[Guest Post] Stipple:A Photographer’s Perspective
Published October 24, 2011I recently went to Catalina Island, a super rad vacation spot only twenty-two miles off the coast of Los Angeles. It was quite the experience – perfect for a weekend getaway – with tons of cool water sports and an off-the-hook zip line. You can get to Catalina by ferry, which we did, or by helicopter. Each has it’s own perks, I watched a slew of dolphins throw themselves off of the boat’s wake in play, while my friend saw a couple of blue whales from her aerial perspective. I wanted to post this travel story to Stipple because, as a professional photographer, I can do so much more with my photos than I could before, because I can not only tell the story… Continue reading
Stipple -vs.- Thinglink -vs.- Pixazza (Luminate)
Published August 31, 2011(This post began life as a response to a Quora post)
The primary differences between the companies lie in four areas:
- Accuracy. Information versus Ads.
- Scale. Automated versus Manual Tagging
- Distribution. The Open Web versus Walled Gardens.
- Platform. Online images are an ecosystem of advertisers, audiences, publishers, photo agencies and photographers — is there a solution that benefits all constituents?
ACCURACY In order to better understand the differences between Stipple, Thinglink and Pixazza (now Luminate), ask yourself the following question: why would I or any web user intentionally mouseover photos?
Do you believe people mouseover photos to see pop-up ads that have nothing to do with the photo, or do people mouseover photos to find out who or what is in the… Continue reading
Making Annotations Work
Published August 27, 2010“Fast is better than slow”, one of the Ten things (Google) knows to be true concludes that users prefer the fastest, simplest method. We at Stipple wonder, if this principle holds (and we believe it does), why have annotations, a tool designed to make discovery faster, largely failed to gain wide user acceptance?
What are annotations? They’re in use everywhere on the web today — Facebook people tags, hyper-linked green words on news sites and the word boxes atop many of your favorite YouTube videos. Annotations are supposed to quickly and easily give context to images, videos and other content, saving a user time and eliminating guess work. Though widely in use and designed to save time, many users find annotations products annoying and… Continue reading
