Like most users of the internet, I think I must take about 50 times more than I give back. Most of this is browsing, some listening to music- legally! and podcasts, particularly Mark Kermode’s film reviews.
All well and good, but sometimes I do feel the need to give a little back. This blog is one example of my own web contributions. This morning I received an email from an online travel brochure company, letting me know that they’ve updated their site and my picture thay asked permission to use has moved its url. It’s not the greatest pic in the world and one of goodness knows how many taken of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, but I still get a warm glow of satisfaction that it was appreciated enough to be thought worthy of use by someone other than myself.
It’s here, in case you’re interested and the firm who wanted to use the it found it on Flickr. Whilst I find Flickr a splendid service, it is sometimes blocked by the filters and occasionally you can bump into some ‘interesting’ pictures that you wouldn’t want pupils to see, so for a safe, moderated photo sharing site for pupils I can heartily recommend the NEN Gallery.
As well as ‘doing my bit’ in making some useful resources available to schools and going some way to becoming more of a giver and less of just a taker, there is the warm glow of satisfaction when you see how many times a picture you’ve uploaded has been viewed. Try it, you’d be surprised. I checked this morning and this picture has been viewed 2506 as I type. Surely that makes it worthwhile?
