Blog: Flickr's Stewart Butterfield talks at ABC
Yesterday we heard Stewart Butterfield, co-founder of Flickr speak at the ABC. Here’s the lowdown:
Where did the idea for Flickr come from? At his grandma’s 80th, with family from all over the world milling around old photo albums, commenting on the photos. Well that, Stewart says, is his ‘post-facto rationalisation’ of where the idea started. In any case...Flickr is a way to capture comments like the ones his family made that day, and a place where larger groups of people can share such photos.
Seminal moment? The 2004 bombing of the Australian embassy in Jakarta. Photos of the aftermath appeared on Flickr before any of the big news services had pictures.
Why the name? They’d finally decided on ‘Flicker’, only to find it was already registered. The guy who owned the name wouldn’t budge. They dropped the ‘e’, and Flickr was born.
His favourite group on Flickr? Why, it’s one called insect porn.
He also talked about constraints (aesthetic ones, ones of sensibility) and how creative people are very good at taking advantage of them. What does this mean for Pool? Lots. For example, not being able to use any piece of music you want is a constraint of copyright. Creating your own music, or using someone else’s music that allows re-use (such as creative commons licensed work) is a way of playing within these constraints. But it’s more than that. Using that perfect track from Radiohead actually limits the chance of your work getting out there - on Pool, on the ABC, on the festival circuit and so on.
So if you’re thinking about uploading some work to Pool but can’t think of a way to overcome copyright constraints, get creative, think how you can take advantage of those constraints, and you’ll end up with a piece that can be played anywhere. One way to start is to search Pool for work licensed under a CC licence.
Remember, even the name Flickr came about through playing with constraints.
Image titled Multiplication is courtesy of Bramblejungle. Licenced under a Creative Commons attribution non-commercial 2.0 licence.
