For the longest time, the Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi has been the most widely used camera on Flickr. With a 10.1 MP Lens, an image sensor vibration cleaning system, 9-point auto focus, and a mid-range price point, it’s easy to see why the Canon camera has been so popular with the photography enthusiasts on Yahoo’s photo-sharing website.

But while Canon has dominated, there’s another camera that’s been zipping up the Flickr charts. Actually, camera phone would be more precise, because we’re talking about the iPhone.

It takes a lot of iPhones to overtake the Canon franchise.

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It was April 6th, 2008 that I posted How to post images to Twitter and Flickr at the same time from an iPhone. It has been one of the more popular posts on this blog.

Flickr now makes it possible to post to Twitter directly via an emailed photo AND via Blog This. Their integration removes the need for TwitPic, and arguably SnapTweet too (though SnapTweet is faster than using Blog This and can be used for multiple images at once).

Images are posted to Twitter with Flickr’s new flic.kr URL shortener.

Here’s how to get set up:

1. Visit Flickr’s beta testing group’s page (actually, this step isn’t necessary, but if you run in to problems, their page is the best resource).
2. Associate your Twitter account with your Flickr account here. It leads you through the process and uses OAuth, a safer mechanism than providing your password.
3. You will be provided with a second special email address to send images to. If your main Flickr image email address is example42test@photos.flickr.com, your Flickr+Twitter email address will be example42test2twitter@photos.flickr.com.
4. Send away!

Photos sent to your primary Flickr image address will be processed as normal (not submitted to Twitter). Photos sent to your new 2twitter version will be processed and then immediately posted to Twitter. Your tweet will consist of [subject_line] [url], with the [url] being Flickr’s shortened flic.kr url.

Example.

After signing up for the Twitter integration you also get a new Blog This addition when viewing a single image. Clicking Blog This brings up the option to post an existing image directly to Twitter. You can post your own, as well as other Flickr users, images via this feature. Very powerful.

We visit the Philadelphia Auto Show every year. This year was a little bit different since I walk past the convention center every day and have been peeking in the windows to see everyone setting up.

My favorite car for the last three years has been the Audi R8. The Philadelphia High School / UPenn Engineering team is a very close second with their Attack supercar).

There was disappointment around not seeing a plug-in electric at the show. Lots, and lots, of hybrids, but no plug-ins. The meaty exhaust note from 600 raw horsepower is freakin’ exhilarating, but a car that outperforms those 600 horses, while whisper quiet, and plugs in to the outlet in my garage… That’s what I want to own.

The show is on until February 8th. If you’re in Philadelphia you should drop in and see it… It’s not often you get to walk through a hall full of Bentleys, Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Austin-Martins, etc.

You can also see the Ford booth using OS X and VLC Media Player to demonstrate their Microsoft Sync integration :)

Visit the Flickr set here.

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For WordPress bloggers with iPhones, the iPhone WordPress application is close to the best gift since receiving a Nintendo Entertainment System for Christmas in 1983. The application is solid, allows tags and categories, posts pictures direct from the phone, etc. Awesome!

But what if you want to post pics from your Flickr stream? What if you’re shooting with another camera and want to post high quality photos not taken with the iPhone crackerjack cam? Here’s the instructions, including detailed pictures, on how I get photos from Flickr in to an iPhone WordPress blog post:

note: you can ignore 1/2 of the steps if you already know how to use WordPress and Exposure on your iPhone.

1. Get the WordPress app (Utilities section of the App Store).

2. Get the Exposure app (Social Networking section of the App Store).

3. Open Exposure and locate the desired picture or pictures in your photostream, as seen below.

4. Click the small right-pointing arrow, you will now see the image below.

5. Click the small arrow in the top right corner to see your Share Photo options.

6. Open in Safari, and Safari will open, as seen below.

7. To save the image, press and hold your fingertip on the image. Selecting Save Image will save the image to your Camera Roll on the iPhone. You now have your image.

8. Open WordPress and create a new blog post.

9. Select the Photos tab and click the “+” button at the bottom right.

10. Choose to Add Photo from Library.

11. Click the Save button in the top right – When you post, your photo will be appended at the end of your post (below image was pulled from Exposure/Flickr/Camera Roll exactly as described above).

I picked up the Nokia N82 yesterday from Import GSM, a great hybrid brick-and-mortage / online store. Think Dynamism for phones. It was my first visit, right at closing, and despite trying to get stuff out the door for the evening shipment the guys helped out with descriptions and subtle nuances between the N95 and N82 (special thanks to Eric – good guy).

Anyway, so why the heck would someone get a Nokia N82 when the iPhone 3G is getting released tomorrow? There are five reasons, one for each megapixel, and a lot of backup arguments. The iPhone 3G doesn’t hold a candle to the image sensor quality, flash, or lens quality.

This wasn’t meant to be an N82 vs. iPhone 3G post. They’re both the best mobile equipment one can get (imo).

The N82 is going to be my net enabled camera and broadcast machine. No more notebook + Canon SD-1000 combo!

The iPhone 3G is for everything else. I had the iPhone (1.0 / original / whatever). iPhones are the best for usability and communication. I gave it to my wife and she’s gone from check-email-and-browse-at-home to check-email-send-texts-and-monitor-weather-while-away. The wife-o-meter was pegged.

The Nokia’s OS, after 30 hours of tweaking, is finally usable for me. Very steep appreciation curve. I would only recommend such a phone to a power user needing the best tool for quality images… I can’t wait to start posting and qik’ing them.

• sol on Qik
• solyoung on Viddler
• sol on Twitter

Apple iPhone vs. Nokia N82, or complimentary citizens

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That’s it! Twice in a week I’ve been left with a dead iPhone from snapping pics and pushing them live at an event or outing. Don’t get me wrong; I love the iPhone for most everything, but the lack of a swappable battery is adding some hate to the relationship (lack of video has also been a bone of contention).

The Nokia N82 is looking like a sweet option. Everything but a useable keyboard…

The exploring of Twitter integrated photo services continues… Today’s post is on SnapTweet, a service working towards announcing Flickr image uploads via Twitter updates.

Before continuing, here’s my philosophy on how a perfect Flickr/Twitter integration works:

1. Images posted to Flickr are optionally announced on Twitter.
2. No additional account required – either Twitter or Flickr is used for authentication.
3. Do not attempt to own the content. It’s ok to own distribution. Images on Flickr. Tweets on Twitter. Render wherever. That’s how consumers what their content.

Summary

For the most part, SnapTweet fits my requirements. There are bugs and gotchas with their implementation, but this is an ideal service for many folks. SnapTweet is tailored for the person who spends time in Flickr and wants announcements sent via Twitter. It is not for the person who Twitters all day and uses Flickr as a repository (me). A pretty neat feature is the direct message to send a link to the latest image on Flickr.

How SnapTweet works

SnapTweet uses one’s Twitter credentials via the Twitter API for authentication. After logging in you are asked for your Flickr username. You are given the option to enter a user-defined tag name so SnapTweet can synchronize with Flickr.

SnapTweet allows update announcements with links to your Flickr images in one of two ways. Tag the image on Flickr with the user-defined tag set in SnapTweet or send a direct message to @snaptweet on Twitter.

Tags

I set my user-defined tag to ’snaptweet’, but anything could be used. SnapTweet synchronizes with Flickr by checking tags of the 10 most recent images. When an image is found with a tag, a Twitter update with a link to the image is fired. The Twitter status update is set to the name of the image in Flickr (power users can customize the update via additional tags).

This is outstanding for anyone who spends time in Flickr. Simply tag images and have them announced.

Direct Messages

I’ll be using direct messaging. When you send a direct message to @snaptweet, it grabs the link to your most recent public Flickr upload and sends a Twitter update with the text from your direct message, with the link to the image appended.

Problems

There is a drawback to using tags: Timing. A Twitter update is sent when synchronization between SnapTweet and Flickr occurs. It’s easily possible for this to happen many minutes after you’ve set a tag, which may be after you’ve already sent your own updates to Twitter. This gets confusing, and it’s never fun to wonder when your tweet will post.

Tagging via an email upload is a royal pain. Using the tag method as a way post announcements on the go isn’t optimal and there are more elegant solutions out there.

The direct message feature requires your knowing the most recent image on Flickr. This is usually not a problem, but if you’re rapid-firing image uploads, you may cross up an update.

Verdict

SnapTweet follows the right philosophy for delivering your content. They let Twitter and Flickr host the data. They’re good for the Flickr lover who prefers spending time in Flickr over Twitter. I recommend SnapTweet for users in this category. The direct message to get the latest pic is a nice trick to keep handy for simpler image posting.

Overall, for users wanting to send pics with commentary on the go, my TwitPic + Flickr method is your best option. SnapTweet doesn’t do well in a real-time posting environment since it has to synchronize and you have to add the task of tagging your images.

How to is after the jump…

With all the web services and photo sharing systems, I’m amazed an integration of Flickr and Twitter hasn’t already happened. Twitxr came out and claimed compatibility in Dave Winer’s scripting.com comments, but it never actually worked. I’ve wanted a way to post a pic to Flickr and have it announced on Twitter right away. Nada.

I love to shoot pics on my iPhone and post them immediately. Live photo streams are terrific! Flickr makes it easy by allowing you send to an email to a pre-defined email address. All you do is send an email with a photo as an attachment to your Flickr upload email address.

Now TwitPic is offering a service for Twitter users just like Flickr’s service, but they store the photo and send an announcement to Twitter with a link. Whatever you put in the subject line of the email is set as your update in Twitter.

Combining these two services is easy. Just send an email to both services at the same time and the pic will be posted in both places. The subject line of the email will be set as your update in Twitter and as the title of the pic in Flickr.

If the above didn’t already give you the ‘Ah HA!’ feeling, here are the precise instructions (iPhone specific, but works with any email capable phone):

1. Set up Flickr so you can send email to your account. Do this by visiting http://flickr.com/account -> “Email”.
2. Save your Flickr upload email address to your address book. I named this contact “Flickr”.
3. Set up TwitPic so you can send email to your account. TwitPic uses your pre-existing Twitter account credentials for authentication (smart!). Do this by visiting http://twitpic.com -> “Log-in” -> “Settings”.
4. Save your TwitPic upload email address to your address book. I named this contact “TwitPic”.
5. SendPics (iPhone Jailbreak Specific): I recommend using SendPics to send full-rez images to Flickr, but the default photos iPhone app works good too.
6. Address the email, with pic attached, to your Flickr and TwitPic contacts, placing both contacts in the ‘To’ field.
7. Enter your Twitter update in the Subject line. This also becomes the Title of the image on Flickr.
8. Enter any additional tags and a description in the body of the email. This only applies to Flickr.

Took this quick snap of CNN’s bus in front of the Philadelphia Art Musuem. With Obama and Clinton bringing attention to our state we’re seeing more and more news organizations around.

That’s all boring stuff… What is funny is there is a huge, stinking, pile of manure right at the rear end of the bus. It almost looks like the bus dumped it there itself. Click the image to be taken to Flickr and see the larger version.

This weekend my wife and I got an early start Friday to finish off our bathroom’s tile. I’ve been photo-blogging it to Flickr and periodically putting up notes on Twitter. The last couple weekends have been similar, doing plumbing, floor tile, prep work, etc.

Though there is so much to do (more blog posts, tons of iofy priorities, and building in a certain web service), this is still satisfying work… Something everyone 1/2 interested in real estate should do at least once. I’m a software engineer and dev team manager because I love to build things. I think other developers should feel this way too.

More pics after the jump…

I’ve been reminded today about how easy life is when we use the right tools. My wife and I were out skiing and watching Spring Mountain’s Big Air Jam. I took pics with an iPhone and Canon SD-1000 and was blasting them straight to Flickr/Twitter. I was also taking video…

At lunch I pulled out the MacBook Pro and iMovie. In fifteen minutes I’d imported and edited the videos, laid a techno track, and exported. Sure the videos could have been uploaded raw, but a highlight reel is better edited, cleaned, and combined. Check it out after the jump.

For those that enjoyed the photostream today, I’m pleased and hope you’ll spread the word.

I like Robert Scoble’s preference of broadcasting live (I was doing this in 2001).

A historical note: I used to broadcast live. I was the General Manager at LIvVE.com, from 2001 to 2004. We would do live remote broadcasts with nothing more than a Sony GT1 and a high (cough, cough (28.8k)) speed cellular connection. Back then we risked a punch in the nose when going about an interview with an UMPC device shoved in someone’s face.

The highlight live broadcast was on the 4th of July in 2001 at the New York Trade Towers. A guard offered to let us film from the top of a tower if we slid him a fifty.

And now for the highlights reel

is working well as a good photo stream and album holder (using the Sets feature.) It works as a free backup service too ($25 per year for photo hosting is close enough to free.)

Both apps accentuate mobile blogging and connecting to people. I’ve been using the iPhone to take pics on the go, dropping them in to Flickr on the fly via Flickr’s email service (iFlickr on jailbroken iPhones is fantastic too), and then Twittering the links.

Which leads to tying together Twitter and Flickr. Twitxr ties Twitter and Facebook together, but isn’t really that impressive since it only runs on hacked iPhones and hits those two services. I’d really love to find an app and/or service that hooks Twitter and Flickr together. Both have APIs. This seems natural, no?