Organizations and E-Commerce

1. How does the tool relate to the topic of the week?
The topic of the week is organizations and E-commerce. Flickr relates to this because it is a picture based social media tool for people to display different pictures they own. Flickr can be used by businesses to display pictures of their products and provide information about the product like how much it costs and where to order it from. Flickr is a way for organizations to display pictures of their company also and to potentially get involved in E-commerce and selling things online.

2. What function does the tool serve?
The tool Flickr is designed as a social media tool for sharing pictures with people. It is similar to other media tools like Facebook because you design a profile and then import pictures to your profile which are then displayed. You can also find friends or join different groups that you may have an interest in. Flickr can also be used by companies to provide a way for consumers to view products before buying them and get an idea of what the company is about.

3. What did you find most interesting about the tool?
I found Flickr interesting because it seemed like a great product for small businesses to use in order to promote their products and company. It provides a quick and easy way to display pictures of products and provide some general information about your company and the various products you sell. I also liked the fact that it was easy to find similar kinds of pictures on a topic you might find interesting without having to use a search engine like Google where you might find millions of pictures but some of them may not be what your looking for even though they came up in the search.

4. What did you find most challenging?
Finding groups and adding friends was rather difficult. During the in class portion it was rather difficult to find a group for motorcycles that was similar to what a motorcycle business would want to promote too. We could find numerous groups and profiles about motorcycles but most of them seemed to just be people posting images of motorcycles and their were not a lot related to motorcycle clubs and things a small business would want to promote too.

5. How does the tool improve or complicate communication?
I think Flickr is great for improving communication when dealing with small businesses because it is an easy way for them to promote their products and display them online for others. You can provide an email address or other website in your profile also which can lead these viewers back to your company and provide you with business. I think it can complicate communication though a little because it is a little difficult finding groups on Flickr which are related to various topics and I don't know how many fans clubs use Flickr which are what a business would probably want to promote to the most. It would involve a little searching potentially by the company to see whether it was worth it or not.

6. What is your critique of your experience?
Overall I liked Flickr because it seemed like a rather useful tool for small businesses to promote products and let people know about their company. If I were ever to open a small business of some kind I would certainly consider creating a Flickr account to promote my business and try to improve my online sales. Flickr was easy to use and setup which would be very nice for a small business because it does not take a lot  to keep it updated like a normal website does. I don't know if I would necessarily use Flickr unless I were a business owner though because I do not take a lot of pictures and since that is the main purpose of the tool I don't have a lot of use for it and will stick to Facebook instead.