Flickr Stat Facts
Before PinInterest, before Tumbler, before Facebook, there was a social network called Flickr , where people shared their photos. Flickr is still alive and well. I don’t come across many friends and family who stay active in that community, however, Stew and I are still busy with our Flickr account; even to the point of paying our $24 per year fee to be considered ‘pro’ Flickr account members. Part of the reason we love flickr is the statistical information it provides. We know how many times each of our photos has been viewed and for the most part…..where a viewer was (internet-wise) when they saw our photograph and clicked on it. (for example….say you do a search in the Google ‘image’ category and a bunch of pictures pop up for your perusal....there is a chance that one of our flickr pictures will appear and you might click on it to see a bigger version of said photo…. yeah…well….we can totally track that shit) We can also look at a graph comparing the total daily views of our photo stream in the past and which individual pictures were viewed most often on each day. I explain this because viewing those stats., I’ve come across an interesting anomaly.
This past weekend, Stewart and I took some pictures of individuals competing in an anime cosplay contest at the 2012 Seattle Dragonfest and uploaded some of the best shots to our Flickr account. When we do this, we can expect our flickr views to increase like crazy during the following days…..because people are interested in getting a second peek at those costumes….plus….all of those anime character contestants and their friends and their families are searching the internet for the contestant’s photo. We’ve discovered that if we don’t know the name of a cosplay character we photograph, we can type ‘character ID please’ on the picture…and chances are someone viewing the photo will give us the answer. Sometimes the answers even come from the photo subject themselves, as in the case of this picture of Keiji Maeda, who left the comment under our flickr picture,
"That's Keiji Maeda. That's me!"
Most likely, when Keiji stumbled across our flickr picture, he contacted everyone he knew to let them know that he could be viewed on the internet. As well he should, isn't he a cutie? And look at the size of that sword. ;) Anyway, due to this phenomenon, photos on our flickr account have been clicked on over 400 times total each day...the last couple of days.
The weird thing? No matter what the photo event of the weekend...no matter how frenzied the viewer searches are....no matter how many times a photographed stranger wants to click and see themselves, two of our photos, taken years ago ...always...always end up remaining in our top ten viewed photos every day. Now these photos aren't, in my opinion, the most interesting or the best quality photos either of us has ever taken. In fact, I couldn't even tell you which of us took the pictures. (that's how much of an impact the two photos had on me) However, people seem to love these pictures...the picture of a single rose...and the picture of the bottom half of a fat cat lying under a coffee table. (that picture of Bela has been viewed almost 25,000 times since it was uploaded)
So odd, eh? Just can't predict what photos will catch the attention of others. But, it is fun to give it a try.