Joe Flood

Month: October 2007

  • Fall Foliage, Flickr and the Search for New Business Models

    Flickr’s potential as a resource for photo editors everywhere has yet to be fully tapped. Though some more old school photogs may complain that Flickr has undercut the stock market, the world has changed. Cheap, easy to use DSLRs (like the Canon Digital Rebel XT that I own) have democraticized the expert culture of photography and made a universe of free photos available.  Changes like this make the stock photography business model no longer viable.

    I’m certainly no expert, and I’m not sure I would even claim the title of “photographer.” I’m just someone who enjoys taking and sharing pictures. For this reason, I’m pleased whenever my Flickr photos get picked up by web sites, like the Go Blue Ridge Card Blog, which included one of my pics in their blog. I took the photo almost exactly a year ago, on the way back from a family vacation in Blowing Rock, NC. I was amazed by the colors, especially the reds, and did my best to capture what I saw from the Blue Ridge Parkway.

    Go Blue Ridge Card Blog is produced by Go Card USA.  What do they do?

    Go Card USA produces all-inclusive attraction passes for 12 US Cities. Make the most of your vacation with a pass that gets you unlimited admission to top attractions for one low price.

    In addition to the Blue Ridge Blog, they’re rolling out blogs for all of the cities they serve.  They also have a group on Flickr.  It’s a smart marketing strategy to use free or low-cost tools to get the word out about their product.

    And, as someone who works in the web field, I’m really intrigued by these creative strategies and the possibilities of social media. I, personally, love Flickr and believe that its model of community photo-sharing is just getting started.

  • Comments on Government Blogs

    Government agencies have been slow to embrace blogs.  The reason, IMHO, as a gov’t web site manager, is that government’s approach to content is different.  Government sites are held to a higher standard and subject to more reviews and requirements than commercial sites are.  Agencies are nervous about unmediated communication from official government sites.

    For example, the site I work on, NOAA Ocean Explorer, has a YouTube channel.  On the channel we post cool videos of underwater exploration.  One early issue that came up was – what should we do about comments?  We didn’t want our videos to be swamped with comments filled with curses, links to porn sites and other inappropriate material.  However, we didn’t want to be accused of censorship (which has been an issue when it comes to science at NOAA).  Also, unfortunately, we don’t have the staff time to respond to comments.

    So, we decided to turn off the comments.  This against my personal ethos of web 2.0 inclusion but in government, the rules are different.

    There was an interesting article about DipNote, the State Department’s blog.  They allow comments and there’s been an interesting discussion about the role of women in Saudi Arabia.

    Another leader in the field is the Library of Congress’s blog.  They have a very common-sense policy when it comes to comments from readers:

     “This blog is governed by the general rules of respectful civil discourse. You are fully responsible for everything that you post. The content of all comments is released into the public domain unless clearly stated otherwise. The Library of Congress does not control the content posted. Nevertheless, the Library of Congress may monitor any user-generated content as it chooses and reserves the right to remove content for any reason whatever, without consent. Gratuitous links to sites are viewed as spam and may result in removed comments. We further reserve the right, in our sole discretion, to remove a user’s privilege to post content on the Library site.”

    So, government web sites are slowly coming around to the brave new world of blogging, which is really encouraging.

  • Eurabia Makes to Austin Second Round

    My latest screenplay, EURABIA, made it to the secound round of the 2007 Austin Film Festival Screenplay Competition.

    EURABIA is a disturbing look at a possible future.  The year is 2027. America has lost the war on terror. Europe is controlled by radical Islam.  From the abandoned streets of New York to a Paris ruled by imams, we follow an unwilling hero as he’s forced into a plot to change the world.

    Read the first ten pages online.