Many Flickr Contacts != Popular
I just don’t get it. What is it with some people and Flickr? Or rather, what is it with some people and their insistence on adding everybody they can possibly find to their contacts? Currently I have just over 50 contacts – that includes friends and family. That’s already more than I can easily keep up-to-date with, and I try to keep an eye on what everyone’s been uploading to their Flickr accounts every day, comment where appropriate and generally try to interact. But I must be missing things along the way – there are only so many hours in the day, after all.
So, what is it with these people who add me as a contact and who (as I discover when I check their profile before simply reciprocating and adding them as a contact) have apparantly nothing in common with me – no contacts on their profile page that I know, in fact … hang on a minute! All the contacts there seem to be a bunch of symbols – names beginning with ! … ./– and so on. What’s up with that? Well, it strikes me that people are doing the online alternative of the old Yellow Pages ‘A1 Aardvark Plumbing and Heating’ trick – just trying to get near the top of the list. So, I glance down the page of contacts and spot the number of contacts that this person who so ‘desperately’ wants to include me in their social group already has thousands of people marked as contacts.
Yeah right. I bet you know all these people …
Is it because they want to feel part of something that they keep adding contacts: "Look how many contacts I’ve got! Hey, I’m so popular!" The truth is, of course, that they can add as many people as they like but that has no bearing on their popularity; I don’t add them as a contact, therefore I’m never going to see their photos, nor am I ever going to engage in any kind of comment-based conversation with them about their photos. I certainly wouldn’t be inviting them to any realsocial gatherings. So, what do they get out of it? Are they really after social acceptance? Or is this just another incidence of spam? I’ve yet to see what the value of adding so many contacts is if it is the latter, other than the fact that if you add people to your 1000 contacts and 300 blindly reciprocate, and then if you start adding links underneath your meaningless photos that this might give you some kind of Google juice, but apart from that I can’t see the benefit at all.
Posted: February 20th, 2006 under Tech.
Comments
Comment from Faruk Ateş
Time February 21, 2006 at 4:37 am
I think it’s a perceived popularity, yes. Personally, I just add anyone who adds me, providing their pictures don’t disgust me. I think it’s interesting to see what people find interesting and take pictures of, even when I don’t know them.
However, I don’t go out of my way to find people to add, not even for the sake of finding people who do great pictures. Just adding my friends is enough for me.
Btw, your comment form only changes color on :hover status, not on :focus (i.e. when typing but with the mouse elsewhere). Intended?
Comment from Faruk Ateş
Time February 21, 2006 at 4:40 am
Oh, and this whole issue is not Flickr-only, really. I’ve seen the same elsewhere, and I’m sure it also happens on places like Livejournal, Facebook, Myspace, etc.
Comment from Richard Rutter
Time February 20, 2006 at 6:40 am
I have about 100 contacts. Some of whom are real life family and friends (like you, and are marked as such) and the rest are people who I know online, as it were.
But I agree, if someone adds me as contact, I don’t reciprocate unless I actually know (and trust) them in one way or another.