Thomas Hawk Digital Connection

For the last few weeks I’ve been thinking a lot about online conversations. It feels like I’m constantly in one somewhere on some site.

More and more for me these are happening on Google+. I used to spend almost all of my social time online in Flickr group discussion threads. I stopped visiting Flickr groups for a while due to personal harassment — but you know what, it wasn’t just me who left, the velocity of quality conversations in Flickr groups have gone wayyyy down more broadly speaking in the past year.

This is not just a subjective thing — it’s easily measured ojbectively as well. Flickr Central is one of the oldest/largest/most active groups on Flickr. Over there years (as counted by threads) 11,503 conversations that have gone on there. Some are very successful, some are not.

If you look at Flickr Central today you’ll see that the time stamp for discussions on the first page goes back two weeks. This was not always the case. It used to be that the entire first page of discussions in Flickr Central were from the past 48 hours. Clearly the velocity of conversations in this Flickr group has gone way down. I suspect the same goes for other groups as well. Many of the groups recommended to me as “groups that Flickr has noticed” on the groups page haven’t had conversations in months, in some cases even years.

Meanwhile, over at Google+, in the past year I’ve been involved in some of the best conversations that I ever remember happening anywhere on the web. Interesting conversations about photography and art and meetups and hangouts and all kinds of fun things. it seems like there is always some great conversation somewhere on Google+ to jump into.

Over the course of the past few weeks I’ve jumped back into a few Flickr conversations to see what it feels like. What I’ve noticed is that the tone of conversations on Google+ feels so much more positive than it does at Flickr. There’s so much less snark and bitterness and negativity overall. I hadn’t seen the difference so dramatically before, but after having been gone awhile it felt more evident.

This made me think about what Google+ was doing right for community that Flickr is not.

When I first joined Google+ one of the things that I noticed is that some of the more hostile individuals from many of the old Flickr groups showed up. Some personal attacks took place, they aired their gripes about different things, typical BS hater stuff — but you know what? These people were quickly marginalized and moved out of the way to create a more positive environment. I blocked many of these people and so did so many other photographers on G+.

A few weeks went by and these people were just as hostile and negative but they were basically shouting to an empty room. The majority of positive forward thinking photographers on G+ had tuned them out with the tools that we were given. What we were left with was a more positive filtered G+ experience. I went back a few days ago to look at a few of the accounts of people that I blocked and you know what — they are gone. They quit G+. By empowering a mostly positive oriented community these people found no audience to bitch at and they left. Meanwhile, more constructive social photographers on G+ carry on.

Now, one worry with filtering out criticism is that it hurts meaningful conversation because all conversation is not always puppy dogs and roses, but that also hasn’t happened on Google+. Lots of criticism has gone on in tons of threads. The difference is though that the criticism feels much more respectful than some of what I’ve experienced in Flickr groups. People disagree on Google+ they just do it respectfully.

By giving users more powerful blocking tools on G+ Google has built a nicer community. A nicer community feels so much more enjoyable.

Every so often I’ll find someone new who comes along and leaves some sort of assholish comment in a thread on Google+. It’s almost delightful at how easy it is to block them and make them invisible.

In poking around Flickr Groups over the past week I did find what felt like some high quality conversations to me, I read them, I lurked — but I didn’t participate. The reason why I didn’t participate was that I noticed some of the toxic types that I’d run into previously on Flickr or G+. I’m sure I would have jumped into these conversations if I hadn’t seen them there, but what’s the point of jumping into a conversation about fine art photography when you know someone is just going to be a jerk?

Update 12-01-2012, I think Yahoo Exec Adam Cahan just went public with a Flickr account.

Update 12-12-2012. Marissa Mayer just went public with her Flickr account today as well here.

Late last week over at All Things Digital, Kara Swisher reported on the appointment of the latest high profile Yahoo exec, Adam Cahan. In addition to reporting directly into Marissa Mayer and overseeing mobile for Yahoo (super important!) it was also announced that Cahan would be put in charge of Flickr, the photo sharing site that so many of us love.

On the surface this is great news. The fact that the guy who is now overseeing Flickr reports directly into Mayer may mean that Flickr’s profile is moving up internally at Yahoo. After a few years of Flickr layoffs and shrinking, it looks like Yahoo once again is staffing up in photo sharing!

In addition to staffing up, over the past year Yahoo has probably improved Flickr more than any other year in its existence. They’ve added a really nice new justified page layout for your contact’s photos and favorites (hopefully coming to search, photostreams and sets soon!), they added a new meet up page where they are getting active with photowalks again (check out this shot from their Austin photowalk this past weekend), they created a new liquid photo format that expands photos to the size of your monitor (slick!), they also increased the maximum size for photos for paid accounts to 50MB! (Facebook and Google+ downsize your photos).

So my question is, why with so much excitement going on around Flickr, why don’t Yahoo employees use or care more about the service?

A lesser known thing about Adam Cahan, the new Yahoo exec in charge of Flickr, is that according to the San Jose business Journal he’s a former National Geographic wildlife photographer. So here’s the guy who is in charge of Flickr, definitely talented with a camera, and where is he choosing to share *his* photographs? Yep, you guessed it Google+! Here’s a photo he posted earlier this year there for the 75th Anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Of course, Cahan is just following by example really here, his boss Marissa Mayer chooses to post her own photos over at Instagram instead of Flickr.

Why is Flickr such a pariah that Yahoo’s own executives (even the one directly in charge of Flickr) won’t dare to use it personally?

Certainly Google and Facebook employees share their photos on Google+ and Facebook. So why aren’t Yahoo executives doing the same thing?

I believe that leadership is done by example. I also believe that every company should encourage dogfooding and should encourage their employees to use their own products. I think this sends a better message to users when you feel like people who work for the company use it too.

The message that Mayer and Cahen send when they shun Flickr and instead post their photos on competing photo sharing sites is that those sites are better than Flickr. The exact message that they should be trying to change if they really care about Flickr.

Now I’m all for Yahoo executives testing out the competition. Actually I think that’s smart. They *should* have accounts on Instagram and Google+ and Facebook and all that — but they should *also* have accounts at Flickr and they should be acting as Flickr’s biggest cheerleaders in the same way that Vic Gundotra does for Google+ over there.

There is a current conversation going on over at Flickr in their highest profile discussion group that Flickr is dying. Yahoo should care about discussions like this. Yahoo employees should actually be involved in them and trying to convince people that Flickr is not dying, that a comeback is just around the corner — but in order to be involved in conversations like this Yahoo employees need to actually, you know, have an actual Flickr account.

It’s not hard, really, you can even use your Facebook or Google+ account to sign into Flickr these days. Directly from the Flickr sign up page: “It takes less than a minute to create your free account & start sharing! Have a Google or Facebook account? You can use them to sign in!”

Flickr’s tagline is “almost certainly the best online photo management and sharing application in the world.” That’s been it’s tagline for years now. So if this is true, why don’t Yahoo execs want to use it to manage and share their photos? If that tagline isn’t true anymore maybe Yahoo execs should think about changing it to “almost certainly *was* the best online photo management and sharing application in the world.”

I was thinking yesterday back to all the excitement that was around Flickr back in the olden days. Natural disasters tend to be things that galvanize social sharing, and especially photos. Back in 2005 when Katrina hit, Flickr was the go to place for people to post photos online about the disaster. Not only were the best user generated photos flowing into Flickr, they were flowing in fast and furious. Flickr was recognized for the Katrina photos in the national press. A group was started on Flickr to do a print auction to raise funds for Katrina survivors. The very next year Time Magazine named Flickr co-Founders Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake as two of the 100 most influential people in the world! Butterfield and Fake both had Flickr accounts by the way.

More recently hurricane Sandy hit New York. Was Flickr the go to place this time for photos? No. Everywhere you went in the national press it was 24/7 Instagram. It’s telling that Time Magazine — the very same Time Magazine that recognized Flickr and their founders/managers after Hurricane Katrina — recruited five professional photographers this time around to cover hurricane Sandy for them on… Instagram, the same photo sharing site where Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer shares her photos.

By the way, photos taken after Oct 15th tagged Sandy on Flickr? 36,000. Photos tagged Sandy on Instagram? Over 800,000. Now just today Instagram announced photos on the web.

On a personal level, my photos at Facebook and Google+ get far more views and engagement than they do on Flickr — not just a little more, a lot more — as in hundreds of times more. I’m still rooting for Flickr though. They were the photo sharing service that I started out with back in 2004. They still have the best photo organizational tools on the web and at $25 for over 70,000 full high res photos of mine they are a bargain. Competition in the photo sharing space is good for all of us. It benefits the user. I just wish I felt like Yahoo actually wanted to win more with Flickr. Maybe this will change though and some day soon I’ll be able to add Mayer and Cahan as contacts of mine on Flickr. I bet as a former National Geographic pro Cahan has got some great shots.

PetaPixel / Gizmodo

Comments on this post at Google+.

Vic Gundotra announced this morning that Google has purchased Nik Software. Nik makes the popular iPhone app Snapseed and also makes some serious editing tools for Lightroom and Photoshop. I’ve been a big fan of Nik’s Silver Efex Pro and find that it is one of the best software packages for doing black and white conversion work.

It seems like photo processing is increasingly becoming a desired tool for photo sharing networks. Previously Google had purchased Picnik and has since integrated some of Picnik’s mad skills into the Google Photos experience. After the Google acquisition of Picnik, Yahoo’s Flickr switched from Picnik to Aviary earlier this year for online photo editing. Some of Flickr’s users have complained that Aviary is not as good as Picnik was.

With the Nik purchase, I’d imagine that even more photo processing tools will be coming to both Google Photos on the web and especially Google Photos on mobile.

It’s great to see Google continue pushing forward innovation and investment in the photography space. I don’t really use online photo editing tools as I prefer the more powerful and professional editing through Lightroom on my MacBook Pro, but obviously the masses out there do (as Instragram can attest to).

Facebook owns Instagram (and could theoretically include Instagrammy filters into the broader Facebook photos experience). Google now owns Picnik and Nik. Flickr feels like they are being left out in the cold in terms of online photo editing talent. People don’t seem to like Aviary.

So what should Flickr do? If I were them I’d seriously look at MacPhun’s FX Photo Studio Pro Software. This is the best super simple drag and drop photo processing application on the market today. MacPhun also has snapheal, which is a pretty interesting content aware photo processing tool that can remove objects from photos as well. Flickr could buy MacPhun and integrate these application based processing tools into an online photo editor and would have a pretty powerful online editor. Rumor is that Marissa Mayer just got a boat load of cash. Of course Google or Facebook could also buy MacPhun and integrate their drag/drop functionality as well.

Although for us photo geeks the big news story today is the Nik purchase, within his announcement post Vic Gundotra probably buried the real lead, which is that Google+ now has over 400 million members. Wow! 400 million! Amazing growth and congratulations to the Google+ team!

It was pretty cool, but also random, to find this “Add More Photos” Google+ sticker inside an old abandoned graffitied warehouse in Alameda. I wonder who put that sticker there?

Speaking of Google+, digging my new custom Google+ URL:

http://google.com/+ThomasHawk

“You say it’s your birthday
Well it’s my birthday too–yeah
You say it’s your birthday
We’re gonna have a good time
I’m glad it’s your birthday
Happy birthday to you.”

– Beatles

Google is rolling out birthdays at Google.com. Basically each day when you go to Google.com you will see a list of people who you follow on Google+ who are having a birthday that day. This is so much bigger than that though. Not only will you see a list of people when you go to Google.com, you will see a list of people whenever you do a basic search on Google in any way period. If you type a search query into the Chrome box, if you use Firefox and type a search query into the search box, however you use Google for search, when you search (and are logged into your Google account) every way you search you’ll be reminded of birthdays going forward.

Google could have put this information anywhere on the web but they specifically, and strategically, chose to put it in their most heavily trafficked product of all. This is not the first time that Google has used Google.com to promote Google+. Some of you will remember the big blue arrow several months back on Google.com promoting Google+ — but this is more significant than previous usage because it’s a new commitment to using search *every* *single* *day* going forward to promote G+.

Back in May I did an unscientific poll asking if people would like to see a birthday feature on G+ like Facebook and it came back that about 60% of folks did want a feature like this. I love saying happy birthday to people and have been using Facebook over the past year to wish many people happy birthday on Google+ — which feels super weird and I also miss a lot of birthdays when I’m not paying attention. Now I can get this information directly from Google.

Google could have chosen to put this information somewhere on Google+, but they carefully chose instead to put it on some of the absolutely most valuable web space in the entire universe. Pay attention. This is important. I believe the reason why Google chose to put this information on Google.com is because they wanted a way to suck more people into Google+ who have inactive accounts. Even more than a fun feature to let you say happy birthday to your friends, this new feature is an irresistible advertisement sucking you into being more social on Google+.

Everybody and their brother has a Google+ account at this point. Google has been pushing it hard in a unified way across the entire company and every day thousands of new people sign up for google accounts to use things like gmail and end up on Google+ even if they don’t specifically want to be. This is a big number. Some of these people check it out, see that their friends are still over at Facebook and don’t come back. Others, like me and a huge part of the photography community, stay and make a home there and recognize it for what it is, the best, most functional, most lubricated social network in history.

You have to try Google+ for a while to get into it. It takes some effort. Most people are lazy and unlike early adopters need to warm up to something new. So a lot of people have Google+ accounts but are not super active on them yet.

But.

Everybody uses Google search. Everybody. And now anyone logged into Google (and this is a big number on any given day) is going to see a highly personal targeted advertisement for Google+ every time someone in their circles has a birthday.

Saying happy birthday to a friend is such a fun thing to do. We all want to do it. Just look at your friend’s Facebook page when it’s their birthday. It’s so full of great wishes. And when your friends wish you happy birthday, you have to say thank you back right? So this new feature will inject millions of new interactions between individuals into Google+ every single day. This is a hook bringing folks back into Google+. For many people they will say happy birthday and leave and not come back again. For some they will say happy birthday to four friends over the coming months and then these conversations will spark up and many, many of these people will be drawn into using Google+.

This may feel like a minor new feature, but it actually may be the most significant thing that Google has done yet to promote Google+. Using their most powerful resource to advertise for Google+ every single day going forward is a huge commitment. To those who question Google’s commitment to Google+ this should be a clear signal that they could not be more committed to Google+ going forward. Google is all in with this one.

There will probably be haters of this new feature even though everybody loves a good birthday. Google+ has had it’s naysayers from day one.

First there are those who are just lazy and don’t want to maintain another social network. Who cares if Google+ is better these people say, I’m already on Facebook.

Then there are those who see Google+ as a competitor to other places where they have built significant identities on the web. These are the folks who complain that Google is polluting search with all this Google+ nonsense. These were the same folks that complained the loudest about Search Plus Your World. For many of these people they’ve made significant commitments to their own blogs or other networks and Google+ is competition to this. They don’t like the fact that Google is pushing them to G+ if they care about search and SEO.

Finally there are the FUD people. These people still show up and will try to make arguments about how Google+ is a bad idea from some language plucked deep out to the TOS. Just watch, we’ll probably get a few comments from the tinfoil hat types about how Google is going to try and steal your photographs even on this very post (rolls eyes).

By the way, if you are one of the hyper privacy types be aware that sharing your birthday is not turned on by default. You get to decide exactly who you want to share it with. Maybe you don’t want to share it with anybody, maybe you just want to share it with people you are following. Maybe you want to share it with the world. Whatever you want to do the choice is yours.

The bottom line is that Google+ is here to stay. Not only is it here to stay, it is very likely going to be the dominant social network on the web going forward. Whether you are using Flickr or Twitter or Facebook ( I use all three by the way) it will be to your benefit to beef up your presence on Google+. Don’t underestimate Google’s power to continue promoting this network. The commitment could not be stronger and this feature should make that clear. The earlier you get on the more you’ll benefit from this amazing network.

About a month ago I watched a Google+ hangout done with Google Social Chief Vic Gundotra. If you missed this interview, check it out, it’s really informative. One of the things that really struck me in the interview was when Vic said that Google regularly thinks out 10 years in advance. 10 years in advance. Think about that. At the pace of new features that Google+ has been rolling out in the last year alone, it clear that this network will continue to evolve in some of the best ways possible going forward.

You can find me on Google+ at one of these slick new custom Google+ urls at http://google.com/+ThomasHawk

Oh and happy birthday btw to Angela Pan and Michelle Arevalo-Carpenter.

Google+ continued to grow last month. Although slowing a touch after June’s big run, it’s clear that Google+ is expanding as a major and important social network. Like most networks, those connecting earliest benefit the most in the end. It pays to be an early adopter as far as social networks are concerned.

Many different and independent communities are emerging on Google+. More than any other community, photographers have thrived on Google+. Every day millions of new photos are added to Google+ and photographers have flocked to the site to interact in many ways around their work.

Every now and again I hear from photographers saying that they just don’t get Google+, that despite seeing so many others succeed here, they just can’t seem to gain any traction. At the end of the day a basic tenant of any social network is that you get out of it what you put into it. None of us can expect to simply post our photos and have the abyss that is the world wide web immediately recognize our artistic brilliance and talent and propel us to new heights of exposure.

Social networks take work. They take tending to. They take activity and participation. With this in mind, I thought I’d share 20 Pro tips that might help you do better at Google+.

1. Consider not watermarking your work. Many photographers and viewers dislike having to consume watermarks and signatures. A person who posts unwatermarked photographs never alienates anyone. Someone who posts watermarked photos will likely alienate at least some. I know all the arguments about your work being stolen and all that — this post is not about how to avoid having your photos stolen though, it’s about how to gain exposure on Google+.

Lots of folks, like me, generally dislike consuming watermarks and so we don’t follow a lot of photographers who use them. For what it’s worth, it’s super liberating to stop caring about whether your photos are stolen on the web or not.

This is not a hard and fast rule, but if you’re not gaining traction on Google+ you may want to ask yourself is it me, or is it my watermark?

2. Respond to every question someone asks you on your photo. As you develop a following over time, inevitably you will be asked questions on your photos. What settings did you use? Where did you take this? Did you use a filter on this? Look for opportunities to interact with others on your photos. It’s your job to stay on top of the comments on your photos most of all. If someone asks you a question on your photo and you don’t respond to them, they probably won’t ask another one.

3. Use the +username feature on Google+ and ask lots of questions of others. Show an authentic curiosity and interest in the work of others. Google+ is not just a place for you to share your work. It’s a place for you to learn and grow as a photographer. If you have a question about a photo, ask it — and when you ask it, always +username the person you’re asking. If someone is super popular and busy, they might not always be able to get back to you, but a lot of people will get back to you.

By +username mentioning someone it creates a hyperlink to their name and it also sends them a notification in their G+ notifications and possibly into their email. I routinely go through my mentions (sorry I can’t keep up with all of them) and answer lots of questions that people have for me about my own work. If you comment on my photo without a +username mention there’s a bigger chance I might not see it. If you use the +username I’ll be more likely to see it. Don’t abuse this, but if you do have a question, don’t be shy. Ask it and +mention the person you are asking.

4. Participate in some of the photography related shows on Google+. Lotus Carroll and I broadcast Photo Talk Plus every Wednesday night. Trey Ratcliff’s Variety Hour is on Mondays. Life Through the Lens, The Photoshop Show, The Billy Wilson and Tibby Show. You can find some great G+ hangout shows on Keith Barrett’s Vidcast Network.

Many of these shows have chat rooms that go on when they broadcast live. Watch the show and chat with other photographers during the show. You’ll meet some of the most active photographers on Google+ and make new friends.

5. Sharing is caring. If you see something you really like, share it. The other day I saw this kick ass photo that my sister took of my wife and I shared it. You have to be careful about balancing your stream with your own work and shared work, but people love it when you share their work. When you share something, don’t just share it, add a note about why you like it and what caught your eye particularly.

Most importantly, +mention the person whose work you are sharing in your note about why you like their work so that they are notified that you’ve shared something of theirs.

Also be sure to +1 and comment as much as you can too. If you like something don’t be shy. +1 every single thing you like. If something stands out in particular comment too.

Don’t forget about mobile here either for +1s. One of things I like to do to work out is to spend an hour walking laps in the park near my home. It’s got lots of hills and I do 7 laps in an hour while listening to music on my phone. It helps to make the time go by faster for me to use G+’s mobile app and +1 some great photos by my contacts while I’m walking the laps.

6. Post regularly. If you really want to be active on Google+ I think you need to post at least once a day if you can. It’s easy. It only takes a few seconds to send a photo to G+. Build a folder up of work that you want to share so that it’s easily accesible on your computer even when you don’t have time and just pop a photo up regularly.

Nothing is a turn off like looking at someone’s G+ stream and seeing that they haven’t posted in 6 weeks. There are even scripts which people use to uncircle inactive people on G+. I try to post 5 photos a day spread out throughout the day on G+. This feels about right to me for what I do. You may not have the output I do or the inclination to post that often, but post regularly so that people know you are serious about using G+.

7. Fill out your profile as completely as possible. Have a creative avatar. Give yourself a description. Add in the other social networks where you have accounts. Take advantage of your photostrip on your profile page. Don’t just use the generic circle pattern that Google puts there if you don’t upload something. Here’s my profile. Your profile says a lot about who you are.

8. Don’t be a jerk, offer unsolicited criticism, troll, etc. Try to avoid negativity as much as possible. Don’t bitch about how something on G+ sucks, or how you can’t believe how unfair something is.

In fact, be super nice to everyone you meet. Be authentically positive. I’ve been on the web for over a decade and it took me a while to learn this one myself. Nobody wants to hang out with someone who is bitching all the time. If you feel you need to criticize something, do it respectfully, genuinely and make sure that a person that might feel criticized by your remarks knows that it’s not personal.

I don’t mind people who want to respectfully debate something, but yeah, haters gonna hate. Haters also gonna get blocked though. It’s so easy to block someone on G+. I block people all the time. Then you’re completely invisible to me.

Also, unless you know someone really well and know that they actually *want* your unsolicited criticism on their photo, don’t offer it up. Keep it to yourself. Yes, someone may actually want that, but a lot of people won’t — and if you don’t know them well enough to know what kind of person they are it’s best not to tell them that their HDR is garish or that they should go back to photography school and start over. Art is subjective, always remember that.

9. Don’t post gifs, crazy memes, stuff that’s being passed around Facebook and other stupid crap. People hate this stuff. They will uncircle you. If it’s *your* cat and *you* took the photo and *you* came up with the witty caption, *and* it’s caturday, maybe, just maybe, but otherwise avoid this stuff like the plague. The rare exception to this is if the meme is ABOUT someone in the community. Feel free to participate in these.

10. It’s YOUR job to get your friends here from other networks, not Google’s. Don’t be lazy. Don’t blame G+ for not getting all your Facebook friends over here. These people are your base. Don’t let them say no. Keep bugging them over and over again and get them on Google+. Post often on your other networks linking to your Google+ page and talking about how cool a place it is and how all your friends should come join you.

Many of my favorite people on G+ came here because I posted non-stop on Flickr about how much fun I was having on Google+. Make sure your profile pages on your other networks include a link to your Google+ page. Go on Twitter and Facebook and tell other photographers especially that they should be on G+. Write blog posts (like this one) about how great G+ is. There is only one person to blame for your copout that all your friends are on Facebook instead of Google+: YOU! Make it your personal goal to bring these people over!

11. Try to post your best work. Especially on weekday mornings. Nothing gets you followers like really well done work.

12. Keep an eye out for popular circles that are shared on Google+. If someone shares popular circles on G+, they are someone you might want to try and get to know. Don’t just ask them as a stranger to put you in their photographers circle — instead make it a point to try and get to know them, to try and interact with them. Hopefully this can happen authentically and organically. If you *do* get to know someone and know them well and they’ve just overlooked your work in their circle, maybe you can ask them then. Popular circles are one of the biggest ways to gain new followers on G+. Make some circles and share them yourself too. Don’t go crazy or overboard with this, but try it out.

13. Participate in active conversations. Look for active conversations on other people’s photos and participate on them. There is constantly a debate or conversation going on somewhere on Google+. Find it and participate.

14. Be funny. Everybody loves humor. Because of this everybody loves Michael Seneschal.

15. Participate in social games and activities. There are so many daily themes on G+ now. Some of them are really well curated and followed. #selfysunday, Macro Monday, Christa Rae’s Photography Scavenger Hunt, etc. Here’s a whole bunch of G+ photo themes for you to explore.

16. Developing friends on any social network takes time. Just like in real life. People need to get to know you a little bit first.

When I first met Gino Barasa I thought he was a stalker, hell, I still think he’s a stalker but a really cool stalker now.

Especially if you are male and the person you are interacting with is female there will be some natural tension there. Females get a lot of crap thrown at them online. There’s a lot of crazy people out there in internetland. Some people are creepy. Don’t expect everyone just to immediately recognize you for what a great guy you are. Don’t overdo it. Just be natural and be yourself. If someone doesn’t like you for some reason, don’t let it bother you. Lots of people don’t like me.

17. Make sure that there are photos of you on your photos of you page. This makes you seem like a real person. If nobody else has posted any, do a few self portraits yourself or put some family photos up that show you. This makes you feel more approachable and human. Don’t worry if you’re not a total hunk like Michael Bonocore, just get those photos of you up and you’ll be that much more inviting.

18. Participate in hanoguts and follow up. There are always hangouts going on G+. Don’t be shy. Jump into one. Introduce yourself. Say hello. Spend an hour or so just chatting with folks. Get to know them.

If there is someone who you find interesting, be sure to follow them after the hangout. Maybe even set up a special circle for “people I’ve done hangouts with” and make sure to go back and interact with their posts. Also look for G+ photowalks in your area. These are GREAT ways to interact in a highly personable way with people in the community.

19. Let people know more about you than just your photography. I’m a photographer, but I’m also a husband and father, a blogger, a caretaker of two awesome labradors. I love San Francisco and Oakland and great restaurants and food and wine and especially music. Share not just what you make but who you are.

20. *MOST IMPORTANT* Keep at it. Don’t give up. Charles Bukowski once said that endurance is more important than truth. I don’t know if it really is, but I’ve always liked the way that sounded. DO NOT GIVE UP. It will take you a while to build up friends/traction/an audience etc. This does not just happen overnight. Keep at it and I guarantee you if you plug into the community like I’ve described above and you are a genuinely nice and authentic person, you’ll end up getting a ton out of Google+ both for you and your photography.

Bonus tip for newbies. When you post your photos post them publicly. I see so many new people posting their photos to limited circles. Unless there is a specific reason why you *don’t* want everyone to see your photo, it will get more traction if you post it publicly. If your goal is to get as broad as distribution as possible for your photos, you are limiting friend’s ability to reshare them publicly or most of the world to even see them if you do not set the photo to public when you share it.

By the way, if you want to find some active photographers on G+ to get to know, be sure and check out my 2,000 Kick Ass Photographers on Google+ circle.

You can follow me on Google+ here.

Do you have more tips on using Google+? Be sure to add them here!

Over the course of the past year I’ve immensely enjoyed the photographic community on Google+. As I’ve met new photographers and new members I’ve maintained a circle with some of the photographers that I’ve most enjoyed following. When you make a circle or a list like this you always leave some people out. This is the downside to sharing a circle like this. For the 2,000 that you include, there are 50,000 that you exclude. Hopefully some of these people will be folks that I can reshare when this circle hits 2,500.

The photography community is thriving at Google+. It is a vibrant active place where photographers interact and share their work on a daily basis. Thank you to Google for giving us such a wonderful new platform and such a beautiful and exciting new way to share our work with the world.

If you are not on Google Plus yet, hop on board. Here are some great photographers to start your experience with.

Part 1 of 4 (Photographers A-Ev)
Part 2 of 4 (Photographers Ev-La)
Part 3 of 4 (Photographers La-Ro)
Part 4 of 4 (Photographers Ro-Z)

You can follow me on Google+ here.

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.