Flickr: Finally getting it

Flickr is a member of the new software paradigm -- social computing. Older things like instant messaging and blogs also fall into this category. I get instant messages -- I use them for work all the time. Blog's I sort of get. While I've known about Flickr almost since it started, I never really got it. Turns out Paula had also just learned about it several days ago: we almost asked each other at the same time what it was -- which was a pretty freaky moment in our marriage!

The next day Paula spotted a link to a photo pool on Flickr for the London Bombings. Now I get it. Watching the photos stream in over time was eerie. At first there were lots of television scrapes -- which aren't so interesting. But every now-and-then a picture someone took while stuck in a subway train would show up. By now the pictures have mostly turned to flowers, and other expressions of support and defiance. I added the picture below to the pool. This is grassroots photo-journalism! The grass roots bit, of course, is one part of the whole social computing theme.