Flickr on Newsweek

From the Times Colonist, March 31, 2006

Darron Kloster

Former Victorian makes mark with Newsweek appearance

A computer programmer and software developer who grew up in Victoria and sold his company to Yahoo! Last year for a reported $35 million has made the cover of Newsweek.

Stewart Butterfield and his wife Caterina Fake, the founders of Flickr, one of the world’s most popular photosharing Internet sites, are part of Newsweek’s April 3 cover story Putting the We In Web.

Butterfield, 33, was born in Lund on the Sunshine Coast but attended South Park School through his elementary years and St. Michaels University School grades 7 – 12. The son of developer David Butterfield, who is best known for building Shoal Point near Fisherman’s Warf, Stewart Butterfield graduated from the University of Victoria and, later, Cambridge University with a master’s degree in philosophy.

He and Fake were married June 1, 2002, in a ceremony at the Victoria Golf Club. The couple moved their company and 11 staff from Vancouver to Yahoo headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif., last June after the Internet giant bought Flickr for a reported $35 million. Flickr allows users to share full-resolution photos with friends, family and the open Internet for a yearly $25 fee.

Butterfield was traveling between New York and his San Francisco home Thursday and wasn’t immediately available for comment.

The cover story is part of Newsweek’s Next Frontier Series which examines how technology is changing the way we live. The U.S. based magazine with a circulation of 3.1 million calls the couple innovators in the next stage of the Internet. Commonly referred as Web 2.0 or the ‘live web’, companies like Flickr represent a new user-generated movement on the net.

In the past, the Internet was known as cyberspace, a vast impersonal realm. Newsweek senior editor Steven Levy and silicon Valley correspondent Brad Stone say innovative companies have transformed the Web from a place to go to a place to do things, a place for personal expression and a means to connect to others.

Other companies featured in the cover story include MySpace.com, a “hangout” for 65 million young people and thousands of rock bands, movie stars and marketers; and, Facebook.com which brings seven million college students and graduates into blogs.

Flickr built a membership base of almost three million who get unlimited photo storage, sharing and other features. Butterfield and Fake had originally started a company called Ludicorp to develop online games, but in the process created a tool to share photos and save them to the Web. Flickr emerged and, less than two years later, is one of the Web’s fastest growing properties.

Bike Registration

Yesterday I took 35mm shots like these for Pat for his Honda Passport registration. These are Jpeg digitals, while the ones he needs are the 35 mm. He got the film back from the lab today and they look real good. It was quite sunny yesterday so I had the exposure compensation down 1 stop. They seem even a bit darker than the digital which has the exposure down 2 stops. I had the aperature on the 35 set down about a stop, also, but the background did not blur very much, but they look ok, as the bike shows up against the green hedge.

Plum tree in the RAW

I am finally learning how to tweak the RAW images. This is the plum tree in full bloom about a week ago. There were hoards of bees all over it. Now the bloosums are dying, so I expect there will be lots of fruit again.

Lloyd and Jo were over for the week end AGM. I made a 5 course dinner with mussels, bagette, balsamic vinegar & olive oil for appetizers, then an avocado/romaine salad, the entre was roast duck, baby potatoes, asparagus, cranberries, blackberry pie for dessert and blackberry port and brie to finish off with a cheese course. Was fun to do and serve.

Progress Report sub page

I finished the Progress Report sub page and loaded it. Added music to Progress Report and to My Walk sub pages. So, shall work on the Series sub page next.

Sub page My Walk

Yesterday I loaded the sub page My Walk to my home page. I am quite happy with the way it turned out. The Progress Report sub page should be easy, but the Series one will take a little longer as I want to make thumb nails again - one for each series album.

We drove the Bentley on the Vintage Car Club's monthly tour on Sunday. Ruby and Steve accompanied us. It was a long and very nice run called the Marina Crawl, ending up at Just Joey's for coffee. Of course, there were no stops for photos!

Today I was out in the garden. I cleaned up the woodland walk, digging out thistles and dandilions. The fawn lilies are spreading. The bluebells are taking over the whole area. I am not decided about leaving them or getting rid of them. I clipped back the fig tree, the apple tree a bit, some of the jasmine and bits of the eucalyptus. I tied up the little round cedar at the front again -- the one that was storm damaged. I think the old string broke. I transplanted the few sping flowers I bought into their wooden box. The garden is looking not too bad for the attention it has been getting the past few years. I need more tulips put into the bed along the driveway and along the side of the garage. I could even get more of the crocuses put into the front grass strip. They look terrific first thing in the spring. People walking along that street always look them over. Last week the recyle collection truck guy stopped there to have his lunch in his truck. That's kinda nice to see others enjoying the show. The yellow plum tree is in full bloom making a great white blanket in the back. There are lots of little bees, so we should have plenty of plums again.

Out for a walk

Today I walked to Royal Oak Mall to mail Steve's parcel again, as it was returned to me with the notation of 'insufficient address'. It was a lovely, sunny day and a nice walk. I have quite a few more ideas for 'my walk' shots for the summer... the kids playground, some action shots of the sports.

I am working on the sub page 'my walk' for my home page. I scanned this photo and a few others for the Summer album and for the summer thumbnail for the sub page. The colors scanned in beautifully, from the prints. Its a pleasure to use this scanner, now that I am learning a bit about it. I have yet to complete the sub page and the albums, but this has been fun to do, so far. Its disappointing to have no one viewing my page. I guess I am doing it mostly for myself, though.

More home page stuff

I still have many adjustments to do to my page, including the new sub pages and changing the drop down menu and the albums table on photograpy. All in good time. Its a fun hobby along with all the other ones.

This is a test, also to see how this photo will look with text beside it.

Taking time to smell the uhhhhh daffodils

The first boquet of the year is in the house. Its a cloudy warm day.

Home Page and stuff

The photo above is from along the Oregon Coast, somewhere, shooting from high up above the ocean, on the road.

I have spent a good part of the last few days revising my home page, trying to make it look less amature. I will be making a few sub pages, which might be fun. The music is not hesitating now, and I do not get a 'not found' when I click on select. Hmmmmmm, wonder what fixed that. I think it looks a little more cleaned up and readable. Since I cannot get to the Progress Report page from 'select' now... I shall have to put it under Home and all the main page drop down menus, I guess. Or maybe not, since I just finished doing all that stuff. I added a link for Botanical Bay, Man hole covers, Boquets, 2006 travel to the desert & all, so I really don't feel like going back and making yet more changes to reload right now.

We were out to lunch at the Dunlop House today with Jim and Sheila....... mmmmmmmmm scrumpious food and service. I got a couple of photos for 'eateries' on my page.

Yesterday we had lunch at the seafood place on 5th in Sidney with Ruby and Steve, and then we went to the Gondoliers at the Sanscha Hall theater, the name of which escapes me at the moment. Good fun. They are having their whole house remodelled starting with digging a giant hole for the garage/shop renovation. They are going to live in it while it is being finished. Our house needs a lot of things too. All in good time.

We are waiting for the closing date on Nob Hill which is to be May 1st. Yeaaaaaaaaaaaa! Free at last... from that hassle and with a healthy profit for the 25 years spent at it.

Dan's Garden ornament

In reviewing my photos I showed this one to Pat and he thought Bruce would like a copy of it. I did my best to get a good copy on 8 1/2 x 11 Epson glossy that I have on hand. Despite the blown out right top corner, it looks not too bad.

Day before yesterday, Tara needed some photos for her science project on her epage for her class at the Uni. We were shooting this at nite under the tungsten light -- not my favourite, but it seemed to be the time she had available. Hope it was what she needed.

Hurricane Ridge and Silver Falls Ice

More photos from our latest trip. Hurricane Ridge was covered in snow. The icicle fantasies were an extra. A few days later we found more ice in the Silver Falls State Park.

Last night we had a lightning and thumber and a brief but heavy fall of snowballs. It was a sight to behold. The snowballs falling do not show on my photo. They show as snow on the deck under the tungsten light.

I am reviewing my photos from the West Coast, Desert, & Grand Canyon again.

Yesterday I left my 6 rolls of film with the lab. They should be ready today. Hope I got some good stuff on film, too. I doubt if my attempt at star trails worked, though.

I have been revising my web page to include this trip under Travel and a few other minor corrections. Should soon be ready to loaded the revised pages and then work on the album for our last trip.

West Coast, Desert & Grand Canyon

We left home on the 14th of Feb. in our Dodge Lodge. We drove down the West Coast of Washington, Oregon and California and then drove across California and up to the Grand Canyon in Arizona. We were gone three weeks.
We visited friends on the way. Dan and Irene took us up to Hurricane Ridge and other places. I have some really good icicle photos from there. Del and Marianne took us up Mount Angel to the Abbey, to see the water falls (spectacular) in the Silver Falls State Park, and to see a few of the covered bridges. We ran out of light and time. It was good to see Candi and Gary happy and ever so busy.
After visiting we set off down the coast.. a very white knuckles drive, with a stop at the derigible museum, Tillamook Air Museum (blimps (more good photos). I have some seascape photos and some Oregon dunes shots. Spectacular scenery. We went through the Avenue of the Giants which is a redwood forest. We navigated through San Francisco and over the San Rafael bridge with traffic stopped on a five lane freeway, just before the bridge. I have a few desert shots from the drive across California and up to the Grand Canyon. It rained all day on our drive to Williams, Arizona, through some country that would have made excellent desert photos, except it was raining. Some one at a campsite told me they needed the rain as they were having fires in the area. From Williams (new all cement campsite with trains, traffic, and horribly high prices) we drove up to the Grand Canyon the next day with a beatifull, sunny day. They were having unseasonably warm weather, so there was no snow and ice. More spectacular scenery.
As we had been on the road for awhile we decided to head for home directly up the I-5. There was a very tense few hours going over the Siskiyou Summit (elevation 3000 feet) near Ashland, Oregon, when we followed the de-icing truck for some miles. We made it home safely the next day. Pat knows the roads and by-passes for most of the cities on the I-5, but he was driving long days to get us back home. Not many photo opportunities in those last 4 days. Home on the 6th of March.
It was a wonderfull trip. No need to ever drive the Coast highway, again. At least not all at once!