Returning to the POSSE approach to sharing

Weil after what seem like days of dire weather warning of torrential rain and storms (which failed to reach my neck of the woods) it has cooled down a lot and we did get soaking, albeit soft, rain overnight.

Still the ibis are grouping where I have never seen them in large numbers before, perhaps they know something if finally coming? Will the weather Bureau warning come to roost tomorrow?

Original: imageo.withknown.com/2015/light-soaking-rains-overnight-b...

My conclusion is that whilst social media promise to make sharing your images easy, that is only half true. Whilst i may have focussed in google+ and flickr, the same issues (and often more so) apply to other social networks/media services (eg Facebook, Instagram and Twitter). Most folk no longer have their own web sites and even Blogs are becoming more locked into the social space. However I do see it is time to reclaim your domain and build your own web presence and first publish there and then syndicate the share yourself. I have been experimenting with the self blog platform Known and the notion of POSSE. Now I see why this concpet is so important, particularly if you wish to control how you share to the world.

Sharing Post from Known into Blogger (via Flickr)

Whilst blogger does have an api of sorts, (via a http: request) I’m not certain how to include this in a known add-in (basically I’d probably rather wait for a more savvy developer to work it out). I have found it is pretty simple to share your post (with a picture) into blogger, by firstly sharing it to flickr (which is one of the current social media share links built in.)
The sharing process involves two steps in flickr, and three or four steps in blogger. Thus I have found it best to have both flickr and blogger open in separate tabs in your browser. To begin open the photo page for the image uploaded from Known, click on the share icon (which is the right facing curved arrow on the right hand side of the image. This brings up the share dialogue, click on the HTML radio button and copy the HTML code in the bottom dialogue line (see example on the right). This is HTML code that will display the photo in blogger while the photo itself stays on flickr. Now go to the blogger page and select the Create New Post (it is a pencil icon up on the top left, but I’m sure if you blog you already know that). Firstly change the edit mode from compose to HTML on the blogger post page. Now paste in the HTML code from flickr into the post text area,(see the example below in the blue dashed line highlight box). Next return to the flickr page and click on the small edit icon (again a pencil icon) beside the title and comment section. This will them show you the actual HTML version of the text from your know post (see example on the left). Copy this and return to the blogger page and post it under the image HTML (also shown within the green box below). You know have a post almost identical to the post back in known. unfortunately like the google+ link any hashtags will not be automatically transferred so if you want to use any you will need to enter them manually using the lables button on the right hand side of the blogger page. 

Perhaps this is not as nice as an automatic share, and it doesn’t add a flag back into your Known post that it is also posted in blogger but it is pretty simple once you understand the sequence, and it still has the link to your original Known post to establish your ownership and provenance.

Sharing Post from Known into Google+

I have been experimenting in the Indie web for the past few weeks, specifically with the known blogging platform. (which I hope to bring back to my own website soon, even though the withknow,com site is very easy to use and update, having my web post under my control is my ultimate goal.) The big advantage of the indie web principles, for any creative person is that you control the original post location and can determine who it is shared with. This goes by the acronym POSSE, Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere. This can be a massive advantage in trying to establish ownership of the intellectual property. Also I see this approach to social network being perfect to establish reliable provenance particularly if I also discuss a little of why and who I am doing a particular work or project. It also means that I am are not beholding to a third party having control of my works (please also read your social media of choice’s term of service because you are probably surrounding ownership to that social media service by posting your work!!!)

The Known project is open source, with a strong academic/education focus at the moment, and offers a very simple and easy to use blogging/microblogging platform. A basic principle is to allow the POSSE style syndication. so at the same time to publish to the block you can click on extra share buttons for well known social network services, like facebook, flickr & twitter, the post are also submitted to these services via their api so they look and feel exactly like native post on those services. The system is designed to allow development of add-ins for other sites and publishing approaches.
Publishing to google+ in this way is a problem because google does not offer an api (application programmiong interface) to publish into google+ from another party (eg your Known blog) and given the apparent back peddling on google+ generally I doubt it will ever be made available. So I went looking for an alternate approach and it is pretty straight forward. Once you have published on Known, you just need to click on the date entry under the post (see example above) and you will be shown just that post with the permalink to that post displayed in the URL address at the top of your browser. Next you need to select that address and copy it into your cut/paste buffer. Now you can go into google+ and select the link icon, which brings up the link dialogue, shown on the right. Now paste the permalink to you known post onto the Attach: line. Google+ will soon check your post and make a sort of summary selecting a photo (if one exists in your known post) and the title of your post. If you want to use hashtags your need to type them in the google+ status box (at the top of the dialgue screen). You may also want to change who to share with,(eg Public, Circles, Communities) on the To: line. Then finally click on the green share button.

At the farm gate

Another photo for #thesecretlifeoftees series

Original: imageo.withknown.com/2014/at-the-farm-gate

Tree Fern Verta-rama

For #thesecretlifeoftrees series.

These tree ferns towered above me and I had to use a stitched panorama approach (using Autostich) but in a vertical sequence. The resulting perspective however leaves the trees curving in on you towards the top of the image, so I used the zPerspector plug in for After shot to straighten things out a little. Original: imageo.withknown.com/2014/tree-fern-verta-rama

Into the Known

Last week I started trying out a new open source social web style platform, unlike most other social web offering it is designed to be owned (and controlled by you the owner). I haven’t got a far as setting up my own platform on my own website (just yet) but I can see the benefits of the POSSE (Publish [on your] Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere).This is a much better model for any creative type tat is interested in preserving their IP (Intellectual Porperty) rights but still share across the net. Theb place you firt published is owned by you (not by a social media service) and the syndication is under your control
Right at the moment the free WithKnown service, is available if you don’t want to use, or haven’t access to your own web space, so you can create you own site. It offers simple ways to also syndicate your post and status updates to a few selected services (Twitter, Flickr, Facebook & Soundcloud). I’m not a facebook person so I’m just experimenting with twitter & flickr. I’d probably like a similar connection into blogger but the service now is very similar to tumblr and with the same feel as a microblogging platform like twitter. In other words it easy to use and perhaps most suited to putting together a few words and perhaps a picture or two. So for the time being I will use it to make a few notes on my artistic (sketch & painting pursuits) a kind of provenance bank (archive).

My website is imageo.withknown.com