I’ve been obsessing with digital photography for a few weeks. First, I decided that it was time to get a new digital camera (the old Nikon 950 was fine, but showing its age, both mechanically and comparatively to modern cameras). Turns out Santa was thinking the same thing, which was good. It took a long time, but I settled on a Panasonic DMC-FZ3. Although the process of picking it was actually interesting from a consumer choice/market segmentation point of view, the main point of this entry is to say that I’ve decided to switch to Flickr as my main photo publication site. There are a lot of reasons that conspired:

• Flickr’s sense of design is almost perfect.
  • Flickr has a very, very down-to-earth approach in their communications with customers and users.
    • They’re using the web really well, combining high-accesibility HTML with high-usability Flash appropriately
    • By encouraging Creative Commons licenses, they’re making the world of open media that much richer
      • They understand many of my requirements as a photo-sharer, including licensing choices, “privacy” levels, not wanting to worry about capacity (although I wish they’d gone further in doing pbase-style viewing of photos by camera model)
      • Their usability is good enough that my in-laws were able to accept my invitation and see the ‘friends & family only’ pictures with no apparent frustration
        • They’re a small, dynamic, interesting local company with an interesting philosophy

In brief, I like the product, I like the company, and I want the company to succeed. So I signed up for two years, hoping that they’re still around for me to renew.

Feel free to poke around my photostream, and if you’re a friend, add me as a contact, I’ll reciprocate, and you’ll get to see more pictures (mostly of kids so far, but probably a broader set as I learn how to use flickr better, and get better with my new toy).

Now, if only I hadn’t left the battery charger and battery in Paris…