the.bangkok.photographer's dashboard

the.bangkok.photographer reported a problem in PicApp on October 14, 2009 09:02:

Distorted Pictures of the Thai King

I needed some pictures of Thailand's King Chulalongkorn. Fortunately Picapp has some nice ones from Getty Archives. Search for "Chulalongkorn". Unfortunately some of them are distorted and I cannot use them.

These include:

http://cdn.picapp.com/ftp/Images/6/3/...
http://cdn.picapp.com/ftp/Images/a/f/...

Several others are distorted in thumbnail view but look OK when I click on them.

I guess I could fiddle with the width and height parameters to make them appear correctly. But it would be best of Picapp shows them as they are intended.

Note - the links above display OK. It is the display in the Picapp u.i. and generated HTML that is messed up.

the.bangkok.photographer shared an idea in PicApp on October 14, 2009 07:09:

Can you move the filmstrip below the picture?

Many times the Picapp filmstrip obscures an important part of a picture I've selected to post in my blog.

I understand that you need to provide a link to your site so users can see related pictures and you can monetize the app. But please could you put the filmstrip UNDER the picture? Vertical space is free on blogs.

I found that if I resize the picture to < 150 px then you replace the filmstrip with a button. That's okay, but I prefer big pictures.

See http://bkkphotographer.wordpress.com/...

the.bangkok.photographer shared an idea in PicApp on October 14, 2009 07:00:

Picapp Could Let Customers Refine Keywords

I have had a few frustrations finding suitable images for my blog. In one case I was looking for a picture of a Canon camera. One of the few "creative" pictures Picapp returned was a cartoon of a cannon (the gun).

See http://bkkphotographer.wordpress.com/...

I know it is impossible to check the millions of images you have stored. How about letting customers suggest new or replacement keywords? Utilize the "wisdom of the crowd".

the.bangkok.photographer replied on October 10, 2009 15:44 to the discussion "not supported on wordpress.com blogs" in outbrain:

I'm no longer technical enough to posit a solution to that. I have used a Flickr add-in that uses a Grease Monkey script to add a feature to a photo's page. I have no idea if that technique will work for you.

Now what I could do is make a web site that uses the Flickr or Picasa APIs to view my photostream and then integrate Outbrain so I or others could rate the pictures.

Then maybe Outbrain could make "possibly related links" if I passed it metadata from each photo, for example the keywords and what sets and groups it's in (for Flickr).

We're way off the WordPress thread here, but you got me thinking.

the.bangkok.photographer replied on October 10, 2009 02:17 to the discussion "not supported on wordpress.com blogs" in outbrain:

Yes Indeed! I thought that was Outbrain's value proposition. The other point may be that if i have multiple blogs i can consolidate the ratings in a single Outbrain account. I'd like to be able to apply the same notion to Flickr and PicasaWeb: I use both to display my photos.

A Problem with WP / PollDaddy is that I only see the rating widget if I "open" the blog post. Would you (proposed) WP integration enable readers to rate posts from the page they are on without opening each?

the.bangkok.photographer replied on October 09, 2009 08:00 to the discussion "not supported on wordpress.com blogs" in outbrain:

Raanan: Thanks for the info. I admit I foolishly missed the "Ratings" panel in my Dashboard. I enabled the ratings on my blog. I like the way I can label my stars to give guidance to a rater on "my" convention for rating. That could help consistency. And the "Nero Option" is ultimately simple.

My reservation with the WP rating is that it is only visible when I "open" a post by clicking on its title (or did I miss an option?). I suspect not many readers open posts unless the writer uses the "more ..." widget.

I guess the question for Outbrain is - what's the advantage to a WordPress blogger in using your service vs PollDaddy's integration with WP?

A comment on the discussion "not supported on wordpress.com blogs" in outbrain:

I posted about Outbrain and WordPress on by blog at http://bkkphotographer.wordpress.com/...

Do you have any thoughts on my comment about people's different ideas on star-ratings? My three star may be your one-star because we have a different distribution in mind. – the.bangkok.photographer, on October 09, 2009 05:11

the.bangkok.photographer replied on October 08, 2009 02:24 to the discussion "not supported on wordpress.com blogs" in outbrain:

My guess is that WP consider voting/rating part of their core functionality and it's a project they are working on. That's only a guess, but I used to work in the business so I know how companies think.

Good luck! If I can put some friendly pressure on them let me know.

the.bangkok.photographer replied on October 08, 2009 01:36 to the discussion "not supported on wordpress.com blogs" in outbrain:

I found outbrain being used by Picapp when I started to use their stock images on my Wordpress.com hosted blog http://bkkphorographer.wordpress.com/.

I was surprised to see this discussion has been going on for more than a year now with no visible progress. Maybe it is better for users to contact WordPress directly. What's the best way to do that?

My guess is that the problem isn't technical but in prioritization at WordPress. I think WordPress is great and the people there are responsive. So some friendly pressure should push outbrain up in the queue.