google+ (A-G, Part 1 of 3)
1,500 Kick Ass Photographers on Google+ (G-O, Part 2 of 3)
1,500 Kick Ass Photographers on Google+ (P-Z, Part 3 of 3)

Thanks to each and every photographer that I’ve gotten to know at Google+!

Personalized Google Search Results

Unpersonalized Google Search Results

The top story on Techmeme right now is Steven Levy’s “Is Too Much Plus a Minus for Google?”. Alot of people are talking about how including personalized Google+ search results is somehow bad or wrong. Earlier this week Twitter put out a statement saying that they thought this new search integration was “bad for people, publishers, news organizations and Twitter users.”

I disagree.

Sure, it may be be bad for *Twitter*, but to say it’s bad for people, publishers, news organizations and Twitter users is wrong. I have been hoping for the integration of social search into image search for years now. Back in 2006 I wrote a blog post when Yahoo first started showcasing Flickr images into their image search results. I was a fan. I’m not sure why everybody didn’t get all wound up when Yahoo started adding Flickr photos to their search but they now seem to be wound up that Google is essentially doing the same thing.

As a person, publisher, personal news organization (aka blogger) and Twitter user I *absolutely* want Google+ integrated into my search results.

Why?

Well look at the two images above. Both are searches for New York. The top one represents the results when I’m logged into Google. The bottom one represents when I’m logged out. Why is the top one so much better for me? Well, as a photographer, if I’m going to New York there’s a big chance that I’m going to want to be photographing in New York.

The unpersonalized results are pretty photos of New York but they provide me no additional information about the locations. The first result goes to a wikipedia page, lots go to travel oriented pages — they are nice postcardly type photos of New York but really do me no good.

Now the personalized results are *far* more useful. Google+ knows that I like shooting urban exploration photography. They also know that my friend Amy Heiden has a kick ass photo of urbex photography from New York. Now *that* image jumps to page one. This is great because I *know* Amy. We’re friends. So now I can check in with Amy and say, “wow! love that shot, would you mind telling me more about it and how you got in, etc.). This is far, far, far, more helpful and useful to me than the bland postcardly photos without Google+.

Two of the images on the page are like some of the postcardly overhead New York sky images on the generic unpersonalized page — only there is a huge KEY difference for me. They were taken by my friends Tom Harrison and Ingo Meckmann. There’s also a kick ass shot of the Apple Store taken by my friend Trey Ratcliff. These are not just people that I sort of know. These are people that I know well and have known for years. These are friends that I can check in with and say, “whoa! where did you get that awesome photo from, which skyscraper were you in.”

Personalized results on Google+ are wayyyyyy more helpful to me than unpersonal results. And this is exactly what Google should be doing. Helping me find the information that is most helpful and most useful to me. As a photographer, this means that I *want* them to give preference to photos by people that I know. People who I can talk to. People who will share information about these photos with me. I don’t want to see some bland photo by some Associated Press photographer who I don’t know, can’t talk to, and is too busy to share information with me personally.

It pains me that Twitter and Facebook want to take this away from me. That they want to take this really useful thing and somehow rob me of it. All because they are afraid that Google+ is going to be a bigger, better social network.

So as a user this is super helpful to me. What about as a blogger or publisher? YES! It’s also super helpful to me. Now my photos will be shown to all sorts of people who have chosen to follow me and my work. I get bigger distribution. It’s the dream of long tail content. I suppose if you’re not on Google+ as a blogger/publisher this gives you a pretty powerful incentive to get your ass on there ASAP, but what’s so bad about that? Google+ is a vastly better social network than Twitter (photos look awful as little links of text) or Facebook anyways.

It seems like Twitter and Facebook don’t want Google competing in the social network space. They want to keep it all for themselves. At the same time they seem to want to force Google to pay through the nose even to have access to their realtime data and firehose. If Facebook and Twitter don’t like this integration, let them give away this data for free to Google, or better yet, they can go build their own search engines. But they shouldn’t try to pull this integration away from me. Why should users get caught as casualties in their war against Google? As a person, as a publisher and yes… even as a Twitter user. (BTW Twitter, just because something might be bad for *YOU* doesn’t mean it’s bad for your users, like *ME*).

I for one welcome these new search results and am super excited about personalized search and how it is going to help me find the things I need to find more easily in the future.