Flickr Tools

A lot of us here are big fans of flickr, and while Gordon has made his disdain for all things Web 2.0 known, as a tool for archiving and sharing photos, I think it’s the best option around. And although we just finished our story about office time-wasters (it’ll be in the June issue), I find scrolling through the photos of some of my favorite groups—Guess Where SF and Street Art are a couple—to be much more of a time sink than Dave’s near-constant barrage of virtual paper-airplane-throwing challenges.

Lately, I’ve been making more use of some of the tools being developed by third parties. The biggest collection I've found so far is at Fd’s Flickr Toys; the site includes a load of tools, including a CD cover maker and a “Warholizer.” Good stuff—and the list of items keeps growing.

Dumpr doesn’t offer as many tools as Fd’s Flickr Toys, but the museumr tool is pretty entertaining; it lets you drop your photos into museum-like settings (see below for an example). A couple games based on guessing what keyword a set of photos shares have also been taking up some time. Fastr is pretty bare-bones, but still fun. Matchr includes more features, including leaderboards and featured groups, but requires you to sign up for an account to access some areas (accounts are free).

A good way to get started is to check out some of the sites that have compiled lists of tools; Quick Tips Online and mentalaxis.com are two good ones. If you’ve found some tools you really like, post them in the comments.

With museumr, you, too, can see your photos in a museum.