Image sharing, or photo sharing, is the publishing or transfer of
digital photos online. Image sharing websites offer services such as uploading, hosting, managing and sharing of photos (publicly or privately).
This function is provided through both websites and applications that facilitate the upload and display of images. The term can also be loosely applied to the use of online photo galleries that are set up and managed by individual users, including
photoblog
A photoblog (or photolog) is a form of photo sharing and publishing in the format of a blog. It differs from a blog through the predominant use of and focus on photographs rather than text. Photoblogging (the action of posting photos to a photob ...
s. Sharing means that other users can view but not necessarily download images, and users can select different copyright options for their images.
While photoblogs tend only to display a chronological view of user-selected medium-sized photos, most photo sharing sites provide multiple views (such as
thumbnail
Thumbnails are reduced-size versions of pictures or videos, used to help in recognizing and organizing them, serving the same role for images as a normal text index does for words. In the age of digital images, visual search engines and image ...
s and
slideshow
A slide show (slideshow) is a presentation of a series of still images ( slides) on a projection screen or electronic display device, typically in a prearranged sequence. The changes may be automatic and at regular intervals or they may be manu ...
s), the ability to classify photos into albums, and add annotations (such as captions or
tags).
Desktop photo management applications may include their own photo-sharing features or integration with sites for uploading images to them. There are also desktop applications whose sole function is sharing images, generally using
peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network. They are said to form a peer-to-peer n ...
networking. Basic image sharing functionality can be found in applications that allow you to email photos, for example by dragging and dropping them into pre-designed
templates
Template may refer to:
Tools
* Die (manufacturing), used to cut or shape material
* Mold, in a molding process
* Stencil, a pattern or overlay used in graphic arts (drawing, painting, etc.) and sewing to replicate letters, shapes or designs
Co ...
.
Photo sharing is not confined to the web and personal computers, but is also possible from portable devices such as
camera phone
A camera phone is a mobile phone which is able to capture photographs and often record video using one or more built-in digital cameras. It can also send the resulting image wirelessly and conveniently. The first commercial phone with color cam ...
s, either directly or via MMS. Some cameras now come equipped with
wireless networking
A wireless network is a computer network that uses wireless data connections between network nodes.
Wireless networking is a method by which homes, telecommunications networks and business installations avoid the costly process of introducing c ...
and similar sharing functionality themselves.
History
The first photo sharing sites originated during the mid to late 1990s, primarily from services providing online ordering of prints (
photo finishing), but many more came into being during the early 2000s with the goal of providing permanent and centralized access to a user's photos, and in some cases video clips too.
Webshots
Webshots is a photo wallpaper and screensaver service owned and operated by Threefold Photos. It was also a photo sharing service from 1999 to 2012.
History
Webshots was created in 1995 by Auralis, Inc. in San Diego, California. It was initially ...
,
SmugMug
SmugMug is a paid image sharing, image hosting service, and online video platform on which users can upload photos and videos. The company also facilitates the sale of digital and print media for amateur and professional photographers. On April ...
,
Yahoo! Photos
Yahoo! Photos was a photo sharing service launched on March 28, 2000 and owned by Yahoo!, designed specifically for Yahoo! users. Users created individual photo albums, categorized their photos and placed them in the corresponding albums. Users ...
and
Flickr
Flickr ( ; ) is an American image hosting and video hosting service, as well as an online community, founded in Canada and headquartered in the United States. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and was a popular way for amateur and professional ...
were among the first. This has resulted in different approaches to revenue generation and functionality among providers. The first windows application was invented by jerry ackerman at icu software in 1990 and then Philip Morris at Kodak for a patent in 1994.
Revenue models
Image sharing sites can be broadly broken up into two groups: sites that offer photo sharing for free and sites that charge consumers directly to host and share images.
Of the sites that offer free photo sharing, most can be broken up into advertising-supported media plays and online photo finishing sites, where photo sharing is a vehicle to sell prints or other merchandise. These designations are not strict, and some subscription sites have a limited free version. Consumers can share their photos directly from their home computers over high speed connections through
peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network. They are said to form a peer-to-peer n ...
photo sharing using applications. Peer-to-peer photo sharing often carries a small one-time cost for the software. Some sites allow you to post your pictures online and they will then project the image onto famous buildings during special events, while other sites let you insert photos into digital postcards, slide shows and photo albums and send them to others.
Some free sites are owned by camera manufacturers, and only accept photos made with their hardware.
Subscription-based
In return for a fee, subscription-based photo sharing sites offer their services without the distraction of advertisements or promotions for prints and gifts. They may also have other enhancements over free services, such as guarantees regarding the
online availability of photos, more storage space, the ability for non-account holders to download full-size, original versions of photos, and tools for backing up photos. Some offer user photographs for sale, splitting the proceeds with the
photographer
A photographer (the Greek language, Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who makes photographs.
Duties and types of photographe ...
, while others may use a disclaimer to reserve the right to use or sell the photos without giving the photographer royalties or notice.
Some image sharing sites have begun integrating
video sharing
An online video platform (OVP), provided by a video hosting service, enables users to upload, convert, store and play back video content on the Internet, often via a structured, large-scale system that may generate revenue. Users will generally u ...
as well.
Sharing methods
Peer-to-peer
With the introduction of high speed (broadband) connections directly to homes, it is feasible to share images and videos without going through a central service. The advantages of peer-to-peer sharing are reduced hosting costs and no loss of control to a central service. The downsides are that the consumer does not get the benefit of off-site backup; consumer
Internet service provider
An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise private ...
s (ISPs) often prohibit the serving of content both by contract and through the implementation of network filtering, and there are few quality guarantees for recipients. However, there are typically no direct consumer costs beyond the purchase of the initial software, provided the consumer already has a computer with the photos at home on a high speed connection. Applications like
Tonido provide peer-to-peer photo sharing.
Peer-to-server
Operating peer-to-peer solutions without a central server can create problems as some users do not leave their computers online and connected all the time. Using an always-on server like
Windows Home Server
Windows Home Server (code-named Quattro) is a home server operating system from Microsoft. It was announced on 7 January 2007 at the Consumer Electronics Show by Bill Gates, released to manufacturing on 16 July 2007 and officially released on ...
which acts as an intermediate point, it is possible to share images peer-to-peer with the reliability and security of a central server. Images are securely stored behind a
firewall
Firewall may refer to:
* Firewall (computing), a technological barrier designed to prevent unauthorized or unwanted communications between computer networks or hosts
* Firewall (construction), a barrier inside a building, designed to limit the spre ...
on the Windows Home Server and can be accessed only by those with appropriate permissions.
Peer-to-browser
A variation on the peer-to-peer model is peer-to-browser, whereby images are shared on one PC with the use of a local (on the host computer) software service (much like peer-to-peer) but made available to the viewer through a standard
web browser
A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...
. Technically speaking, this may still be described as peer-to-peer (with the second peer being a web browser) but it is characteristically different as it assumes no need to download peer software for the viewer. Photos are accessed by regular
URLs
A Uniform Resource Locator (URL), colloquially termed as a web address, is a reference to a web resource that specifies its location on a computer network and a mechanism for retrieving it. A URL is a specific type of Uniform Resource Identifie ...
that standard web browsers understand natively without any further software required. Consequently, photos shared in this way are accessible not only to users who have downloaded the correct peer software (compatible with the software in use by the sharer).
Peer-to-browser sharing has (similar to peer-to-peer) reduced hosting costs, no loss of control to a central service, and no waiting for files to upload to the central service. Furthermore, universal web browser access to shared files makes them more widely accessible and available for use in different ways, such as embedding in, or linking to, from within web pages. As with peer-to-peer, the downsides are lack of off-site backup, possible inhibition by some ISPs, and limitations in speed of serving.
Social networks
With the emergence of
social networks
A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for an ...
, image sharing has now become a common online activity. For example, in Great Britain, 70% of online users engaged in image sharing in 2013; 64% of British users shared their photos through a social network. Facebook stated in 2015 that there were approximately two billion images uploaded to its service daily. In terms of image sharing, Facebook is the largest social networking service. On Facebook, people can upload and share their photo albums individually, and collaboratively with shared albums. This feature allows multiple users to upload pictures to the same album, and the album's creator has the ability to add or delete contributors.
Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
collaborated with
Photobucket in developing a new photo sharing service so users can attach a picture to a tweet without depending on another application such as TwitPic or Yfrog. As of June 2016, there were more than 500 million monthly active Instagram users.
Link aggregation sites
Image sharing on
social news
Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not.
Etymology
The word "social" derives from ...
and image aggregation sites such as
Reddit
Reddit (; stylized in all lowercase as reddit) is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and discussion website. Registered users (commonly referred to as "Redditors") submit content to the site such as links, text posts, images ...
,
Imgur
Imgur ( , stylized as imgur) is an American online image sharing and image hosting service with a focus on social gossip that was founded by Alan Schaaf in 2009. The service has hosted viral images and meme, particularly those posted on Reddit. ...
,
4chan
4chan is an anonymous English-language imageboard website. Launched by Christopher "moot" Poole in October 2003, the site hosts boards dedicated to a wide variety of topics, from anime and manga to video games, cooking, weapons, television, ...
,
Pinterest
Pinterest is an American image sharing and social media service designed to enable saving and discovery of information (specifically "ideas") on the internet using images, and on a smaller scale, animated GIFs and videos, in the form of pinboard ...
and
Tumblr
Tumblr (stylized as tumblr; pronounced "tumbler") is an American microblogging and social networking website founded by David Karp in 2007 and currently owned by Automattic. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content to a sho ...
allow users to share images with a large community of users. Images are the most liked content of the aggregation and media sharing site Reddit; and according to data analyst Randy Olson as of August 2014, nearly 2/3 of all successful posts on the site were links to an image hosted on Imgur.
Mobile
Sharing images via mobile phones has become popular. Several networks and applications have sprung up offering capabilities to share captured photos directly from mobile phones to social networks. The most prominent of these is
Instagram
Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...
, which has quickly become the dominant image sharing-centric social network with over 500 million members.
Other applications and networks offering similar service and growing in popularity include
Streamzoo,
Path
A path is a route for physical travel – see Trail.
Path or PATH may also refer to:
Physical paths of different types
* Bicycle path
* Bridle path, used by people on horseback
* Course (navigation), the intended path of a vehicle
* Desire p ...
,
PicsArt
Picsart is a Miami, Florida-based technology company that develops the Picsart suite of online photo and video editing applications, with a social creative community. The platform allows users to take and edit pictures and videos, draw with laye ...
,
Piictu, and
Starmatic.
Apps
Instagram
Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...
,
Snapchat
Snapchat is an American multimedia instant messaging app and service developed by Snap Inc., originally Snapchat Inc. One of the principal features of Snapchat is that pictures and messages are usually only available for a short time before the ...
and, in China,
Nice (mobile app) Nice is a photo-sharing mobile app in China from Nice App Mobile Technology Co., Ltd. (北京极赞科技有限公司 ) It is similar to Instagram
Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company M ...
are photo sharing apps with millions of users.
Technologies
Web photo album generators
Software can be found on the Internet to generate digital photo albums, usually to share photos on the web, using a home web server. In general, this is for advanced users that want to have better control over the appearance of their web albums and the actual servers they are going to run on.
Image classification
Image sharing sites usually propose several ways to classify images. Most sites propose at least a
taxonomy
Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification.
A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. ...
where images can be grouped within a directory-like structure in so-called "galleries". Some sites also allow users to classify images using tags to build a
folksonomy
Folksonomy is a classification system in which end users apply public tags to online items, typically to make those items easier for themselves or others to find later. Over time, this can give rise to a classification system based on those tags ...
. Depending on the restrictions on the set of users allowed to tag a single document and the set of tags available to describe the document, one speaks about narrow and broad folksonomies. A folksonomy is broad when there is no restriction on the set of taggers and available tags. When there are limitations, the folksonomy is called narrow. Another mechanism is coupling taxonomy and folksonomy, where tags associated to galleries and artists are cascaded to the galleries and artist's pictures. Broad taxonomies have interesting properties like the
power law
In statistics, a power law is a Function (mathematics), functional relationship between two quantities, where a Relative change and difference, relative change in one quantity results in a proportional relative change in the other quantity, inde ...
.
The use of
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...
to classify uploaded photos by subject, theme, or location is a prominent feature o
Raisethat Canon-USA launched early March 2019.
Photo tagging
Photo tagging is the process that allows users to tag and group photos of an individual or individuals. With facial recognition software tagging photos can become quicker and easier; the more tagging done of an individual the more accurate the software can be. This type of software is currently in use on Facebook.
Photo tagging is a way of labeling photos so that viewers can know who is who in the picture. On most online photo sharing sites such as
Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
, a tag can also be used as a link that when clicked will take you to the person's profile that was tagged. Most of the time photos can only be tagged by the user to uploads the photo but on some sites photos can be tagged by other users as well. These tags can be searched for across the entire Internet, on separate websites or in private data bases. They can be used for
crowdsourced
Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digita ...
classification (see the section on
image classification
Computer vision is an interdisciplinary scientific field that deals with how computers can gain high-level understanding from digital images or videos. From the perspective of engineering, it seeks to understand and automate tasks that the hum ...
) but can also play a socio-cultural role in that they can establish
neologism
A neologism Greek νέο- ''néo''(="new") and λόγος /''lógos'' meaning "speech, utterance"] is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted int ...
s,
Internet meme
An Internet meme, commonly known simply as a meme ( ), is an idea, behavior, style, or image that is spread via the Internet, often through social media platforms. What is considered a meme may vary across different communities on the Internet ...
s,
snowclone
A snowclone is a cliché and phrasal template that can be used and recognized in multiple variants. The term was coined as a neologism in 2004, derived from Journalese, journalistic clichés that referred to the number of Inuit words for snow.
H ...
s,
slogan
A slogan is a memorable motto or phrase used in a clan, political slogan, political, Advertising slogan, commercial, religious, and other context as a repetitive expression of an idea or purpose, with the goal of persuading members of the publi ...
s,
catch phrase
A catchphrase (alternatively spelled catch phrase) is a phrase or expression recognized by its repeated utterance. Such phrases often originate in popular culture and in the arts, and typically spread through word of mouth and a variety of mass ...
s, shared vocabularies and categorizations as well as producing comedic twists,
context
Context may refer to:
* Context (language use), the relevant constraints of the communicative situation that influence language use, language variation, and discourse summary
Computing
* Context (computing), the virtual environment required to su ...
s and
perspectives of the presented images, and hence often play a significant role in the
community building
Community building is a field of practices directed toward the creation or enhancement of community among individuals within a regional area (such as a neighborhood) or with a common need or interest. It is often encompassed under the fields of c ...
and
identity formation
Identity formation, also called identity development or identity construction, is a complex process in which humans develop a clear and unique view of themselves and of their Identity (social science), identity.
Self-concept, personality developme ...
of and the
entertainment
Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have developed over thousa ...
in
online communities
An online community, also called an internet community or web community, is a community whose members interact with each other primarily via the Internet. Members of the community usually share common interests. For many, online communities may fe ...
that allow the creation of broad folksonomies.
Geotagging
Geotagging a photo is the process in which a photo is marked with the geographical identification of the place it was taken. Most technology with photo taking capabilities are equipped with GPS system sensors that routinely geotag photos and videos. Crowdsourced data available from photo-sharing services have the potentiality of tracking places. Geotagging can reveal the footprints and behaviors of travelers by utilizing spatial proximity of geo-tagged photos that are shared online, making it possible to extract travel information relating to a particular location. Instagram, Flickr, and Panoramio are a few services that provide the option of geotagging images. Flickr has over 40 million geotagged photos uploaded by 400 thousand users, and still growing at a rapid pace. Some sites including
Panoramio
Panoramio was a geo-tagging, geo-located tagging, photo sharing Mashup (web application hybrid), mashup active between 2005 and 2016. Photos uploaded to the site were accessible as a layer in Google Earth and Google Maps. The site's goal was to a ...
and
Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons (or simply Commons) is a media repository of free-to-use images, sounds, videos and other media. It is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Files from Wikimedia Commons can be used across all of the Wikimedia projects in ...
show their
geocoded photographs on a map, helping the user find pictures of the same or nearby objects from different directions.
Criticism
Critics of image/photo sharing are concerned with the use of applications such as Instagram, because they believe that the behaviors portrayed on these sites could potentially be linked to the
narcissism
Narcissism is a self-centered personality style characterized as having an excessive interest in one's physical appearance or image and an excessive preoccupation with one's own needs, often at the expense of others.
Narcissism exists on a co ...
trait. Keen argues that "Self" is running digital culture, and he states that people use social-media platforms because they are interested in advertising themselves. Buffardi and Campbell (2008) also alleged that Instagram offers "a gateway for self-promotion via self-descriptions, vanity via photos, and a large amount of shallow relationships." However, they later said that the large number of users suggests the general
psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...
of the members is normative.
Privacy
Privacy activists and researchers have noted that the sharing of images on
social networks
A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for an ...
may compromise the privacy of people depicted in them. Further, most current social networks afford their users little control over content that they did not post themselves. In its
privacy policy
A privacy policy is a statement or legal document (in privacy law) that discloses some or all of the ways a party gathers, uses, discloses, and manages a customer or client's data. Personal information can be anything that can be used to identif ...
, Facebook states that any information posted using its service, including images, may be used to display relevant ads to its users. Facebook utilizes automatic facial recognition software that can automatically recognize the face of another Facebook user in new photos, and suggest that the user be tagged in the photo.
A
Ghent University
Ghent University ( nl, Universiteit Gent, abbreviated as UGent) is a public research university located in Ghent, Belgium.
Established before the state of Belgium itself, the university was founded by the Dutch King William I in 1817, when the ...
study found that employers commonly search for prospective employees on Facebook, and may decide whether or not to grant an
interview
An interview is a structured conversation where one participant asks questions, and the other provides answers.Merriam Webster DictionaryInterview Dictionary definition, Retrieved February 16, 2016 In common parlance, the word "interview" ...
based on the person's profile picture.
See also
*
Comparison of photo gallery software
A photo gallery software is a computer software that let users to manage and display photos and pictures and, in some cases, videos and other multimedia content. Features could include classify, display, share, tagging, etc.
The following is a co ...
*
Digital photo frame
A digital photo frame (also called a digital media frame) is a picture frame that displays digital photos without the need of a computer or printer. The introduction of digital photo frames predates tablet computers, which can serve the same p ...
*
File hosting service
A file-hosting service, cloud-storage service, online file-storage provider, or cyberlocker is an internet hosting service specifically designed to host user files. It allows users to upload files that could be accessed over the internet afte ...
*
File sharing
File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digital media, such as computer programs, multimedia (audio, images and video), documents or electronic books. Common methods of storage, transmission and dispersion include r ...
*
Image hosting service
{{internet hosting, right
An image hosting service allows individuals to upload images to an Internet website. The image host will then store the image onto its server, and show the individual different types of code to allow others to view that i ...
*
List of image-sharing websites
This article presents a non-exhaustive list of notable Image sharing, image-sharing websites.
Active image-sharing websites
Defunct photo-sharing websites
:''These also include sites that may still operate, but do not accept new users. List ...
*
List of photo and video apps
This is a list of notable mobile apps for use in photography and videography; it includes apps for photo capture, annotation, editing and manipulation, video capture, editing and manipulation. Apps only for video or image sharing
Image sharing, ...
*
Timeline of file sharing
This is a timeline of events in the history of networked file sharing.
1970s
* 1976 – Xmodem a point-to-point binary transfer protocol by Ward Christensen.
* February 1978 – Ward Christensen's CBBS becomes the first Bulletin board sys ...
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Image Sharing