The Political Uses of Flickr

I found this interesting article about Moveon.org’s use of Flickr via Echoditto’s linkblog. Today I stumbled across Flickr user DC Tourism, apparently an account created by the Washington, DC Convention & Tourism Corporation (WCTC). Other organizational applications I know of include my kickball league DC Kickball (members were encouraged to email in photos), Evan Bayh has one apparently to craft an image for a potential presidential run, and the Wal-Mart Movie folks used one to organize photos. At my suggestion someone at Echoditto set up a Jennifer Granholm account, but have not uploaded any photos, and despite several urgings while I was there PFAW said they had evaluated the technology but decided against using it. Even the College Democrats chapter at the University of Michigan have a group going …

The Personal Democracy forum post by Micah L. Sifry concludes:

The larger lesson for other organizations is this: As social networking sites like Flickr, del.icio.us (also just bought by Yahoo!), and MySpace attract millions of users, it may make sense to go where the people already are and start playing with the same tools, not only because those tools may offer all kinds of benefits to the organization, but also to see what unexpected benefits may engage people. What MoveOn is doing with Flickr is just a beginning.

Author: Rob Goodspeed