Chris,
Wildiaries does all this. It is not as refined as Flickr, yet, but we're
working on refining the image management and location user interface at the
moment. The benefit over Flickr is that the site is devoted to wildlife and
conservation and that we are tailoring it to your needs. In response to your
points:
FLICKR In sets: you could, for example, have a set for "2009" and another
for "Raptors" and another for "Central Australia". You can then put a
single photo into multiple sets.
WILDIARIES You can create photo galleries within photos galleries -
http://wildiaries.com/users/75-Odonutter/gallery_types/custom/galleries/3/pictures.
You can add images to galleries when you tag photos in a trip - note, the
current image tagging functionality is being replaced with a much simpler
Java-based image tagging tool next week some time, which will enable multiple
species tagging. You can also individually tag and manage images later.
FLICKR Using tags: further, you can
add tags, or keywords to your photos. Obvious ones are the species
name, but many of the "field guide" groups that exist go right up
through genus, family, order, etc. Want to search for all your records
for a given species? search for the tags.
WILDIARIES It allows you to tag by species, gender, latitude / longitude,
caption (tags can be added here, comma separated) are all added to images.
Images are auto-tagged to trip and user. It automatically generates species
pages in your diary (see mine here:
http://wildiaries.com/users/75-Odonutter/gallery_types/species/galleries).
Note, this is my page for all my overall Wildiaries sites - I am a member of
multiple ones, so I have diaries for herps, birds, mammals, dragonflies and
butterflies. This way, I can track everything at once. This is my birding
diary: http://aussiebirding.wildiaries.com/users/75-Odonutter.
I also have one for my world marine trips. I can create a Wildiaries site for
any group of animals anywhere in the world...just ask!
FLICKR Using groups: if several of you join a single group and submit
all your records to the one group, you'll quickly get a big picture
WILDIARIES It allows users to collaborate on trip reports. Multiple people can
write the text and upload images for one trip. Here is an example that Chris
Sanderson and I did: http://aussiebirding.wildiaries.com/trips/142. There is no
limit. A tour group can, for example, create a trip and have clients generate
the content.
FLICKR Geographic location: this is the killer - you can browse maps of the
world and drag your photos to the location you took them. You can also
browse maps and say "show me all records for the map that's currently
on my screen"
WILDIARIES You type a lat and lon / browse Google Maps and then upload your
photos to there. In due course, we'll read image meta data. This will let us
take the lat and lon from your images directly (if you have a GPS-enabled
camera). I agree, drag and drop is really good. We don't have this at the
moment but it is on the 'to do' list.
This is a very useful post for me though. It reflects some of the comments from
others, so we have a list of items to work on. However, there are a heap of
other things we can do as well (which Flickr can't / won't). Flickr, like a lot
of large non-niche websites are not designed to do wildlife social networking.
I go back to my original comment - the tools out there do some, but not all of
the things, that wildlife enthusiasts want.
...Keep in touch. I am always interested in hearing more.
Simon.
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 15:09:15 -0800
From:
Subject: Twitter Problems
To:
CC:
For what it's worth, Twitter is planning to allow users to access all past
messages (making it no longer ephemeral).
In my opinion, social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook can be good
for posting out announcements because people are using such sites as a "one
stop shop" for getting updates from sources they value.
RSS feeds are similar in the sense that if I run my own website with a "what's
new" column and make the news feed available via RSS, then others could grab
that feed, along with feeds of other items of interest. The difference here is
that "my own website" should retain an archive of information long into the
future (which is good) but setting up RSS feeds is that much more tedious for
your audience (in comparison, say, to following someone on Twitter),
which is bad.
How's this for a suggestion? Use Flickr.
Why? You might not even have a photo of your bird. Because with flickr you can
organise your photos in many useful ways. (Instead of a photo, just use a dummy
image - or take a camera with you and when you see a species, write it down,
and the number sighted, and photograph the words - this is important, because
the photo will give you a date and timestamp).
* In sets: you could, for example, have a set for "2009" and another for
"Raptors" and another for "Central Australia". You can then put a single photo
into multiple sets.
* Using tags: further, you can add tags, or keywords to your photos. Obvious
ones are the species name, but many of the "field guide" groups that exist go
right up through genus, family, order, etc. Want to search for all your records
for a given species? search for the tags.
* Using groups: if several of you join a single group and submit
all your records to the one group, you'll quickly get a big picture
* Geographic location: this is the killer - you can browse maps of the world
and drag your photos to the location you took them. You can also browse maps
and say "show me all records for the map that's currently on my screen"
I track sightings records for Tasmanian tigers and have used Google Earth to do
so. That's fine for presenting a bit of a tour, but in order to make the data
really searchable you need to be able to come to each record by different
means, not just location. For example, using tags, sets and the map you could
answer the question "which species did I see with Birdwatch Group X in the
Royal National Park in 2006?"
(PS, of course, each photo - or sighting record - can have a title and
description too).
Chris.
From: Simon Mustoe <>
To:
Sent: Sat, 7 November, 2009 9:13:58 AM
Subject: Twitter Problems
Hi,
Understanding which social networking tools to use, is a big hurdle for most
people. Let's take Twitter as an example. Rampant use of TwitterFeed is
starting to dilute the value of what could be a very useful tool for birding.
TwitterFeed takes the posts from a website and then automatically feeds them
out via Twitter. Then just imagine, another person can take a feed this
TwitterFeed and feed it out again, and so on.
With respect to Russell (sorry Russell, I hope you don't mind
this public opinion, but it's important), I noticed that this is how the
birdline twitter sites are done...the problem is, that it doesn't actually
work...I get the message 'too many tweets' and I can't access content. You can
imagine that the ultimate benefit will be lost. The basic fact is that you can
see this content just by visiting the Eremaea site, so why bother? Secondly,
twitter is ephemeral. There will be no permanent record of the information
gathered. If I recall, something like 2 months until messages drop off into the
ether.
Twitter is about immediate promotion to the world. It is not the right tool for
automatically syndicating content and it is not the right tool if we have any
interest in using posts to generate sightings information.
For many of the social networking tools (Twitter, Facebook etc) there are too
many negatives that, in my view, outweigh the benefits that would be needed for
a sustainable system FOR
CONSERVATION and BIRDING (let's face it, there is no point in doing this if
this isn't the main objective).
Here is a bit of information that may help people understand more about where
to put their information. Note, all the tools for birding are there already.
Use them wisely and draw on their strengths.
A few rules of engagement:
Your personal website is more important than any other. However, be realistic,
your website will never reach its full potential unless you SHARE. Make sure
you track your website using Google Analytics (easy to set up).
Place all your information on your own website, (or the free one that best
suits your needs), but promote yourself widely using the range of available
networking tools (see below). Don't be shy...the true value of your content is
when it is seen by lots of others, not just by you.
Understand the strengths and purpose of the different networking tools (see
below). ONLY use them
for the purpose that they were designed.Do not be tempted to do too much.
Sending every message to all the twitter feeds, every discussion forum etc will
be a waste of your time and may annoy others. Post content that is relevant and
interesting.Make sure you link to content that is 'rich'. There should ideally
be some depth and supporting information to your content.For more information,
see http://blog.wildiaries.com
HOW THE DIFFERENT BIRDING SITES WORK
---------------------------------------------------
BIRDLINE AUSTRALIA / EREMAEA (Web) - run by Richard and Margaret Alcorn. Use
this to submit information about rarities. Access their pages here:
http://www.eremaea.com/BirdlineRecentSightings.aspx?Birdline=6
FORUMS (DISCUSSION) - BirdingOz - Craig Miller's site, aimed at raising
the profile of Australia's birding photographers. Very useful thread-based
discussion forum, distinctly different from Birding-Aus. It caters for lots of
select groups, wanting to discuss particular issues in small sub-forums.
http://www.birdingoz.com.au/
FORUMS (LISTSERVER) - Birding-Aus - A one-stop-shop place for reaching the
majority of mainstream birders in Australia, in one hit. Copy information of
great relevance to the ENTIRE birding community here. Anything that you post to
BirdingOz or Eremaea could end up here. Make use of links, so you can send
people, if necessary, back to your rich content.
TRIP REPORTS (BIRDING DIARY) - Wildiaries - Designed so you can keep a diary of
your activities over time and provide rich content. Post your best images along
with text from your trips. Because images and sightings are associated with
locations, it provides a lasting record of
birding activity and contributes to a growing database of information about
Australian species. Links directly back to your own website. You can even embed
your trips in your blog / website using iframe (like embedding a YouTube video).
Regards,
Simon.
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