Like many web 2.0 sites, Flickr has encouraged other people to build their own online applications that interact with images found on the site. Through the use of APIs (application programming interfaces), many people have created third party tools and mashups that use Flickr images.
Your Task
- Explore some of the fun Flickr mashups and 3rd party tools. There are links to a few in the 'Resources' section below. Too many to write instructions for, but most links have step-by-step prompts or links to help.
- Create a blog post about one that intrigues you.
- Optional - display your creation in your blog (see below)
Note: Not all of the Flickr mashups require you to create something to display in your blog (eg: Flickr Colour Pickr). To complete this task, blog about which mashup you chose to explore and what you liked/didn't like. Adding something to your blog is an optional activity.
Display your creation in your blog
Most of these tools will allow you select and present Flickr photos in interesting ways and posting them on your blog. The slideshow of the VU Library photoset you see on the right is an example of uniting our Flickr photos with a free tool called flickrSLIDR (NOTE: You are not limited to using photos you have uploaded yourself). These tools will generate some html code to paste into your blog.
Getting the code into your Blogger blog:
- Log into Blogger
- Click on Dashboard
- Click on Layout
- Click 'Add a Gadget'
- Find 'HTML/Javascript' and click the 'Add' button (which looks like a plus sign)
- Give the element a title
- Paste in the html code provided by the online app
- Click on Save
Displaying Flickr pictures in your Wordpress blog
Unfortunately most of the 3rd party Flickr tools are not compatible with Wordpress. If you want to display some Flickr images in your sidebar, you will have to subscribe to the rss feed (see things 9-10 for more info on this) of the particular user, group or tags (but not sets!) you are interested in.
- In Flickr, look for some 'Subscribe to...' text accompanied by the little orange RSS symbol and click on it.
- This will open a new browser window containing code which represents the rss feed. Copy the url you see in the address bar.
- Log into Wordpress
- Click on Dashboard
- Click on Design
- Click on Widgets
- Look for the 'Flickr' widget and click Add
- A box will appear on the right side of the screen - click on 'Save Changes'
- Click on Edit to make changes to the widget
- Paste in the url for the rss feed you just copied
- Give the Flickr widget a title if you like
- Select how many photos you would like displayed
- Click on Change
- Click on Save changes again
Note: It may seem that the pictures displayed on the side of your blog never change. They will only change if the user uploads more photos to their flickr account if you have subscribed to a user feed, or more photos are added to a particular group if you have chosen a group feed. The feed with the most rapid amount of change will probably be Tags.
Resources
- Flickr Services - Featured online Flickr apps
- Flickr Badge - Creates a mosaic of photos to put on the sidebar of your blog
- Mappr - allows you to take Flickr images and paste them on a map
- Flickr Color Pickr - lets you find public photos in Flickr that match a specific color.
- Montagr – create a photo mosaic from photos found on Flickr.
- More Flickr Tools from Big Huge Labs. You will need to log in to BHL to save/export your creations. Feel free to use our generic account, which we've set up using the same account details used to log into Flickr.
- Wordpress: Using the Flickr Widget
Next Week
You will have more opportunity to unleash the online artist within by playing with some Image Generators. The cataloguer within will also have a chance to create a virtual bookshelf using LibraryThing.
No comments:
Post a Comment