The winner for Big Trend of 2004 has been chosen. Nominations are closed. (The image is from a Brazilian blog - it's a worldwide trend.)
As it was portals in 1998, and blogs in 2003, 2004 is all about photoblogging.
The idea of posting photos easily to the Web and sharing them is the trend of the year, without question. Kodak was the first to get into this, but like everything else they've tried they missed the wave. Other photofinishers like Ritz jumped in, but they missed the main chance as well.
They missed the main chance because they tried to charge people for sharing a few photos among a few friends, without context.
The main chance is to let people post photos free, to let them do it from their cameras, to post it all to public Web sites, and to call it blogging.
This is a trend that goes across the Web. It's huge in the mainstream, where Google has Picasa and Yahoo has launched camera phone uploads. It's huge in blogging, where the Technorati Top 100 is now filled with sites like Fotolog.Net, PhotoMatt, and a host of Modblog sites, which has come from nowhere fast with its picture gallery capability. (Cameraphone picture from USA Today.)
What's it all about?
Camera phones.
I'm not seeing a lot of art here. I'm seeing snapshots. I'm seeing friends smiling into the camera, families standing in front of tourist traps, cute dogs and kitties. Not that there's anything wrong with that...
Foto Matt? How many people are on?
Check the Europe records (yep, the continent still exists).
PhotoBlog has 57.000 users, 950.000 pageviews daily and they claim (see www.photoblog.biz) to be growing with +2.800 users a day.
and as to art: check their pictures of the day
http://www.photoblog.be/?action=browse&id=picoftheday
that IS art
Tracked on July 28, 2004 01:15 PM
What You Share Makes Us Care from Many-to-Many Part of the business of Social Media discussed at BlogOn was adoption patterns. Lycos’s Tripod and Angelfire blog hosting services shared the results of their survey of 2,000 users. They make the case that blog adoption is being driven by... [Read More]Tracked on July 28, 2004 04:45 PM
What You Share Makes Us Care from unmediated Part of the business of Social Media discussed at BlogOn was adoption patterns. Lycos's Tripod and Angelfire blog hosting services shared the results of their survey of 2,000 users. They make the case that blog adoption is being driven by media sharing... [Read More]Tracked on July 29, 2004 07:35 PM