This is my most viewed photo. I do not think this is my best photo ever. I do not think these women are the most attractive in my photosteam. When I took this photo, it wa just a spontaneous snap shot. I just had a few seconds to take it. They did not take to time to pose most most people in costume take. Maybe that is why it is so well liked.
This is also my most commented photo. But part of that has to do with Supergirl having a belly ring. People wonder how a person with skin the strength of steel gets a belly ring.
For a long time this was my most viewed photo. It is easy to see why this photo was the most viewed photo. This is where my obsession with Metal Slave Bikini Leia. This was the moment I found out that there are so many women who dress like this at comic book conventions. I guess this is where I found out I should try to take more photos of women in costumes.
This photo has been viewed so many times because it was blogged so many times. During comic con it turned up on six different blogs. People loved the idea of a Steampunk Ghostbuster. I have to admit that this is one of my favorite costumes of all time.
I am not sure how blog views are counted. I know that most of my flickr views come from inside of flickr. Site referrals only account for 2% of my views. 2% of 1.2 million is still 24000 views. Maybe a big chunk of that is part of this photo.
Views on Flickr: One Thousand Fourty Eight view photo
I average between 1900 and 1100 views a day. This is the range my views stay between. Some days I see a big bump, but it never falls below 1100 views. Everyday my photostream gets as many views as this photo has totally. That is a strange idea. At the high end of views, photos get 100 to 70 views. On the low end hundreds of photos get 1 to 2 views. I think this is very interesting.
Look at all the elements of this photo. It is easy to see why this photo has so many views. It is a great costume group. I think that is one of the reasons it has so many views.
My nephew noticed that I took lots of photos of signs. Yes it is something I do all the time. Some of my most viewed photos are of signs. If it was not for Comic Con they would dominate the top of my popular lists.
I was surprised to find out that Wolverine is one of my biggest search terms for my photosteam. I am not sure why over 5000 people in the past year have searched for Wolverine. I know it is my Comic Con that keeps people coming back.
This is a great photo because it is an in joke. Not everyone knows this is Spider Man. Not everyone knows that this is actually from a comic book. Lots of people think it is combining the Unknown Comic and the Fantastic Four. I am happy this has so many views.
Views on Flickr: Six Hundred Eighty One View Photo
This is my 200 most view photo. Flickr users know the importance of this because 200 is the default last photo when users are looking at their most viewed photo. I hope that someone sees this as interesting. This photo has a lot of elements that make my photos interesting. I think I do a pretty good job with my best photos. I think my 200 best photos are pretty good. That might be because I take so many pictures that I am only getting lucky. I will still take that.
In 2005 at comic con I decided that whenever I saw someone with a comic book themed tattoo I was going to ask them if I could take a picture. I had not noticed that many comic book themed tattoos before. Taking photos of them really made me notice them at comic con. Now whenever I see a tattoo I have not seen before I want to take a picture of it.
Tattoos get a lot of views on Flickr and on my blog. In Sad Salvation's referral log I see lots of images searches for tattoos. I think it is easy to see why this photo would get so many views.
Lets go down the checklist here, Comic con - Check, Woman - Check, Corset - Check, Costume - Check, Goth - Check, Spider web - Check, Mowhawk - Check. I have no question why this photo has over 500 views.
Above 500 views there are very few Comic Con photos. I will keep on going to Comic Con because of this. If I leave the west coast, I will have to go to the New York Comic Con or Dragon Con in Atlanta.
I am not sure what I can say about this photo. It is really not like any the other photos in my collection. It is the typical "Stand here and pose with this person" photo. I love the expression of both Chris and the woman in the grapes.
I wonder what other people think when they see this photo.
Tattoos get a lot of views on my photostream. They also get lots of views on my blog. I love taking photos of Tattoos. I do not have any tattoos, but I respect people that do. I think there is a lot of art in tattoos. I also see lots of commitment in tattoos. I love when I see a tattoo that I have never seen before. I love when a tattoo has a good theme. I love when I have the feeling that I have seen something I would not see anywhere else. That is what makes photographing a tattoo special.
I am not sure what makes searching for a tattoo on flickr special.
I once had a conversation with another flickr user about views on flickr. I asked him about how many views his photos average. He said he did not take not of that. He said that he has about hundred contacts and all his photos get about 100 views. This idea blew me away. I knew that this did not happen to me. I know that most of my contacts do not see most of my photos.
When I got to know this flickr user better I found out how this might be true for him and not true for me. He posts about three times a month. He also only posts about two or three photos at a time. I post between 20-30 days a month. I also post between 100 - 300 photos a month. I think it is much harder for all my viewers to view all my photos.
There are other problems. I know that many of my contacts do not long on often. At least 50 of them have not uploaded a new photo in 2008 yet. I know that I am uploading several days worth of photos between when they log on. That gets me less views.
I would love if all my contacts saw all my photos. I know that is not going to happen anytime soon. I know that I am not even going to average that many views. I could reduce my number of contacts to see what happens, in the end I am not sure that would help.
Costume photos are very popular on my photo stream. A large percentage of the photos with more than 200 views are from Comic Book Conventions. Most of these photos are of people in costume. As I get close to the top of my most viewed list, it is almost all people in costume. There will be several more of these photos in this project.
When I look at my biggest search terms, they are all most all comic book terms. I think this really says something about the people who are using flickr. It will also have a lot to do with which of my photos are actually interesting.
One hundred fifteen photo is my average view. That means that average view is 71 views higher then my median view. That means that my photo views are very top heavy. This is not a surprise to me. This photo is ranked 1631 in overall views and my median photo is ranked 4112. That is a pretty big spread.
This photo is a good example of what I get rewarded for. It is something funny that is in everyday life. I have a good eye for these things. I can see what photos might people laugh a little. It is better to be one of a few people that can express something funny than to be one of a huge crowd who is technically good.
I have no idea why this photo of my trash has 100 views. It is not a good photo. it is not an interesting photo. It is a photo of trash. There is something that always happens all the time. I am often asking myself why are people are looking at this photograph. Now there is a stats feature on flickr, but it was not there when they were looking at this photo. I do not know why people looked at this photo. I just know that they did. Hopefully I will be able to figure this out in the future.
This photo starts to show what kind of photos I can take when I take when I do a good job. I think that this is a good portrait. The SB600 flash I use here really does a good job. It really improves what I do with lower light.
This photo is good enough that the subject asked if he could use the picture for his Facebook profile photo. I can see how better photos are getting more views.
At 50 views I start seeimng photos that I think are good. Before this my photos are ordinary at best. I will admit that I think they are a little under rated at 50 views. I think the photo above should have over 100 views. This photo is not special, but I think it is good. Around here I can see photos that I want other people to really see.
You might ask why 44 views. This happens to be the median view of my photostream. I have about 150 photos with 44 views. Over the last two years my median started at 30 view, crawled up to I have lots of photos of people in sitting around coffee shops at meetings. These photos look the same often. I think this is a little better that the average photo like this.
This photo could get more views if I spent time improving the tags and adding it to more groups.
This is what a twenty five view photo looks like. The subject of the photo has a limited appeal. This photo has my sister at the Giants game. The photo is pretty well tagged and it has been added to my standard number of groups. I think this is a pretty good example of a twenty five view photo.
This is what a photo with ten views looks like. It is a good idea, but it is not there. It is a photo that you can find all over the place on flickr. There is nothing special about it.
This is a pretty typical five view photo. I have about 100 photos with 5 views. All of them are poorly tagged. Most of them have poor composition. all of them have been uploaded in 2008. They have been added to few groups.
I cannot say the above photo deserves very many views. I like the idea, but it is not executed well. It is missing that thing that makes it a good photo. That thing is a real idea of that the shot is telling us. Once again, a poor photo does not get rewarded on flickr.
I want to start a new series of blog posts looking at views on flickr. Above is a photo titled 2008 Spring Vacation: The Motel Room. This is a good example of a photo that only has two views. I did not have any photos on flickr that have been posted for more that a month that has only one view. In practical terms, this is on of my worst photos on flickr. I have not be rewarded for posting it on flickr.
One of the things that I notice is that it is poorly tagged and not in many groups. Right after I post this photo I will update the tags and add the photo to more groups. Even as I do that, it will not get this photo that many extra views. There are few good elements in this photo. I expect in a few weeks this photo will top out at about ten views.
I think it is important to have goals. Without goals it is hard to measure how things are getting done. I am not always the best at
Here are my first batch of goals for 2008
1. For at least 40 weeks this year blog three days a week. 2. Total Flickr photos posted to 10,000 3. Total Flickr views, 2 million 4. Walk a more than 3,650,000 steps 5. *** **** ** ***** ** (This has to do with a secret) 6. Take a photo every day.
Let me know if you think I should have any more goals.
My Average view per photo on flickr is 110. My median views per photo is 47. This tells me that the photos with the most views have a lot of views. The median photo is number 3677. My average view photo is number 1559. I get have my views from 21% of my posted photos. I wonder how it is for other people. I know I can figure something out something by looking at these photos. I am just not sure what I can learn.
Total Photos Posted by 12/31/07: 7275 Photos Posted in 2007: 3947 Photos from 2007 posted: 2772 Month with the most posts: 686 Month with the most photo: 1005
Views: Photos 806,720 Photostream 190,243 Sets 63,936 Total 1,060,901
I am not going to make a total of 200,000 views this year for my flickr account. I have less than 190,000 views right now. I do not see anyway to get a 10,000 view boost this month. I guess I am going to miss that one.
If you want to look at what I think are good photos you should check out my set, "Should Have 100 Views." This is a group of photos that I think are underrated in my flickr stream. Go look and tell me if you agree.
This photo has over 500 flickr views. I cannot tell you why that is. It should not have over 500 view. I do not think it should even have 50 views. Tell me if you know why so many people have looked at it.
I have a set of photos on flickr I think deserve more views. I know that I see views as a way to measure the worth of a photo on flickr. I know not everyone sees it this way. Just humor me and go look at these photos. I think it will really be worth it.
This is one of my 200 most viewed photos. I have some 6500 photos on flickr. I cannot figure out why so many people have viewed this photo. I guess it is one of the mysteries of the internet.
This is my second 1000 view photo. This was taken at Comic Con 2006. Yes my two most viewed photos are from comic con. Fifteen of my twenty most viewed photos are from comic con 2006 or comic con 2005. I do not think any of the photos from this year will make it that high. I think some of my photos got big blog attention in those years.
It is easy to see why this photo had received so much attention. This photo is also my most favorite'd and most commented upon. Lots of people have a reason to love it. The funny thing is that is not all that good of a photo. I guess there are other things more important than technical proficiency.
It will be a while before I have my next photo reach the ranks of 10,000 views. The next closest photo has around 3000 views. When it comes to getting this many views, I have no idea what I can do to impact it. I have to hope that other people promote it. Maybe I need to make a set of photos that are not women in costumes that I want people to look at.
As I said before, I am obsessed with Flickr. My obsession has dulled a little, but I still visit flickr several times a day. The main expression of my obsession is how many views my photos get. I think this gives me feedback about what people think of my photos. I think I learn a lot about flickr by looking at my views.
In the land of flickr Metal Slave Bikini Leia, is a 10,000 view photo. My guess is that 10,000 view puts it in the top 0.1% of all the photos on flickr. That is not saying too much. I have almost 6000 photos posted and this is my only photo with more than 10,000 views. It we look at the top 1% of my photos, that is about 850 view. My medium photo has 40 views. I understand this adds up to hundreds of thousands for my photos collectively, but it does not feel like much. I wonder what the chances of any Flickr user randomly finding one of my photos.
I just wanted to let you know what a 10,000 view photo on flickr looks like. I know that no one is surprised.
On the Sunday edition of the Mercury News there is a tease banner of 'Who Is Reading Your Blog?' The story is in the Perspective section. The column is about how people are obsessed with who is reading their blog, looking at their photos, watching their video, and visiting there myspace page. Views are one of the main currencies of the web. The numbers of views you get is the amount of attention we are getting.
I do not worry too much about who is reading Sad Salvation. I figured out a long time ago that I am a not going to be an A, B, or C-List blogger. I have always seen myself as a K-List blogger. My technorati rank is around 400,000 and I do not see it going up anytime soon. For whatever reason, I do not appeal to a mass audience. I know that people are reading it because I am getting comments from time to time.
I am obsessed about views when it comes to Flickr. Views are my main driver. I care that my median view does not drop. It has been slowly climbing this year. It seems to be stuck between 40 to 38. I have a group for photos that I think should have 100 views. For some reason I get the most reward out of people looking at my photos.
There is one quote in the story which I found interesting.
One concern, however, looms on the horizon for all those creators: In a world where everyone is busy churning out videos, blog entries, and podcasts (and counting the number of people who tune in), do we run the risk of having no one left to watch?
Yes, I spend much more time working on Sad Salvation than I do reading blogs. I spend much more time working on my photos than I send on looking at other people's photos. I am more focused on me than I am on other people. I guess that is part of why I like being a blogger.
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