Photo Products to Watch in 2008

2008 is shaping up to be a interesting year to try out new things when it comes to digital photos. From photo transfer technology, to wall hanging, to photo sharing services, here are a few things I'll be using in 2008.

Derek Powazek Says Goodbye to JPG Magazine

Wow, interesting things from community people are just rolling off the presses lately. Derek Powazek is leaving JPG Magazine and 8020 Publishing (the companies he founded) - due to a disagreement with the partners. It's so sad to see someone work so hard and be so passionate about a community project only to see it controlled by someone else. His passion made it successful, just like Matt Haughey at MetaFilter.

Stewart Butterfield on CNN.com

Stewart Butterfield is one of the co-founders of Flickr, which is a photo sharing site that has been the subject of a near-absolute love-fest among geeky types for years. It has become one of the most cited examples of Web 2.0. I use it everyday and so do my friends. Flickr does do so, so many things right. Anyway, Stewart was interviewed by CNN recently. (watch Video with different content)

My favorite answer from the interview:

Tagging for Mom and Pop

We stayed at a small mom and pop “resort" in the San Juan Islands last weekend called WestBeach Resort. There were three families there and all have at least one blog. Everyone took pictures and everyone has Flickr. Aside from marveling at the total nerd-dom of all involved, I thought about tagging.

I’ve tagged all of my photos from the trip on Flickr (and this post) with the “westbeach” tag. This made me think about the folks who run WestBeach and what this tagging stuff means to them. Here are some (admittedly idealistic) thoughts…

Yahoo Acquires Flickr

So I just heard the big news. Yahoo actually does acquire Flickr

From Caterina:

Holy smokes, SOMEBODY out there is bad at keeping secrets!! Yes! We can finally confirm that Yahoo has made a definitive agreement to acquire Flickr and us, Ludicorp. Smack the tattlers and pop the champagne corks!

How cool. Congrats to the Ludicorp folks. They deserve it all. Great people and a quality product win again.

Thanks for the link Kris.

Behold the Power of Tags

You've likely heard of "The Gates", an art installation in Central Park by the Christo and Jeanne-Claude.

The other night, I thought about how I would be taking a bunch of photos if I were there. Then I thought- I bet there are some good ones, let's check Flickr". I searched for the tag "thegates" and found over 1200 photos of the art installation. It took maybe 10 seconds for me to find them. It was overwhelming, but really satisfying too.