Somehow, I missed the announcement of Flickr’s new stats feature. I discovered it yesterday, and am quite happy to say that it’s the most interesting addition to the Flickr service in a long time. Not only does it give you a more detailed breakdown than what was previous available under the “Popular” tab, but it also offers referral info.
If you’re a frequent Flickr user like me, you probably often wonder where all of these views come from for certain photos. I mean, it’s easy enough to sort out how a picture arrived in Explore (say, with this or that picture). But now you can see what photos are turning up through web searches (e.g., googling for the ever-popular Liz Hatch, or “You’re Doing It Wrong“). And, even better, you can see who else might be using your photos elsewhere on the web. Today I discovered that a Japanese web site is offering my picture of New York from the air (among a few other works of mine) as wallpaper for your desktop, that this article from a Chilean newspaper used a snap of mine from Pakistan in a story about Bhutto’s return, and that this blog on architecture for children found my shot of the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe (in Mexico City) useful for illustration. Unfortunately, the stats aren’t omniscient. I still have no idea how in the world this comparatively uninteresting shot of an airplane is my fifth most popular photo. And for photos that have simply been copied, and not linked, you’ll still have to manually search those out (I continued to be surprised at where my photos show up . . . ).
This feature is only available to “Pro” account holders at the moment, so if you’ve got one, check it out. More info on how to activate this feature here.
technology hacker
thanks for the info :)