Wow. It's been a while since I've been excited about something a company is doing so perhaps I'm a little overly giddy but Flickr's partnership with the (US) Library of Congress is just so cool. This joint project, known as The Commons, seeks to have acquire richer descriptions and information for photographs in the Library of Congress' photograph collection.

You're invited to help describe photographs in the Library of Congress' collection on Flickr, by adding tags or leaving comments.*

These beautiful, historic pictures from the Library represent materials for which the Library is not the intellectual property owner. Flickr is working with the Library of Congress to provide an appropriate statement for these materials. It's called "no known copyright restrictions."

Hopefully, this pilot can be used as a model that other cultural institutions would pick up, to share and redistribute the myriad collections held by cultural heritage institutions all over the world.

Essentially the Library of Congress is going to throw historical photographs from their collection into their Flickr account. We, volunteers will help catalog/identify/describe those photographs by adding appropriate tags and comments. This is a very cool project that allows community involvement, by using new technology in the process of documenting history the preceded us. Meaning, yes we can make and document history and we do everyday with our Flickr accounts but we can also record and describe historical photographs that predated us. We can make historical photographs more relevant and more easily found by increasing the knowledge and information associated with them.

I've been without a Flickr pro account for nearly a year because I haven't needed the space or any of the pro bells or whistles. Supporting projects and initiatives like this totally makes me want to get a pro account again just to support Flickr.

I totally love the openness of this project. I also love Flickr's note about being involvement with this project:

Any Flickr member is able to add tags or comment on these collections. If you're a dork about it, shame on you. This is for the good of humanity, dude!!

Flickr has released the new version of their uploader for Mac and Windows. Version 3.)

The all new version for Windows and Mac OS X makes it easy to add titles, tags and descriptions to photos, add them to sets and adjust each photo’s privacy settings. Plus, for the first time ever, you can reorder your photos before uploading by simply dragging them into place!

In the "huge step forward in the evolution of digital photography online" Flickr has just announced a partnership with online photo editing service Picnik.

Picnik’s awesome photo editing tools are now only a click away. If you’ve ever wanted to deal with the dreaded red eye or crop a photo just so, click on the new “edit photo” icon located above one of your photos and get started.

Picnik has been providing online photo editing for a while now. As soon as we saw it, we knew that there was huge potential for us to join together. Rather than Flickr diverting from our speciality to enter a realm we had no (particular) expertise in, the thought of a partnership seemed much more sensible.

The Picnik/Flickr collaboration works similarly to other 3rd party services who’ve built additional tools on top of the Flickr API: You’ll need to pass through the step of giving the Picnik service permission to edit and save your photos… It’s a little bit like you’re “installing” Picnik on your Flickr account, but with nothing to download.

An update to my post about Qoop now offering postcards. The fine people at Qoop emailed to let me know that while supplies last they're offering a free postcard, mailed anywhere in the world for Flickr, Photobucket and Facebook users. How cool is that? Hurry, cause you don't want to be one of those people who says "I coulda been a contender had a free postcard made from one of my photographs.

Last month I said "While stickers are very cool and I can come up with several cool uses for them what I really want Moo to start making are post cards. I'd love to take some of my shots and turn them into nice, solid post cards. Is that on the agenda Moo people?." Turns out Moo has not stepped up to the plate to fill that void but Qoop has.

Nikon and Flickr sitting in a tree, K I S S I N G. The lovefest/sponsorship/partnership between Nikon and Flickr has been going on for a while but now they've stepped up their affections even more with the announcement of the Nikon Digital Learning Center on Flickr.

Flickr has just announced upgrades to its online upload utility.

Here at Flickr, we want to make sure your photos arrive safely, efficiently, and with style. That why we've dumped our dusty old web upload form, and replaced it with a super-duper, sexy-ified, shiny new web uploader.

I'm traveling on business today so I unfortunately can't investigate and stay on top of this story like I would like to. Apparently Flickr images are being blocked for the majority of Chinese Flickr users. According to Flickr it is definitely not a technical issue on their end.

Flickr partner Moo has just launched a new product, NoteCards.

NoteCards - square prints made from your own photos or designs. They have a magic flap on the side, to make them stand up proudly on your mantel, bookshelf or window sill, and are perfect for mailing to friends.

I love sending and receiving real mail. Can't wait to design some of these and integrate them into my stationery rotation. 16 cards cost $24.99 US.

via Laughing Squid

Tags: photography, Moo, Flickr

Digital Trends offers up a Guide to Flickr Tools that features five tools that allow you to do really cool stuff with Flickr including previously mentioned Tabblo