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Ink Interview: John Watson [fd]
Daily Ink
Stored in: Interviews
Posted On: September 02 2006
By: Bryan Partington
Photo © fd
If you've been around flickr for any length of time, you've probably stumbled across John Watson's handiwork.
Under the alias "fd", he is the mastermind behind fd's Flickr Toys, a vast and varied collection of dood-dads and whatcha-ma-dingies that allow the flickr population at large to play around with their digital photos, enhancing flickr's functionality.
He's a Utatan, a very proud father, and a beloved member of the flickr community.
He also inhabits a particularly vibrant nexus where independent enterprise, new technologies and community collide.
Not only are your toys interesting technical experiments, but they also have a tendency to spread virally across flickr. What makes for a toy with broad cultural appeal?
There are a couple of factors but I'll temper my answer by saying that it's difficult to predict. I've been surprised more than once. And sometimes it just takes some time. The Top Cameras listing was running for 4 months before anyone noticed it (the world descended on it recently when the Yahoo! Shopping Blog mentioned it).
Novelty is a big factor. Folks love new. But even more important than novelty is that most of the toys I provide allow people to do things with their photos that they just couldn't do before.
For example, there's nothing new about motivational posters. But until I created the Motivator toy, most people couldn't make one. It took some skill with a photo editing application and most people either don't have Photoshop or an equivalent or don't have the time to learn. The Motivator toy makes it easy for anyone to create something fun and cool. That makes people happy. Broad appeal is a side-effect of that... if it makes people happy, it'll probably be popular.
When I think of an idea for a new toy, one of my first questions to myself is, "Will this increase the net happiness in the world?" If the answer is yes, it goes on the to-do list. (I actually struggled with that question for days before releasing Scout.)
You use the commercial API and are supported by advertisements and poster sales. What do you think of the future for commercial, web-API based development? Particularly for independent developers such as yourself.
I won't be retiring on it but I'm grateful for the money that it is generating.
I think the future is promising. Flickr has been something of a web 2.0 darling and part of that is the fact that they've implemented these open APIs that allow developers to create add-on services. It's a win for Flickr because it allows outside developers to provide additional services for free. It's a win for developers because we get to build stuff that gets used by a large number of people. And it's a win for users because all of these third-party services enhance the overall Flickr experience.
Yahoo!, Google and many others provide APIs that allow independent developers to mashup data in exciting and potentially lucrative ways. And more services are exposing APIs all the time. Everyone seems to understand that APIs are Good. It's definitely a fun time to be a web developer.
Which of your toys is the most popular? Which is your favourite?
Scout is the most popular by far. Thousands of visitors check Scout every day to find out which of their photos are in Explore. My favorite... I don't know. It used to be the Badge Maker. I'm fond of that one because it was one of the first and I love it when someone uploads a photo of one that they've printed and laminated. But my current favorite is the Photo Wall (any suggestions for a better name?). I just launched that one Wednesday. I'll sit and watch it for long stretches. It's very soothing.
Can you tell us about any nifty toys or widgets that you're currently cooking up?
I'm always doing some R&D on several different things. I've been tinkering with the Photo Wall for several weeks, for example. A few things that are close to launching are custom calling/business cards and emailable/printable postcards. I've also got some ideas for a couple of online multiplayer games you can play with Flickr photos.
What do you like best about flickr?
It's the people. I've met a lot of great folks through Flickr. And over time, Flickr has become a hub for a lot of activity, not all of it photo-centric. I love signing on and checking up on the discussions in Utata and Central. There's always something interesting (often something absolutely fascinating) going on.
Otherwise, in Interviews:
- Previously: Ink Interview: Cal Henderson
- Next: Ink Interview: Nicola Warwick [DILO]
Utata Ink is a daily publication edited by Bryan Partington (striatic). Photos used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and obtained via the flickr API unless otherwise noted. To make a contribution to Ink, please visit Ink Me.
