The Commons on Flickr: What 51 Million Members Actually Do?
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HEKMAN & VAN VLIET @ AVICOM 2012 THE COMMONS ON FLICKR WHAT 51 million memberS dO? Thursday, October 11, 12
description
In January 2008 the online photo hosting site Flickr introduced a new section entitled The Commons. The two key goals of The Commons are (1) to show the hidden treasures in the world’s public photography archives to the general public and; (2) to give Flickr community members the opportunity to contribute and describe these photos in order to enrich these collections. Surprisingly enough, little empirical research has been done focusing on the actual usage of The Commons by the institutes and by the Flickr members. Institutes have published self-reports and some research has been done by sending these institutes surveys in order to gain insight (Vaughan, 2010). In order to make more accurate claims about the added value of The Commons, a richer data sample is needed that sheds some light on the usage of The Commons by the Institutes and by the Flickr members. In our research we harvested such a rich data sample over a 14-week period. The data sample contains 196.822 photos with user-generated content such as 1.3 million tags, almost 130.000 comments and more than 22.000 notes. In total 165,401 members, from 188 different countries, actively ‘did something’ with the photos. During our presentation we will focus on the analysis of this large data sample. One of the surprising conclusions we can draw is that the amount of user-generated content is quite limited. While 96% of the photos contain more than one tag, the institutes themselves added 68% of the 1.3 million found tags. On top of that, almost two thirds of the user-generated tags came from only 10 individual users. Apart from quantitative findings we will discuss qualitative findings concerning the content analysis of tags and comments. Based on the data analysis of actual user behavior we will reflect on the question whether Flickr The Commons is living up to its goal of reaching out to a community to enrich collections.
Transcript of The Commons on Flickr: What 51 Million Members Actually Do?
HEKMAN & VAN VLIET @ AVICOM 2012
THE COMMONS ON FLICKRWHAT 51 million memberS dO?
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AGENDA.THIS IS WHAT WE WILL COVER
QUESTIONSWE LOOK FORWARD TO THEM!
RESULTSWHAT DID WE SEE?
CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION
SHORT INTRODUCTIONWHO ARE WE?
CULTURAL HERITAGEmaking colections more accessible?
A SOLUTION?the Commons
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
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The relationship between museums and visitors changed due to the influence of technological developments such as the Internet and mobile services this last decade.
Visitors can play a much more active role, both in the process of making art collections more accessible and that of enriching collections making them more engaging.
RELATIONS AND ROLES ARE CHANGINGCULTURALHERITAGE THE COMMONS on FLICKR
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TAGGINGTagging entails assigning labels and/or keywords to a specific item.
THE COMMONS on FLICKRWHAT 51 MILLION MEMBERS DO?
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Roots2share.GLBringing 1,500 photos back to the source, back to Greenland
THE COMMONS on FLICKRWHAT 51 MILLION MEMBERS DO?
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Roots2share.GLEncouraging inhabitants of Greenland (Inuit) to contribute to their heritage
THE COMMONS on FLICKRWHAT 51 MILLION MEMBERS DO?
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Steve.museum Powerhouse Museum Flickr The Commons
OTHER INITiativesCULTURALHERITAGE THE COMMONS on FLICKR
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Flickrthecommonshttp://www.flickr.com/commons
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FlickrthecommonsNot different from the ‘normal’ Flickr
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FlickrthecommonsCommunity members can tag, comment, share and add notes
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FlickrthecommonsMomentarily there are 56 institutions participating
2008
2009
2010
2011
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FlickrthecommonsInstitutions are spread over the world
1
24
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1
1 1
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30,000
60,000
90,000
120,000
150,000
San Diego Air & Space Museum Archives Powerhouse Museum Collection National Library of Ireland on The Commons Texas State Archives Imperial War Museum Collections
FlickrthecommonsIn week 5 of 2012, a total of 196,549 photos were accessible
San diego air and space
museum
112,610
Museum Of Reykjavík
31
Nationaal archief
1,544
Library of congress
14,894
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THE COMMONS on FLICKRWHAT 51 MILLION MEMBERS DO?
AVICOM MONTRÉAL 2012TheCommonsReasons for participation
1. Share the hidden treasures momentarily stored away in their archives 2. Opportunity to gain additional knowledge about the shared collections3. To gain experience in interacting with such a large Web community
But did The Commons contribute?1. We could only find several institutions reports, sharing their experiences2. Two studies that tried to construct a total picture using surveys3. But no one actually looked at the activities around these photos! What does
the community actually do?
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RESULTSdata mining 196,549 photos
105m views
22,053 notes
1.3m tags 128,263 comments
672,449fav’s
188 countries
15,485 ADDED TO
27,766groups
167,871 users
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RESULTSViews
Average of 600,000 tot 900,000 views per week
1. 20,385 photos with more than a 1,000 views2. Only 3 institutions receive more than 40,000 visits a week3. Majority (33) less than 10,000 visits per week4. Even though institutions upload a lot of photos, this does not mean an
automatic increase in views.
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RESULTSAdding photos as a favorite
In total 672,449 times users added a photo as favorite by 136,361 users
Soldier's goodbye & Bobbie the cat, ca. 1939-ca. 1945 / by Sam Hood
757 comments5056 favorites
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RESULTSTags
Institutions68%
Flickr Members32%
In week 5 we found 1,348,952 tags
Almost one million came from the institutes themselves, not from the community
1. Number of unique tags: 142,3612. Total number of users that added a tag: 6,655
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RESULTSTags
Top 10 taggers
TVL1970Gorilla PpennylrichardscaPixel WranglerjksmileyyHarry AngstromEric Hunt.WystanLú_artolog
TOTAL AMOUNT OF TAGS
1582064237030954131901009166824997470246964358
280,246tags
others35%
Power users65%
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resultsComments
In week 5 we found 128,263 comments by 42,145 users
• Wow, amazing, beautiful & love most used comments
• Some forms of spamming were observed
• 5881 comments by 53 institutions
Institutions5%
Flickr Members95%
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RESULTSUsers per country (top 10)
22,364
5,200
2,860
2,844
2,810
2,047
1,750
1,563
1,510
1,065
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CONCLUSIONAND DISCUSSION
• In the case of Flickr the Commons: user-generated content is quite limited• Institutions don’t really interact• Low barrier tasks (e.g. to favorite a photo) are done more frequent• More analysis are possible and necessary to get a complete picture• Deeper analysis per institute (e.g. location vs tagging)• Data mining is a fantastic method!
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DISCUSSION& ConclusiON
• Social media: what is ‘hip’ today might be forgotten about tomorrow (Flickr versus Pinterest?)
• Dataset is from December 2011 until February 2012. Did anything happen the last eight months?
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236K PHOTOS 1.5m tags 154,541
comments144M
VIEWS
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• We only looked at online data mining• Do you know your heavy users?• A focus on quantitative results• Cooperation with the institutions is necessary to get a complete picture!• Data is fun to work with!
DISCUSSION& ConclusiON
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THANKYOU
THEENDI’M prepared for a great discussion!
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