Fun with Flickr

Most people have at least a passing familiarity with Flickr, the website for storing and sharing photographs. But not everyone is aware that there's a whole group of Flickr-based tools that take the fun of photo-sharing to a whole new level:

• FD's Flickr Toys:There's lots of fun to be had as you take your own or Flickr photographs and turn them into movie posters, motivational messages, or tributes to Andy Warhol.
  
• Westmont (Illinois) Public Library has done something very interesting with its Flickr account. Staff take photos of new books lined up face-out. Each picture of a book cover is linked to the library's catalog--just click on the picture of the book you want, and you are brought to the library's catalog to check the status or place a hold. What a great idea!
  
• The Nancy Pearl Pool: What do you do with your Nancy Pearl action figure? At my house, we call her "Avocado Head" and she's married to our Leonardo Da Vinci. Others find more creative activities. The Nancy Pearl Flickr Pool takes pictures of Nancy Pearl dolls in unusual situations and shares them with the world. Just another example of how Flickr creates community.
  
• Colr Pickr: Specify a color and Colr Pickr will find Flickr photos that have the color as the dominant hue.
  
• Retrivr: If you thought Colr Pickr is cool, try Retrivr. This tool allows you to draw a sketch of the picture you want to find, and then retrieves similar Flickr photos.
  
• Flickr Leech: Programmable Web says this is "a handy data mining tool for Flickr. Search on interestingness, user, and other attributes."
  
• Flicker Graph : This tool shows you relationships (as in "degrees of separation") among Flickr users.
  
• Clockr: This Flash application uses random numbers taken from Flickr photographs to display the current time.
  
• Spell with Flickr: Uses letter images from Flickr to spell what you've typed in, for that ever-popular ransome note effect.