Flickr: The Perfect Web 2.0 Site

I started using Flickr last week, and I must say that it is very impressive. The site is smooth, simple and functional. Flickr follows many of the Web 2.0 themes, including tags and widgets of sorts.

Upon first seeing the site, I was impressed at the Web 2.0 feel of it. The navigation bar at the top of the pages are smart – they allow quick access to common features. Searching through the large community’s photos is easy too: you can search your photos, everyone’s photos, or Flickr groups from one search box.

I found that uploading photos is extremely easy with one of several Flickr Uploadr programs, which can be found for most of the popular operating systems. The Windows version is really a snap. You can drag pictures into the window or ad them with a browse dialog box. You can add tags to all the pictures you are uploading (although all of the pictures will share the same set of tags, which is not always desirable) and place them in a set before the upload process begins.

Flickr’s site has many tools for working with your photos, not all of which I have experimented with yet. A kind of useful one is the mapping, which lets you tag a photo with coordinates from a Yahoo-powered map. Privacy advocates should be careful and remember not to tag pictures with, say, the location of your house. I also like tagging, although thinking of the best ones (not just for photos, but also for blog posts and the like) can be challenging.

Flickr beats Kodak EasyShare Gallery (formerly Ofoto) hands down. Even though I have used Kodak’s service for a while, the features that Flickr give you are way more comprehensive, and experienced users will find much to like in the Web 2.0-oriented product.