Tag Galaxy

Hey folks! It's your friendly SAA blogger here. I was flipping through my twitter account today and saw a tweet about Tag Galaxy.*

*If that just sounded like a foreign language continue reading, if not, skip this paragraph and continue below.

(Let me time out for a moment here. If you aren't a tweeter and think that somehow your beloved SAA blog has gone off the deep end, fear no more! Twitter.com is - yet another - social networking site, but the unique aspect of twitter is it enables you to keep your finger on the pulse of what's happening in the world. Hmmm...I'm beginning to think I should have written a twitter blog first...ah well. As I was saying, twitter keeps you in touch beyond whatever friend base you may have. For example, I am "following" - i.e. I get updates or "tweets" from these people/groups - Art in America, an art site in Ireland, MoMA, NYTimesarts, etc. You are able to follow whoever you want really - celebrities, artists, writers, magazines, museums - and these groups are all around the globe! So if you really want to follow that obscure band from Australia, chances are they have a twitter account.)

Back to the whole point of this tirade. I was recently checking out my old college art professor's twitter account and she had posted something called Tag Galaxy . It's a site that allows you to browse through Flickr photos in 3D. (What's Flickr? you ask...oh man, you gotta keep up with these things....it's a photo sharing website, very cool and easy to use. Go ahead, click on the link!)

If you aren't familiar with Flickr then check out both sites to compare the two. If you are already Flickr savvy, then go to Tag Galaxy and type in what you want to search. This will bring up a 3D planet-like system that allows to narrow your search by clicking on the different "planets." Once your search is narrowed enough to your liking, click on the middle "planet" and images from your search will form a 3D globe. You can then click on the globe to move it and view all the images or doubleclick on one image to enlarge it. There's also an arrow above the right side of the globe telling you if there are even more pics that didn't fit on the globe during the first round.

Huh? Just check it out, you're smart, you'll get the hang of it before you can say twitter!