General Orders No. 2

Richmond, Va., October 20, 2008

We have conducted our reconnaissance into the territory controlled by the Flickrs and, in the immortal words of Captain James T. Kirk, "Too... much... information... makes... my... brain... hurt."

I did a search for 'Civil War' and came up with a collection of images related to the American Civil War, the Spanish Civil War, and whatever is happening in Iraq that they refuse to call a Civil War. I'm not sure but it seems as though Flickr might not run on a Google-type search engine that brings up the most popularly visited sites. As a result, what you get is a bevy of images that may or may not really relate to your search. That said, I suppose Flickr is mainly a resource to share images as opposed to a search engine to locate images. As far as UGC (user generated content) is concerned, my problem is that most users don't have anything particularly interesting to say... and some are downright vile. With all the information out there it seems like it would be difficult for a VHS Flickr page to be found among the vast sea of information and, if found, to get a critical mass of loyal users to stay committed. Given the fact that any images (of events for instance) that the VHS wants to promote could be promoted on our website makes Flickr probably less useful for our applications. I'll have to think on this for a bit though...

I did enjoy using the Flikr spelling tool and loved my Flikr chia-pet...

A.H. Talkov
Brigadier-General, Commanding