Flickr

I used to think that having disposable cameras at each table at a wedding reception was such a fabulously brilliant idea.

But now the quality of the disposable film cameras is too shoddy for any possible framers, plus the kind of people who are going to take photos will have already brought their own cameras. To further drive a stake in the heart of this old trend, last year the majority of you voted that you no longer loved it.

That's not to say you don't want more photos taken than your pro photog will take — just make it easy on your guests to upload them all to one place! Call it the 2009 version of disposable cameras on tables. Instead of cameras on tables, you just place cards with a URL or email address for your guests, and leave it to them to upload after the event.

To see how to make this wedding idea come together, just read more

Sure, following Tweets secretly through your RSS allows a special, stalkerish pleasure, but watching your friend's Internet activity doesn't have to be all about surreptitiousness. When a pal shares a link to her Flickr account or I run across a photographer whose work I find inspiring I stick it in my RSS reader so I can keep up with their activity.

Flickr offers an RSS feed for photostream pages, which you select and add to your reader. You'll find it in the toolbar of your browser if you use Firefox (see previous link for other browser tips). Flickr also offers a convenient "bookmark on delicious" link at the bottom of each photostream page, so you can save a friend's stream in your bookmarks and have access to it from any computer.

Imagine if it wasn't necessary to click a link to view a photo album or YouTube video? Now if you go into your Gmail Labs under Settings and enable YouTube videos (you can watch the entire clip right from your inbox), Flickr and Picasa preview, and Yelp review preview, you can see everything inside your mail window. Yes, Gmail will automatically detect links from various sites and show you previews right from your email message.

What was once restricted to Flickr Pro users, has now been extended to all Flickr members — uploading video content!

What Pro members will be able to do though, is upload high-definition videos and still have unlimited uploads for videos 90 seconds or less.

For all of you who already use Flickr as your main online photo management site, this will make sharing much easier since everything will be in one spot!

As the recession has affected consumer buying behaviors, the candy business is seeking to adapt. Mars-owned Skittles is no exception. In an attempt to reach out to the social media set, the fruity candy has completely rebranded its homepage.

Visitors to Skittles' main page are redirected to a search of the word "Skittles" on the microblogging service Twitter. The videos point to wacky Skittles commercials posted on YouTube; a "friends" section connects users to a fan page on social media giant Facebook; an image section leads to Skittles pictures on photo-sharing site Flickr; and those looking for information on Skittles products are connected to user-contributed online encyclopedia Wikipedia.

"Skittles lives in a world that is unexpected," said Carole Walker, VP of integrated marketing communications for Skittles. "We are leveraging what we think are the key consumer social media touch points."

The Skittles site requires users to enter their date of birth, as it doesn't advertise to users under the age of 12. Do you think this strategy to target older audiences will prove to be successful? Or is it too risky to depend on user-generated content? Does it change the way you view Skittles?

Source

The next time you're oohing and aahing over the photographs in someone's flickr stream, stalk their camera!

Did you know that flickr can tell you the kind of camera the user shot their posted photos with?

On anyone's flickr photo page, you'll see the Additional Information column on the right side. One of the first bullets should be, for example, "Taken with Nikon D90," or whichever camera they used. Click on the camera's highlighted name, and you'll get a ton of details about that particular camera, (check out the Nikon N90), like how many megapixels it is, what the cost is, and what its ranking on flickr is (FYI, users can opt out of this, if you don't see it on a particular user's photo).

It's like advanced geek shopping.