Hi, my name's The Steve, you might remember me from such pointless wastes of time as the Dead Account Scanner, and... yeah... that's about it. Simpsons quote fail.
Anyway, now I've made another pointless waste of time! Only, this time it's a bit less pointless, and a bit less of a waste of time. Maybe.
I'm calling it Undiscovered Gems, because firstly, it sounds a bit strange, and secondly, it's pretty descriptive.
It's essentially a little gallery tool, showcasing randomly chosen photos from 365project. The catch is, it only selects photos from people with low follower counts. So it'll help you find people that may not have been found by many people before, helping those who may be taking awesome photos, but never make it to the Popular Page due to so many others being well established, get a little exposure and be a greater part of the community.
Or that's the plan, at least.
There's a link down the bottom right of the thing, explaining what it is/how to use it, but it's all fairly obvious. It's tested in FF/ie7/chrome so should be fine in everything.
Let me know if you like it, or if it really is a pointless waste of time ;)
I love that you write these programs. They are very cool.
One observation about the undiscovered gems. Many of them have very few favorite photos themselves or not many others that they are following. Their lack of viewership might be because they aren't here for community and feedback. I have followed a few folks with very few followers that really only wanted to communicate with people they knew from their hometowns doing the project.
Also, as time permits, I view all the photos from each day and comment on anyone's photo who sticks out to me. This is my method of discovering undiscovered gems.
@eyebrows
That's very cool, Steve... Already discovered some great pictures I would otherwise never even have seen!
Just one question... What qualifies as a "low follower count"?
You say that the script only picks up images from 365 Users with low follower counts, but what exactly does that mean? Will somebody be included if they have, for example, 50 followers? 75 followers? 100 followers? Where's the "cut-off point"...?
@manek43509 Click the "how does it work" down the very bottom right and it'll tell you :) I might tweak it, but for the mo it's at 40. If I do tweak it, that's where the live value'll be found.
Yeah @valeria I build web stuff for a living, usually on a *slightly* grander scale than this though :p
This is great! I have been hoping this site would have something like this for awhile. Very nicely done. I think the best thing is that there are SO many great pictures out there that I never got a chance to see. This makes it so nice and easy. Thank you!!
The other worry I would have is if you are violating people's copyright by using their picture like this. Yes, I know you have a link and are citing the source, but can you just use other people's pictures on your website?
I don't know anything about any laws, but I do tend to be a worrywart.
Well @valeria to get technical: it randomly picks one of the user accounts it already knows about from the dead account scanner, then checks its RSS feed and pulls in the thumbnails from it, so we get 24 shots for each user. Then it just picks one of those at random. And every 5 days it'll check again to get fresh photos for that user (if it randomly picks them again).
@shelina it's exactly the same as Google showing them in its search results, there's no issues with it :)
^_^ Also I just improved it so it won't ever* show you the same image twice. Unless you clear cookies. Or... if the database gets slow and I have to clear it all manually, but that's unlikely.
Hehe, thanks @azza_l and yeah, part of the whole point of this is getting practice with javascript libraries like prototype and scriptaculous for just those sort of effects
@eyebrows
That's great, thanks, Steve... :)
By the way, is there any way it could be linked with the Dead Users thingy, so that it scans accounts with fewer than forty *active* followers... (I'm assuming that if someone has ninety followers, but half of them are deemed "dead", the script still won't pick up their pictures?)
Also... I wish I were good enough with coding and so on to make stuff like this... haha!
This is pretty cool. One question though, does it count someone who has less than 40 alive followers as being part of this database, or is it just people who have less than 40 followers whether they are dead or alive?
At the mo @wormentude it's only 40 in total, but I'm looking into maybe changing it... just need an evening where I'm not stood in a cold empty golf course car park with a torch...
The Steve - I bow down to you! Your info is so cool! I wish I was more computer savy - the first thing I would figure out is how to put writing on my pics such as what is on Rudi's [ics: http://365project.org/rudit/365
tried to do it in paint without success.
and the next thing I would do is learn how to do collages. I tried to download Picasa but it didn't work.
@shemchin you can edit on picnic too limited editing is free and very useful, including adding text sepia, B/W I love that site, and its $25 or the year if you want, but you can try it for free...check it out:) picnik.com good luck
Too bad @scrivna can't give you a permanent apps type link on our homepages or under one of the headings. You have some great ideas that I have stumbled across randomly, it would be good to be able to find them easier.
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One observation about the undiscovered gems. Many of them have very few favorite photos themselves or not many others that they are following. Their lack of viewership might be because they aren't here for community and feedback. I have followed a few folks with very few followers that really only wanted to communicate with people they knew from their hometowns doing the project.
Also, as time permits, I view all the photos from each day and comment on anyone's photo who sticks out to me. This is my method of discovering undiscovered gems.
That's very cool, Steve... Already discovered some great pictures I would otherwise never even have seen!
Just one question... What qualifies as a "low follower count"?
You say that the script only picks up images from 365 Users with low follower counts, but what exactly does that mean? Will somebody be included if they have, for example, 50 followers? 75 followers? 100 followers? Where's the "cut-off point"...?
Yeah @valeria I build web stuff for a living, usually on a *slightly* grander scale than this though :p
how does the thing pick the picture to display of the person?
I don't know anything about any laws, but I do tend to be a worrywart.
@shelina it's exactly the same as Google showing them in its search results, there's no issues with it :)
I like it, Princess!
*in theory
Thanks for sharing this brilliant idea!
I think I'm just going to leave the Undiscovered Gems window open ALL the time. It's so nice to see talent from all over the place. Thank you!
That's great, thanks, Steve... :)
By the way, is there any way it could be linked with the Dead Users thingy, so that it scans accounts with fewer than forty *active* followers... (I'm assuming that if someone has ninety followers, but half of them are deemed "dead", the script still won't pick up their pictures?)
Also... I wish I were good enough with coding and so on to make stuff like this... haha!
thanks.
The joke was good. Testing it now. Thanks for the share.
And thanks guys :D
http://365project.org/rudit/365
tried to do it in paint without success.
and the next thing I would do is learn how to do collages. I tried to download Picasa but it didn't work.
Anyway THANK YOU The Steve for your creativity.