Flickr's Dirty Little Secret

The secret is...you suck at taking photos.

And flickr knows it. That's why when you upload a photo to flickr it undergoes a cosmetic lift via a sharpening filter (and perhaps a saturation filter as well). See below.



This is a capture of the exact same photo. On the top is a thumbnail of my photo rendered on Zoto (3.0 beta) . It's blurry and the detail is lost. On the bottom is the same photo thumbnail rendered on Flickr. Notice how sharp the detail and color appear. Unlike Flickr, Zoto is rendering an 'accurate' thumbnail of my photo.

The result? On Flickr I am fabulous, wonderful taker of photos. On Zoto, I am just a loser who can't get a photo in focus.

Does this subtle cosmetic lift, on a subliminal level, factor into a user's decision making process when it comes to choosing a photo hosting service? The advantage to the mainstream user is obvious, but if I was a pro photographer, wouldn't I resent someone taking liberty with my photos? We've had a bit of a debate on this issue in our office (at Zoto). I'm for passing a filter on photos to make them look better. I think it improves the user's experience. On some level, even if they aren't aware of it, they are enjoying their photos more because of this little white lie. Some of our "purists" in the office disagree. In the end the best solution may be to make this an option in the upload settings that users can control for themselves. And user control is what it's all about, right?

New word: flickrality
Definition: The version of reality where you rock at taking photos.

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