May 21, 2014

Google Plus: The best photo-sharing social network none of your friends are on

Yesterday Google Plus announced a few new features for its Photos product which sound really attractive and innovative. Problem is no one is using Google+. And by no one I mean none of your real life friends or relatives, of course. Yes, there’s a very active user base who swears by the tech giant’s social network. People like Mike Elgan and his posse. But take me for instance. I have 267 friends on Facebook. Guess how many real life folks I’m connected to on G+. About a dozen. Which wouldn’t be all that bad if it weren’t for the fact that out of those 12 or so people only ONE ever shares anything on G+.

As much as I like Google’s social network (not only do I keep a page there for this blog but also a somewhat active personal profile) there’s no denying that for the average Joe no matter how many exciting new features you bring to the table, if no one’s looking at your photos or updates there’s no point in leaving one social network in favor of one hardly anyone you know is using.

The new features

In any case, if you’re big on Google Plus, yesterday was probably a big day for you. Google announced a couple of new features involving the photos and videos you automatically backup to their servers (in case you’ve elected to use that feature available in G+’s mobile apps). First there’s Auto Awesome Movies, which consists of Google putting together a nice short video with some photos and videos highlighting that birthday party or picnic outing you went out on last weekend, with background music and all. This feature is not particularly new. It had been around for some time but available only on certain devices. You would get notified of a new Auto Awesome movie when using your Nexus 7 tablet, for instance; only to later find out said movie was not available on either the web or your smartphone. I guess the news here is that as of now you’ll get access to these movies no matter what platform you’re on.

On the other hand, the new story here is, well… Stories. That is what Google is calling the collection of photos and videos it puts together for you using, like I said before, the images and videos you automatically back up to Google Plus. The difference seems to lie in whether your video is made from images taken during a one-night event (in which case we’d be talking about an Auto Awesome Movie) or over the span of several days (like a trip to the Bahamas for instance), where Stories come into play.

Bottom Line

I’m glad that now every time I get a notification from G+ telling me I have a new Auto Awesome Movie ready for viewing I’ll be able to see it from whatever device I happen to be on at the time, be it my laptop, tablet or smartphone. The problem, once again, is that most likely I’ll be the only one doing all the viewing. If only G+ gave you an option to share all of these beautiful photos and awesome videos outside of Google+ with the people you care about and not the friendly online stranger you’ve got to deal with there. You have no idea how frustrating it’s been to have these super cool videos made for you (like when my 2 girls put on a ballet recital for Mother’s Day) to then realize there’s no way to share that with your mom.

Unless your mom’s on Google+.

Yeah, right.

March 27, 2014

Gotta get out of this writer’s block

So here I am, just trying to force myself out of this very prolonged writer’s block I’ve been immersed in, by posting something, whatever to this blog; even if it’s just an image that reflects what writer’s block can sometimes feel like.

Now, another couple of reasons which helped this post see the light of day is on the one hand me figuring out how to embed the Getty Image seen above, and on the other, experimenting with how this post reaches my Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Tumblr accounts the moment this post goes live thanks to the miracle of Publicize brought to you by the good folks at WordPress. Let’s see how this goes.

October 14, 2013

Flickr’s New Photo Experience

Today Flickr’s letting you and everyone else catch a glimpse of what its photo pages will look like once they’re rolled out later this year. Three improvements mentioned in Flickr’s blog post:

The photo will be noticeably bigger; 25% bigger in fact. With nothing above or below it. Neat.
The info and action buttons (to favorite or comment on a photo) have been moved to a sidebar, a la Google+.
Photos will load a lot faster. They don’t say exactly how much faster but when I tried it I didn’t see any difference. Actually clicking on the photo wouldn’t do anything, contrary to the announcement that it would take you to the next photo. Bugs that need to be ironed out, I guess.

Little Cottonwood Creek - Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Flickr’s new photo experience. How do you like it?

I love the fact that Yahoo! isn’t about to let Flickr die out. The improvements, changes and new features seem to be continually rolling out so kudos to CEO Marissa Mayer and the Flickr team for keeping this legendary service alive and well.

August 2, 2013

My thoughts on new SmugMug

SmugMug, the premium photo hosting/sharing site, rolled out the new version of its service on Tuesday and while you still can’t follow other SmugMug photographers or join groups or communities, there’s no doubt the looks you can now give your site are really stunning in comparison with what you had before, specially if you have a Basic account, like myself.

My old SmugMug homepage (above) vs the new version of it.

I would’ve loved a more social SmugMug, one where interactions with other photographers were easier to achieve, but I guess the site will for now continue to be aimed at pros looking for a place to host and share their portfolios with potential customers. I guess it’s also nice to see the MacAskills and company have a clear road map of where it is they want their company to be headed: mostly a place to host, design and market professional photography websites while also offering the occasional amateur a place online to store and share photos of birthday parties and trips to the beach.

They have made the entire customizing process incredibly easy. Whereas before you needed to get your hands dirty with code in order to have your site look exactly they way you intended, now it’s only a matter of dragging and dropping content blocks and choosing the colors and fonts you want. In other words, if you can use a mouse, you can put together an amazing-looking site in a matter of minutes. It’s that easy, really.