Why I went Creative Commons

You post your work online so you can be found, right?

Blogs, Sites, Search Engines, & Social Media = Sources of Traffic

Like most other people for a long time I was afraid of having my images stolen, I disabled the ability for people to download my photos and included a copyright notice with all of my images. I've seen people use massive watermarks and demand that no one can even mention their work on a blog without permission. I've been posting images on Flickr since November 2008, that's over 4 years and in that time I've been known for my extremely high levels of activity in the community. You'd imagine that through my interaction in the Flickr community it would lead to Flickr itself being my highest source of traffic on Flickr, but it isn't. Flickr itself only constitutes 30%-45% of my daily traffic while search engines, blogs, forums, and other websites like Reddit and StumbleUpon contribute the majority of my traffic. Social media has also proven to have an immense effect on the number of views I get. Sharing a link to one of my photos on Google+ or Twitter creates a massive spike in traffic. Also from passively allowing my content to sit on Flickr and absorb views over years has brought me offers for licencing my work. This has lead me to realize the importance of making my material appealing for people to share online.

After Sharing on Google+

The other day I posted about one of my most viral Flickr postings ever; my Canon lens collage. I included a link back to Flickr telling people how to view the image bigger and so far it's given me a spike of traffic with a tail end going over a couple of days.

After Sharing on Twitter

I haven't traditionally been keen on Twitter, but over the past several days I've been sharing my photos through the Twitter share button on Flickr. Every time I Tweet any of my photos it causes a massive spike in views as shown above.

What I've Chosen to do

I've chosen to make my work more appealing for people to share, use, and pass around online. I've chosen to license my work as "Attribution-NonCommercial Creative Commons". Under this licence people may share or remix and adapt my work under the conditions that they attribute it to me and that it isn't used commercially. Doing this helps make my work more appealing to those who'd want to share it knowing that I won't come after them and extract my vicious revenge on their family. This isn't the only thing I've done, over the years I've made it so my work is more and more available to people. Right now on Flickr I have it set so anyone can download the full resolution original files of all of my work, that's right all of it, 100%, and without any watermarks at that! (my name is in the metadata though) Before you call me insane, two of the largest photographers on social media +Trey Ratcliff & +Thomas Hawk both offer all of their images under Creative Commons and can be downloaded at full resolution without watermarks. Doing all of this will help my content go more viral since the basis of going viral is through the sharing of content that people will talk about and recommend to others. All while making sure that I'm attributed to help ensure everything is traced back to me.

Trey Ratcliff's Work

All of Trey's work can be downloaded at full resolution without watermarks. In this screenshot is a photo he posted on Google+.

Thomas Hawk's Work

All of Thomas' work can be downloaded at full resolution without watermarks as well. In this screenshot is a photo he posted to Google+.

Billy, Are You Insane?

Maybe a little, but for the longest time my fears of switching to Creative Commons have prevented me from doing so. I've known Thomas Hawk for years and for all that time I've known him he's been a proponent of Creative Commons. It's only through my own experiences online that I've come to the conclusion that it's the better licence to deal with when it comes to this online sharing environment if you want to get your stuff out there. There's of course the fear of having your work stolen, which is everyone's fear when they first post something online. We've all heard of crazy horror stories but in the years that I've been putting my work up online have I ever seen it used commercially without me being compensated? No, but under this Creative Commons licence that would be a violation since I don't give permission for people to use my material commercially. What I have seen though are people who'll use something I made as a profile pic or post it to their friends or sharing it on their Tumblr. Do you know what this has done for me? It has gotten me thousands of views! I want to encourage people to do this since it brings in more people who will actually buy a print, watch my show, ask for a Tibby T-shirt, and become friends. Sure you might have something stolen along the way but opening yourself up will help you make a greater return in the long run.

In closing, I'd like to share a quote from +Thomas Hawk about his views on the copyright of his images that's been in my head since I first read it. 

"I look at my photography like this. When I make an image it belongs to me. It belongs to me while I take the photo. It belongs to me while it sits in my camera. It belongs to me while I process it on my Mac. It belongs to me while I let it sit in an archive folder waiting to be uploaded to the internet.

Then I upload it to the internet and it’s like I’m taking a bird and opening my window and letting it go. Off she goes. Her song to be enjoyed by the entire world — certainly no longer mine.

There’s a wild band of parrots that flies around San Francisco. They squawk and make beautiful noise in the trees above the city. I think someone made a movie about them once. They are far more beautiful and interesting than the parrots who live in the cages at the pet store."   -Thomas Hawk

Billy
about Billy

My Online Journey

From Panoramio to Flickr to Google+

I haven't always been big on using the internet. When I really get into anything I tend to become obsessed with it. I have an internet track record of breaking things, tripping wires, and grabbing people's attention not always in the best way. I've also had some problems with interacting with people in real life. Below are the main networks I've used over the time I've been actively producing content online.

The Pamoramio Days:
My family has traditionally been behind the curve of technology and we didn't even have a computer in the house until 2003 and we started out with dial up. I mainly used it to play a few games and type things up. Eventually my mother saved up to buy a laptop that I began using when she wasn't using it. It wasn't until 2007 on a laptop passed down to me by my mother that I started to contribute content to the internet. For a little while I had been obsessed with the desktop version of Google Earth. I loved using it to explore areas around my city of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada. I had an obsession with finding new waterfalls and brook trout fishing spots and I'd ride my pedal bike out into the forest down old bush roads and bull my way through thick forest to find these places and take pictures. I discovered that on Google Earth you could embed photos as a layer through a site called Panoramio, so I signed up and started to put my photos up on there.

A screenshot of Google Earth overlooking the upper reaches of the Little Carp River with descriptions. The following photos correspond to the numbered locations.

1. These beaver ponds were up on the flat height of land. This was early in the spring and finding such ponds excites trout fishermen, at least me anyway. 

2. Further downstream just above the waterfalls the river looks nice and peaceful. 

3. Then BAM! it goes over a plunge into a gorge full of waterfalls. 

4. And along these journeys I'd come across the Salvelinus fontinalis better known as brook trout or speckled trout. These guys are prized fish for eating and carry a kind of prestige and air about them for being a fish that needs an extremely high quality habitat, hence they are an indicator species. 

The Flickr Days:

I soon became bored with Panoramio, I was getting a lot of views but there just wasn't a community to be found on the site at the time. So I went looking for a new site to display my photos so I researched which site was the world's most used photo sharing site and I found Flickr. I started posting on Flickr in 2008 and I started to get some interaction with people, I discovered groups, and made some new contacts. I found it to be a great place to see other people's work and I soon started to fave a lot of images. I became obsessed with faving, I liked looking at people's photos and it was a way for me to escape chemistry and biology that I was studying in university. Through all of my time faving, seeing photos, and shooting I quickly developed my skills in taking photos. I soon became renowned for faving images and I showed no sign of slowing down. On Flickr Thomas Hawk claimed to have the most faves of anyone and I soon passed him and hit a quarter of a million before Flickr stopped me thinking I was an automated script and suspended my account in 2010. Flickr's freezing of my account caused a lot of commotion and soon threads and blog posts started popping up about it and I disputed Flickr's claim and they unfroze my account. Since that time I slowed down on Flickr in fear of tripping another spam wire.

Above is Thomas Hawk's blog post about my Flickr account being suspended. 

The Google+ Days:
A few months after I had finished my university degree in Biology and Chemistry Thomas Hawk invited me to Google+ on August 19th of 2011. At first I was afraid of joining and being active on something referred to as a "social network" since I hadn't done well interacting with people in real life. I gave it a try and I felt like there was an accepting community on there. Within 5 days I had 1,416 followers, within 36 days I had more than 6,000 followers which is around what I had amassed on Flickr. By June 15th of 2012 I had hit 50,000 followers and now by November 30th I estimate I'll hit 1 million followers. The massive amount of followers means nothing though in comparison to the meaningful relationships I've made with people on G+. I had met Thomas Hawk on Flickr years ago, but it wasn't until G+ that I really felt like I knew him through G+ hangouts which are a live video chat of up to 10 people. Google+ helped me further open up and overcome some of my social problems to the point where I actually felt confident enough to host an on air variety show using G+ Hangouts On Air. The show has gone on to become one of the longest running shows on G+. Producing shows meant that I was producing video content so now I'm more active on Youtube, a site where I was too afraid to comment on for years. Making a lot of new great connections on G+ spilled over to Facebook where I've gone from only having a handful of school friends to having hundreds of friends and many subscribers. During this time I've also gotten interested in Pinterest where I'm enjoying collecting images related to my interests.

A screenshot from the 33rd episode of my on air G+ variety show "That Show with Billy Wilson (TSBW)".

This now brings me to this place, this blog, that I've just started mostly based on the buzz and recommendations I've heard from people on G+. So far I'm enjoying this and I'm excited to see where it will go. Let me know what you guys think!

Billy

about Billy