Good news here from Flickr about the Flickr Commons with return of the person who started it in 2008
I’d be curious to know how people use/contribute to this resource of open images from institutions shared under the least restrictive license (no copyright restrictions).
I will answer my own question! I’m a huge fan of flickr having joined when we both were young (2004).
On reading this last night I got excited to tinker with an old project.
One of the most valuable features of flickr is an API for creating your own apps or websites that can leverage shared photos. Whether you know or care about what APIs are, it enabled me many years ago to mash up two concepts to create an open tool for practicing improv skills using random flickr photos selected by tags.
In about an hour I was able to add a checkbox to limit the selection of photos to ones in the flickr commons. Try this one that will set up 10 flickr commons images on screen for 10 seconds based on the tag “explore”
For another variant, you can use this in “Heather” mode (named for the teacher that gave me the idea) where you try to guess the tag based on the random images. Try it now.
This is my own window of excitement about making use of the Flickr Commons.
Anyone else out there make use of the Flickr Commons?