User:Jjnee/my sandbox

Flickr Technological Infrastructure

Tier Diagram

The three tiers of Flickr.

There are three major layers to the function of Flickr, as displayed by this diagram. The data consists of photo items, text from discussions and comments. These information are contributed by the users, who belongs to communities within Flickr, be it the entire website or smaller units such as Groups. The three tiers are data, users, and community.

Data: Are individual items, including individual photos, albums, all of the user-written text, location logs, and any detailed information that an user might want to consume from the site.

User: Are people who uses the website for all the functions it provides. Users are also the people who provides all the information others wish to obtain. Without the user, Flickr would be an empty frame with no flesh because the flesh are provided by the users.

Community: A user belongs to at least one community: Flickr itself. Others may choose to join a Group. Users makes up a community, and within the community, data/contents are shared and exchanged.

Major Functions Of Flickr

A function is a tool or process utilized to fulfill a purpose. The central purpose of the website Flickr, is to allow users from across the globe to come together and share ideas and media with each other (namely photos and videos). The major functions of Flickr include uploading photos, commenting and favoriting, adding a contact, and using the explore and group functions. The following is the rationale as to why each of the functions listed about is relevant toward meeting Flickr's goal of sharing ideas and media across the globe.

The uploading feature is obviously important because it is the basis for the entire website. The website runs by people uploading photos and videos to the site. These photos and videos are the items that draw people together in the pursuit of creating and appreciating art.

The commenting and favoriting functions is also essential for Flickr to achieve it's goal. The user experience of Flickr would be drastically reduced if users could only view the work of others and had no ability to comment or favorite them. These two features allow for artists to get valuable feedback on their art as well as allowing viewers to express their feelings toward the art of others.

The contacts/subscribe feature allows users to follow the uploads of other users. It's important because it makes finding the kind of photos and videos you want to see easily accessible and greatly enhances the user experience of the website. This also bring users with similar taste together to maximize the opportunity and likeliness of interactions to take place.

The explore feature is important to the Flickr because it helps spread new and upcoming photos around the site at a highly accelerated rate. This allows for more buzz around the site and gives users motivation to produce the highest quality work, perhaps someday they too could have a photo featured in the explore category.

The group function is important to Flickr's setup because (like the contact/subscribe function) it brings people with similar interests and or tastes together into a group. This group of people can get excited together about sharing photos and videos with a particular theme special to the group. Thus, the overall enjoyment of using the website is increased through this sense of community.

Upload

Description: The upload feature is used to add pictures and videos to a user’s profile. Here’s how that happens…

When one clicks on the upload feature in Flickr, the browser first displays the percentage of a user’s 300MB monthly photo limit that has been utilized. This allows the user to know how many photos and videos he/she can upload. Alongside this percentage, a link is provided in which a user can go to upgrade his or her account limits. Then, displayed lower on the page is the three-step process utilized to upload photos and videos.

Step 1: a link titled ‘Choose Photos and Videos’ must be clicked. Once clicked, the user is displayed an organized list of possible places in which he/she could find his/her photos and or videos. A search bar is also included to make locating one’s documents even faster. Once the user has selected his/her image or video, it is displayed in a table with its file name and size as well as an action key that allows the user to remove it from his/her queue. In this first step, the user can choose to add as many photos as he/she would like using the process described above. As one adds photos, a program keeps a running tally of how much space each photo takes up as well as a grand total for all the uploads combined. Then, once the desired photos and videos have been chosen, the user determines which privacy level he/she wants to attach to these photos and videos. The privacy choices are private, visible to friends, visible to family, or pubic.

Step 2: once the user has signified the desired privacy level for all the photos, he/she clicks the action button ‘upload photos.’ Once this button gets clicked, an algorithm is run that uploads the files into Flickr’s data tier.

Step 3: once the uploading is complete, the user is provided a link ‘add a description.’ Once clicked, the next web page displayed gives the user the option of adding tags to this group of photos by typing text into a text box. There is another option to add these photos and videos to existing sets of photos and videos. Additionally, texts boxes are provided for a user to author the titles and descriptions of each individual photo. Once the user is satisfied with the photo titles, descriptions, and tags he/she clicks the last action button: ‘Save.’ Clicking the save button stores one’s photos and videos in the Flickr data tier and the user has successfully utilized the upload feature.

User Interface: The user interface of the Upload function is a series of links, buttons and text boxes. ‘Choose photos and videos’ (link) ‘Upload Photos and Videos’ (action button) ‘Add a Description’ (link) ‘Add Tags’ (text box) ‘Add to a Set (box with preset file names) ‘Title’ (text box) ‘Description’ (text box) ‘Save’ (action button)

Algorithm: There is an algorithm that converts the image files on your computer to image files on the Flickr website. Likewise, after a user selects all the files he/she wants to upload, he/she clicks the ‘Upload Photos and Videos’ action button. This triggers an algorithm that takes the image file itself as well as each files privacy setting and stores them in the data tier of Flickr. Then after a user fills in the photo or video title, description, and tags, then an algorithm places each of these categories in the right place when the photo or video is displayed on the Flickr website.

Comment/Favorite

Description: An important function in Flickr is the commenting and favorite function. The commenting and favorite function allows users to post reactions and messages pertaining to an image. Comments help to drive the social aspect of Flickr as it allows for communication between users. Comments and notifications of users who favorite the particular photo are displayed (along with a timestamp) below the image under a ‘Comments and faves’ header. The comment and favorite function displays comments and notifications of users who favorite a photo as a vertical sequence. The function relies heavily upon interactions between the user type and image type. The image has comments which are modified by users, whose information can be accessed after they post.

User Interface: At the bottom of the comments page users may type messages in a box, with the option to preview or post their comment. Below the box a ‘Want to format your comment?’ button reveals to the user various codes which can be used in order to format their text. Around the top left corner of the image is a button labeled ‘favorite’ that lets users add a photo or video to their compiled favorites list. If a user favorites an image, a message in the comments section of the image will appear saying that the user has added this photo to their favorites. A Link to a user’s profile page is displayed as their profile picture next to their comment. Additionally, a dropdown menu of links to various other pages of that user’s profile appears when the mouse hovers over the specified profile picture.

Algorithm: Once a user comments on a photo, that comment is stored with the other comments server-side. If a user favorites an image, a link to the image appears in that user’s ‘Your Favorites’ section of their profile. The comment or notification of a favorite is then added onto the displayed sequence under the image.

Contacts/Subscribe

Description: Users can mark anyone they meet or invite in Flickr as a contact and can organize them into friends, family, or friends and family. A feature that Flickr offers to monitor updates includes subscriptions particularly via RSS feeds. When you upload a photo, users can choose to share it with the people they know. The site offers a few RSS subscription options which provide feeds for public photos & video, friends’ photostream, public favorites from a user, group discussions, group pools, forum discussions, recent activity on your photo stream, and recent comments users make. This allows for ease of access to view photos of interests between users, friends, and the rest of the Flickr community.

User Interface: In order to add a contact, click on the drop-down arrow next to the buddy icon, and select the "add" option. Users can also add someone upon viewing their profile page by clicking the "Add [user name] as a contact" link in the upper right of the page. There's a link to invite your friends in the Contacts menu. As a user adds people to an invitation, they can mark them as a friend or family. When someone accepts an invitation, they'll be made the user's contact automatically, and a message will be sent through FlickrMail to let the user know. Below someone's favorites, users can click a blue link, "Subscribe to favorites" and the user will be notified when anything has been added to that string of favorites. There are also various tools that allow more flexibility for user control over RSS feeds of Flickr images. Users can set whatever level of privacy they are comfortable with on using the Privacy Settings page to determine who is eligible to view their content. Users are also able to remove contacts or unsubscribe by clicking the drop-down menu next to the buddy icon and selecting "change".

Algorithm: The "People you may know" module on the home page and in Flickr suggestions looks at who your contacts follow to show users Flickr members that you may know or whose photography you might be interested in following. If there is someone whose face a user doesn't want popping up every time just click the X on the right of the suggestion and they won't show up again.

Explore

Description: Flickr's Explore feature grants users easy access to the photo community’s most talked about images, in addition to making it easier to find photos that might interest a broad spectrum of users. Each day 500 photos, (or 0.005% of the uploaded content) are chosen to be featured on the Explore page, based on what Flickr deems “interesting”. “Interestingness” is Flickr’s way of analyzing the community’s reaction to an image. Flickr alternates a handful of the chosen images to be displayed on it's Explore homepage, while the others are viewable by clicking on various links. This function also allows you to browse the site's photos by grouping together the most explored images by calendar day and explored photos from the last 7 days. Additionally, it provides links that take you to the world map, as well as featured groups, sets, and, tags.

User Interface: The Explore page is split into six sub sections, with a few loosely associated links. The six sub sections include: Select a Month which features a drop down menu displaying months as an index, ranging from as early as July 2004, to the current month. A Year Ago Today which displays the most explored images from exactly a year ago, and provides a link to the users' photostream and profile. Sets which has links and a thumbnail to three sets from three different users. Groups which has links and a thumbnail to three different groups. Where'd You Take That? which allows the user to type in a location in order to search for photos with the map, as well as links to suggested maps. Explore Flickr Through Tags which lists various tags in alphabetical order, each encoded with a hyperlink that takes you to a page full of images with the associated tag.

Algorithm: The main feature of Explore, is it's ability to display the site's top rated photos of that day. Which photos achieve 'Explore' status is determined by Flickr’s “Interestingness algorithm”. The algorithm takes into account "Where the clickthroughs are coming from; who comments on it and when; who marks it as a favorite; its tags and many more things which are constantly changing". With time, the algorithm changes what is deemed interesting, as more photos are uploaded to site.

Info Types and Organizational Structures The Explore page utilizes photos, albums, groups, maps, links, and indexes in order to point visitors in the right direction. The albums, groups, and maps are visible on the main explore page, and provide links to the suggested pages that correspond to the info type. On the bottom of the page is a section where tags are listed in alphabetical order, and by clicking on a tag, you are directed to a page that has photos that may be displayed by most recent or most interesting.

Groups

Description: Groups is a function that provides community within all of Flickr. Any member can start a group and the creator can choose to which privacy setting a group will comply. The settings are public (anyone can join), public (invitation only), and private. A group mostly shares a common photography interest, and all member of the group may contribute photo entries to the Group Pool. There is also a discussion board for the group in which members may discuss topics and communicate with each other. Within a group, users can also view a map that shows the location of the photos posted by their respective contributors. To search for a particular photo or keyword, groups also provides a search function. On the main page of the group, the number of total group members are displayed, and by clicking on the link, a list of all members and administrators of the group are presented.

User Interface: Upon clicking the Groups page, users are presented with Groups you belong to followed by the total numbers of groups an user has joined in parenthesis. On the right, a search bar allows the user to search for all public groups with keywords. Below the search bar, a section shows Groups from our sponsors which features groups made by the official sponsors of Flickr. Then there is Groups we've noticed, which spotlights active and high quality groups picked by the Flickr staff. All of the featured groups also have number of members, number of items, and a short description of the group attached with it in the display. The Groups page also provides three user-specific links: Recent Changes, Invites for you, and Search for a Group. The Recent Changes link leads user a list of newest activities of the groups the user is a part of. Invites for you shows the users all the invitations from other groups while Search for a Group leads to a standard search page where users can find more groups to join.

Algorithm: When a user joins a group, the user becomes a member and the group will be displayed upon the user's visit to the Groups page. If a user enters a keyword for the search function, a list of groups related to the keyword is displayed at the results page so the user may browse through the list.

Flickr Information Infrastructure

Information modeling is a representation of entity types that includes properties, relationships, and the applications to them. Information contain types which have attributes, which have values, which are all grouped together into information items. An info model describes info types which can include users, groups, photos, albums, and maps. The info model can define attributes, specifying the values which the attribute contains by representing the concepts and relationships of data exposition. It provides an organized structure of information requirements for the allocation of data.

A Basic Flickr Info Model

Basic information model of Flickr.

This diagram displays Flickr's most important types (users, groups, photos, albums, and maps) as blue ovals, otherwise called nodes. Based on this information model, the relationships of one type to another or how all of them are related as a whole are shown on the model as arrows, or links. A diagram such as this allows one to view a visual representation of a site's major concepts and how they interact to give a unique user experience.

Users, groups, photos, albums, and maps, are considered Flickr's most important info types because they embody the key parts of the photo-sharing site. The site is centered around each user, where the user enters information about themselves, and has their own page on the site. Users have the choice to join one or more groups and each group offers a theme, and forums discussing said theme. Groups allow users to share their photos on a group gallery for members to view and comment on. Photos contain information about the photo itself including, a title, description, the date it was taken, where, using what settings, in which format, etc. Photos are the types that are shared and viewed among users. Albums are a concise concept and includes information such as a title, description, the date it was taken, and total number of photo views. Albums allow users to organize photos together. Maps hold information that includes where photos were taken.

Flickr’s photos are uploaded by users, organized into albums and maps, and can be viewed by users. Users can create albums of their photos along with creating and joining groups. Group members can upload photos to a group album called the ‘Group Pool.’

This diagram shows photos as the hub of the Flickr info types, linking each node to another. Users have access to albums, photos, and groups, while albums, groups and maps all have photos. Albums, groups, and maps are a way of organizing a user's photos, depending on what they want to achieve. They may want others to view it, therefore groups and maps would be the best option, or they might want to organize them on their own page, thus albums would be the better solution.

Flickr's Information Types

Users Attribute --> Value. User name --> One or more words (Can include numbers).

Contacts --> Link to contacts, whole number (up to 3,000).

Archives --> Link to archives, whole numbers, dates.

Album covers --> A photo from album set.

Photo Upload Date --> Month, Day, Year.

Privacy & Permission --> Set who can view, comment, and add notes, tags, and people to your content (only you, public, contacts, friends/family).

Profile picture --> A default photo.

Photos

Attribute-->Value Pattern.

Artist-->One or more words.

Date Taken-->Month, Day, Year.

Title-->One or more words (can include numbers).

Description-->One word to multiple paragraphs.

Comments-->Text, one word to multiple paragraphs.

Privacy Level-->One of four preset conditions (public, visible to friends, visible to family, private).

Albums

Album type diagram, displaying where each attribute is located.

Attribute --> Value.

Title --> One or more words. (can include numbers)

Description --> From one word to multiple paragraphs.

Cover Image --> A photo from the set.

Number of photos --> Range of whole numbers from one to as many as the user can fit on his/her memory allocation.

Views --> Whole numbers from 0 to a very high number.

Date --> Month, Day, year.

Groups

On Flickr, users can create Groups, a conglomeration of users who share in the same photographic interests as other users. Groups have attributes such as a group name, a group photo pool which houses member submitted media, an ‘About’ page where a description can be written, and a discussion forum where members can start threads and discuss related topics. Group names must be text only, along with the description in the about page. Photos and video are the only kinds of media that may be submitted to the photo pool. An additional information section also houses a host of attributes of the group.

Name --> Accepts a String.

Photo Pool --> Accepts photos or video from members only.

About --> Accepts a String.

Discussion --> Accepts new threads.

Privacy --> Private or Public.

Post Limit --> Integer value.

Maps

World Map --> An entire image.

Location of photo --> Small red dots on the world map.

Photo item on location --> An photo image attached to the photobelt.

Photo belt --> Thumbnails of the photos from an album or a group pool.

Group/Album --> A hyperlinked string that links to the whole set.

Sorting --> Sorting of the photos by interesting or recent.

Flickr Organizational Structures

People organize information in order to make researching a topic much faster and more effective. For example, if one has a question on a certain topic, he or she can easily locate information online because it has already been organized. Can you imagine trying to locate information on a specific topic on the web if the information wasn’t organized? The internet has so much content this would be impossible! Luckily for us though, the internet has been organized, and these are the four main types of organization…

Hierarchy

The basic idea of a hierarchy is that it is a table of contents. Hierarchies can organize information on websites and all kinds of other information systems. Basically what happens is that information is categorized into groups and broken down into more specific topics inside each group. Generally, the larger the amount of data is, the more levels there will be in a hierarchy.

Index

An index consists of alphabetically or numerically organized terms. The important thing about these terms is that they linked to the area where that term is used. For example in books, the index consists of terms and the pages they are listed on. On the web, an index also contains words, however they are linked to the webpage they are used on. Basically, an index has terms and a link to where these terms are used.

Link

Links, also known as associations, are point to point connections between related information. To be put in lamented terms, just about every topic in existence is related to at least one other topic. These related topics are bound to overlap in some way whether it be an idea or a term. When this overlap occurs, there are links provided to go from one topic to the other in order to get a fuller understanding of each. The most common type of link is blue hypertext, but there are other forms. In essence, these links are connections between related material.

Sequence

A sequence is a form of organization that deals with items being displayed in a particular order. The information is related in such a way that the best way for it to be viewed is in a particular series. For example, take the pages of a book. The pages are a sequence because they are supposed to be read in a particular order. It wouldn’t make sense to read page 10 of a book and then jump to page 68 without reading all the pages in between. Similarly, certain contents on the web, are best understood in a certain order. Thus, sequences are used to organize them.

Your Photostream

By default the Photostream organizes of all of a user’s uploaded media into a chronological sequence. Thumbnails of the media are displayed in chronological order, and link to the webpage which contains the video or photo. The user can choose to organize their uploads by putting them into into sets, galleries, and adding tags. The Photostream is an efficient way to view all of a user’s media in one place, with different ways of viewing that media.

Sets and Galleries: Sets and galleries are displayed in what seems to be a chronological sequence, but also links to the specific set or gallery of images or video. As such this makes them hierarchical, where one must access the Photostream, the set or gallery, then the image within a set or gallery.

Tags: Tags are organized in alphabetical order and link to the user's media which have been tagged with that word. In the way tags are displayed on Flickr, this makes it an index.

Your Contacts

File:YOUR CONTACTS.png

This Flickr screenshot displays the organizational structure used to display a user’s contacts.

Description

‘Your Contacts’ is an assortment of photos that is randomly generated each time you enter your home page. These photos belong to different artists that you are connected with. Each time you refresh your home page on Flickr, new pictures from the same or from different contacts are displayed in this area. This organizational structure doubles as both links and a hierarchy. When a user clicks on an individual photo displayed in the ‘Your Contacts’ page area, he or she is taken to the page for that individual photo. There is no relation to the artists other photos or any other artist on this page, therefore, clicked on a photo is clicking on a link. However, this display also doubles as a hierarchy in this way. When a user clicks on an artist’s name, he or she is taken to that artist’s photostream or table of contents if you will. From there, the user can navigate through the artists photo collection. In this way, the ‘Your Contacts’ organizational structure doubles as links and as a hierarchy.

Functionality

The informational types being used in the ‘Your Contacts’ page are photos and artists. The thing about this feature that makes it not the most optimal in efficiency is the fact that the photos and artist are randomly generated each time. Granted there most likely is an algorithm used to place artists and photos you visit more frequently more prevalent in the listings, however there still remains an element of randomness that makes the ‘Your Contacts’ feature not the best. On the other hand, even though it doesn’t always display the artists and photos you most enjoy, the randomness of the ‘Your Contacts’ organizational structure also exposes you to contacts and photos you might not have seen otherwise, so it’s a double edged blade.

Groups

Description

The Groups page uses groups, links, and search to help the users find a suitable group to join and communicate with. Once the user reaches a group, then specific photo items from the Group Pool are displayed along with the submitter and other members of the group. The group itself is the largest component in which members, administrators, items and discussions falls under.

Groups you belong to: A list of all groups are presented as a sequence chronologically according to the date the user added the group.

Groups from our sponsors: A random selection of groups created by Flickr sponsors are also listed on the Groups page as a sequence.

Groups we've noticed: Also another sequential presentation, but this time of spotlighted groups.

Group Pool: From within the group itself, all the photos are displayed in a sequential manner as well. Upon clicking, the thumbnails link the user to its respective photo page.

Members: On the group main page, a link is provided for users to see all other users who are also a part of the group. The members are presented as a sequential order according to the date the users joined the group.

Explore/Everyone's Photos

Flickr's Explore UI

Explore is a section of the Flickr site that allows users to browse through photos that are receiving the largest influx of feedback from the community. The page itself is split to give each sub-section it's own space. Explore allows users to view photos arranged by the date, interestingness, sets, groups, location, and tag, along with a list of links to recommended portions of the site. This is one of the ways Flickr chooses to organize the site's photos, albums, groups, and maps. Though the homepage of Explore is somewhat organized, the links generally lead you to a page where the photos are in no particular order, but are linked to the user's photostream. By doing this, Flickr gives the user the freedom to browse, but in an organized manner. It is important to remember that Explore only features a fraction of the uploaded content to the site, and that exploration can be done even without using this function.

Exploring by selecting a month: Browsing through photos by calendar date is achievable through an index that displays the date by month and year.

Places to Explore: Flickr offers a list of places to visit within the site, each with a link navigating to that page.

Sets and Groups: Sets and Groups are displayed as a sequences, each with it's own link to the set or group's main page.

Map: The map allows you to enter a location in a text box, which then transports you to the map page. There the images are returned as a sequence, all of which geotagged with the corresponding location.

Tags: Links are organized alphabetically as an index, and bring you to a page that displays images with those tags. The order of those images is based on relevance as well as most recent.

Flickr Blog

A link from the bottom of your homepage should bring you to the Flickr blog. A set of photos representing a portrayed theme is uploaded on a daily basis on the Flickr blog. They share intricate artistic values that coincide with the specified theme. Each photo contains a unique heading with an upload date. The photos are chosen by Flickr staff, but a lot of them are favorites of the Flickr community. Some of the photos also contain comments or a description of the photo. You are able to see every single photo uploaded to the blog by viewing the archives section. The Flickr blog also informs users of Community events which you can add to. This is a great way to connect to Flickr facility along with other users who share personal interests.

Only Flickr can create blogs on Flickr blog but you can create galleries to gather photos on a theme. You can also set up your own blog you can either blog photos straight from Flickr to the blog, or you can post via the blog dashboard, and link photos or embed slideshows from Flickr. Flickr supports the following blogging services:

• Blogger
• LiveJournal
• Meta Weblog API Enabled Blogs
• Tumblr
• WordPress