sharypic official blog

Event of the Week: di*/zaïn #5: Code(s) + data(s) Photo by...

sharypic — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 18:29:00 +0100

Event of the Week: di*/zaïn #5: Code(s) + data(s)

Photo by Designers Interactifs via Flickr.

*di*/zaïn is a series of 10 events taking place at Divan du monde in Paris, offering an opportunity to present design projects. The 5th in the series, titled Code(s) + data(s), took place on Tuesday and was devoted to creative practices in code and new uses of data.

They used sharypic’s live twitter wall to feature audience input and open the discussion up to everyone.The evening brought together a dozen speakers from different areas - interactive design, research, installation, digital arts, and architecture. It was a great opportunity to explore unique approaches around these themes! See all the photos collected on sharypic.

Event of the Week: The Carnival of Venice 2013 Photo by...

sharypic — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 11:50:00 +0100

Event of the Week: The Carnival of Venice 2013

Photo by @benjaaquila via Twitter.

Thousands of visitors come to Venice every year to experience the costumes, masks and music that makes the Carnival so special. The Carnival of Venice dates to at least the 15th Century, however it fell into decline after the city was seized by Napoleon in 1797, and was later abandoned when Mussolini banned the wearing of masks. It was revived in 1979, in an effort to reinstate the city’s traditions, and is today considered among the world’s finest festivals.

Masks have always been a main feature of the Venetian carnival and on the last weekend the best mask, “La Maschera più bella”, is decided by a panel of international costume and fashion designers. Have a look at some of the most beautiful masks in the world captured in the photos on sharypic, and get into carnival spirit!

Event of the Week: Greenpeace Digital Mobilisation Skillshare...

sharypic — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 17:56:00 +0100

Event of the Week: Greenpeace Digital Mobilisation Skillshare 2013

Photo by @sarcasmcat via twitpic.

The second annual Digital Mobilisation Skillshare (DMS) saw 140 people from across Greenpeace’s global offices gather in the countryside of Spain for four days of collaboration and skill-building. The event is part of Greenpeace’s broader shift towards mobilisation, a way of working that acknowledges the broadcast era is over and for large-scale change to happen the organization needs to engage and involve people more deeply in campaigns to win. The ultimate aim was to share skills on how to build the best, creative people-powered campaigns.

Aside from the workshops, there was plenty of time for enjoying the neighbouring UNESCO nature reserve. From the photos collected on sharypic it definitely looks like it wasn’t all work and no play!Find out how sharypic can bring life to your event!

User Profile: Pam’s Wedding Photo by @loyalandtrue86 via...

sharypic — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 12:49:00 +0100

User Profile: Pam’s Wedding

Photo by @loyalandtrue86 via Twitter.

Sharypic is well-suited to big occasions like weddings, where everyone wants to see everyone elses photos. Pam used sharypic for her wedding, with two large PhotoWalls at the reception. Here she answers some questions about her experience.

1 - What features on sharypic did you value the most during your wedding?
Overall, the PhotoWall was one of the best features in the reception and our guests were very intrigued by it. The system worked the entire night and our guests are still talking about it. There have been several inquiries from our friends who are planning a wedding and hope to incorporate it in their receptions. Sharypic was user-friendly with very supportive staff. We emailed with a few questions and received a quick and helpful response.

2 - Did the PhotoWall impact on your guests’ experience at your wedding?
YES! For sure. The experience at the reception was incredible. Our guests were able to keep up with everyone in attendance from anywhere in the room. It was very helpful for guests who weren’t interested in dancing and were able to be entertained by guest photos. My husband and I loved seeing everyone’s images, because as you know, the bride and groom are very busy!

3 - How many photos did you collect and what did you do with them once your wedding was over?
We collected more than 250 photos. On our flight to Miami the next day we logged in and looked at all the photos together. There were many that we had not seen and our guests captured some great times. We have downloaded all the images and will be uploading to Facebook soon.

Thanks for the insight Pam, and congratulations on your big day! Get in touch if you would like to discuss sharypic at your wedding, and discover what we can do for your big day.

Event of the Week: Nature Nocturne at the Canadian Museum of...

sharypic — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 15:00:00 +0100

Event of the Week: Nature Nocturne at the Canadian Museum of Nature

Photo by @nature_ab via Hootsuite.

The Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa featured the sharypic PhotoWall at their inaugural Nature Nocturne on Friday, our Event of the Week! This monthly event turns the museum into a playground for adults, with DJs, artists, food, and drink, and allows visitors to explore the exhibitions in an informal and fun way.Anne Botman, Head of Web Services at the Museum, shared insight into what sharypic brought to the event:

“The PhotoWall was a major highlight at our first Nature Nocturne evening event. Displayed on the main wall in the Atrium, visitors could see the very large Photo Wall from every floor in the museum. Visitors really enjoyed seeing real-time photos of the event as well as being able to easily contribute their own photos and watching them appear on the big screen. Having this live and visual social media experience at Nature Nocturne was a real focal point, judging from the event reviews.” See all the wonderful photos from the night and go along next month if you’re in Ottawa!

Feature Update: Version 1.4 of the mobile app improved with...

sharypic — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 17:00:00 +0100

Feature Update: Version 1.4 of the mobile app improved with Algolia Search!

Sharypic’s mobile app features a search bar from where you can access all public events and your own private events. Typing on a smartphone can be prone to frustrating errors, so we are happy to announce that the app’s search bar is now typo-tolerant, visually engaging and allows you to search within multiple fields, thanks to an integration with Algolia Search.Algolia are a fellow Parisian startup, who have developed smart algorithms providing instant results, autocompletion and visual feedback on mobile search. When integrated with sharypic, this technology allows users to quickly and easily access events, even with typos or only a few letters of a search term. For example, typing ‘pqris’ gives you all events with ‘Paris’ in the event name, description, hashtag or location. Matches are colour-highlighted, giving instant visual feedback. And if you lose network connection, it still works like magic, superb!

Download version 1.4 of the sharypic mobile app and enjoy improved search for easy access of all your events!

Event of the Week: DLD 13 Our Event of the Week is DLD13, taking...

sharypic — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 14:28:00 +0100

Event of the Week: DLD 13

Our Event of the Week is DLD13, taking place over 3 days in Munich, Germany. DLD (Digital-Life-Design) is a global network for innovation, digitization, science and culture. It connects business, creative and social leaders, opinion-formers and influencers for crossover conversation and inspiration. During the event over 150 speakers and 800 attendees discussed topical issues, exploring new opportunities, and unearthing hidden patterns in such areas as mobile payment, 3-D printing, search, cyberwar, and big data.

Take a look at the photos on sharypic to get a glimpse into this fascinating event!

10 steps to boost photo sharing at professional events

sharypic — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 15:45:00 +0100

Photo by @pmisir, via Twitter.

The Royal Ontario Museum used sharypic for their weekly Friday Night Live events, with hundreds of photographers and the largest PhotoWall we have ever seen! In this post we share some things we have learned about using sharypic at public gatherings such as this.

Before:
1 - Create your sharypic event ahead of time and let guests know about it using the built-in invite system.

2 - Publicise how people can share photos during the event, especially the #hashtag you will use for photo aggregation. All communication regarding your event, for example flyers, emails and posters, should include this information.

3 - Let people know that they can follow the event as it happens, even if they cannot be physically present, via a live coverage page. Embed the slideshow widget and all photos will be broadcast live once the event begins. Why don’t you also add text, video and audio, as in this example?

4 - Set up the PhotoWall in a prominent position where visitors will notice it and be able to stand in front of it (for example near the bar or the entrance of the venue).

5 - Communicate your brand by uploading a banner/logo to be displayed at the top of the PhotoWall as shown in the example below from Nova Scotia Music Week. See the photowall in action here!

During:
6 - Make full use of the PhotoWall by scheduling slides to be broadcast with the photos. For example the Royal Ontario Museum lets attendees know what is happening in different parts of the museum through slides such as the one below.

7 - Start a photo contest by enabling the PhotoWall leaderboards, and encourage more photos! One leaderboard displays the top contributors who have taken the most photos, and another shows the top photos which receive the most ‘likes’. Why not have a prize for whoever reaches the top of the leaderboard by the end of the night?

8 - Monitor the PhotoWall with the sharypic moderation dashboard from a tablet device. Choose the best photos to display and be certain that unwanted photos will not be broadcast.

After:
9 - Schedule reminder emails to be sent to guests, to encourage them to share their photos even after the event! Simply enter your guests’ emails and sharypic will do the rest. This is also a good time to let poeple know the winner of the photo contest!

10 - Post your sharypic event on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ to let everyone have a peek and upload photos even after the event.

We hope this guide helps you to get the most out of sharypic for your public events! Professional subscription packages start at $199 per month, allowing you to enjoy unlimited events and customization features. If you want to talk to us about any of these features, or how we can work around your needs, do get in touch: contact@sharypic.com.

Event of the Week: Harbin Ice and Snow Festival shared...

sharypic — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 09:38:00 +0100

Event of the Week: Harbin Ice and Snow Festival

shared by @BinJiang91 via Instagram.

The Harbin Ice and Snow Festival, established in 1985, is an annual event lasting for one month in Harbin, the capital city of Heilongjiang Province, China. It attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors from all over the world. Multi-coloured lights illuminate the ice, which can be carved into everything from buildings and monuments, to figures of animals, people and mythical creatures, or even slides made of ice!

Harbin is located in northeast China which provides abundant ice and snow at the time of year. The technology to create the ice sculptures ranges from using modern lasers to traditional chisels, ice picks, and saws.

Get inspiration from the astonishing photos on sharypic and make your own ice sculpture this winter!

Feature Update: Create a contest with leaderboards

sharypic — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 19:51:00 +0100

We’ve been working on making the PhotoWall even more dynamic and engaging by introducing leaderboards to show the top contributors and best photos. Become a top contributor by sharing the most photos, or claim the top photo if your photo receives the most likes. This adds a competitive edge to the PhotoWall and encourages participation!

From within ‘Settings’, select ‘Contest’ from the left-hand menu. From there you can control your leaderboards and manage who shows up (you might not want your official photographer to appear in the contest, even though they might take the most photos).
Above is a screen shot of the leaderboard embedded in the mosaic version of the PhotoWall. See the standard PhotoWall and leaderboards in action here!

Try the PhotoWall and start a contest at your next event!

Your Photos Will Always Be Yours! Instagram’s controversial...

sharypic — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 12:00:00 +0100

Your Photos Will Always Be Yours!

Instagram’s controversial privacy update - photo by Carlos Caidedo.

We have been getting fantastic feedback from you via our survey, and one thing stands out - you care about privacy, and rightly so. With the recent controversy over Instagram’s positioning on copyright and privacy, we want to assure our users that the photos you upload to sharypic will always be yours.

We store photos for 3 months on the free plan, for one year for single-events and for ever on the subscription plans, so you can come back to them any time. One thing is common for all our plans - your photos remain yours forever!

Check out our plans and privacy policy and create your sharypic event now!

Event of the Week: Dakar Rally Photo by @DiegoLorca23 via...

sharypic — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 10:00:00 +0100

Event of the Week: Dakar Rally

Photo by @DiegoLorca23 via Twitter

Today marks the official start of the Dakar Rally and sharypic will be gathering all the photos throughout the race until the 20th January.The ultimate off-road rally is in its 35th year and puts drivers to the test on a tough course covering more than 8,000km through Argentina, Chile and Peru! The race is open to amateur and professional entries. Amateurs typically make up about eighty percent of the participants.The rally began in 1978, going from Paris, France to Dakar, Senegal. Due to security threats in Mauritania, which led to the cancellation of the 2008 rally, the 2009 Dakar Rally was held in South America for the first time in 2009 and continues to be there up to the present.

Check out the action on sharypic throughout the race and see off-road vehicles pushed to their limits!

Top 5 Events Of 2012 2012 has been a great year for Sharypic. We...

sharypic — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 11:34:00 +0100

Top 5 Events Of 2012

2012 has been a great year for Sharypic. We have grown from strength to strength as word has spread all over the world about the fun and simplicity we bring to photo sharing at events. From the USA to Japan, our users span the globe, and we are truly thankful for your support!There have been some wonderful events on sharypic in 2012. Here is our list of the top 5:

PhotoWorks, a UK-based photography organisation, used sharypic to document the US elections. With the crawlers set to gather photos shared with the hashtag #election2012 over a couple of hours on election day, they collected thousands of photos providing a snapshot of how people experienced the elections.
The Royal Ontario Museum used sharypic during their Friday Night Live series, setting up PhotoWalls throughout the museum and encouraging visitors to share their experience through photography. People loved seeing their photos amongst the dinosaurs and exhibits, and the giant PhotoWall in the main hall proved a great success.
TED Global 2012 As the world becomes interconnected, the ways we relate and learn about one another (and the rules about what we share) are changing. That was the inspiration for TEDGlobal 2012: Radical Openness, and sharypic provided a way to capture the experience of attendees and share it with the world.
LeWeb Paris 2012 was brilliantly captured in all its technological glory on sharypic, with over 2800 photos from attendees. You can see photos from each day of the conference here
Molson Canadian Nova Scotia Music Week has become one of the leading music festivals and educational conferences in Canada, featuring over 100 performances, this year. Sharypic was there to capture the audience’s experiences live, as audiences engaged with the PhotoWall whilst taking part in conferences and enjoying plenty of live music.

Here’s to another eventful year of photo sharing fun!

Event of the Week: Olympic Week 2012 For the sixth year running,...

sharypic — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 14:23:00 +0100

Event of the Week: Olympic Week 2012

For the sixth year running, Courchevel hosted the French Olympic Week, organsied by Comité National Olympique et Sportif Français. French Olympic athletes were invited to spend a few days in the mountains, engaging in workshops and developing team-spirit.

A mix of events enabled constructive exchanges between athletes and Olympic partners: skiing, sledding, wine tasting, spa sessions, and a good dose of fun! All photos were collected by sharypic, including beautiful shots of the mountains and plenty of late night fancy dress antics.

Feature Update: Save your photos forever!

sharypic — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 18:02:00 +0100

Once sharypic has gathered all the wonderful photos from your event, you might want to edit them or print them out. We make it easy to download photos with the following options:

Save all your photos forever via a zip file download. Photos are saved in the original upload quality, meaning that you will not lose resolution and you will have files which are perfect for printing. As soon as your photos have finished archiving, we will send you an email to let you know your file is available for download.

You can also sync to dropbox for easy storage in the cloud. Dropbox folders are automatically created using the name of your sharypic gallery. You will be sent a notification email once the upload is completed.

The download feature is available with all paid plans. For both options, simply click “Actions” from within your gallery and select “High Quality Download”. Easy!

User Profile: The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto

sharypic — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 12:00:00 +0100

We asked Ryan Dodge, Social Media Coordinator at the Royal Ontario Museum, some questions about his experience of using sharypic in the museum. He provided us with a rich account of how the live PhotoWall enhanced their Friday Night Live series of events.

1 - What were you looking for when you discovered sharypic?

After our Friday Night Live pilot series in the spring of 2012, the senior management team was looking for a way to visually engage visitors via screens throughout the museum. We had used traditional text-based twitter walls during the initial spring series but we wanted something that was visual and would encourage people to interact with it and share their experience. More specifically, we wanted a twitter wall that would display photos in real time.

2 - How do you think the PhotoWall impacts on your guests’ experience at your events?

At first, people weren’t really sure what to do with the photo wall but after a few hours people started to see photos up on the wall from the personal twitter accounts of other visitors and from the ROM’s account. Also, the ads in that cascade through the photos explaining how it works really helped as well. As people began to realize that we were streaming their photos in real time the engagement picked up. So much so that people were taking photos of their photos on the photo wall. Some people even tweeted those photos and tagged them with #tweetception, a popular hashtag on Twitter!

People began to share photos on objects they found interesting in the galleries or the fun they were having in the Discovery Gallery and hands-on areas, trying on costumes and digging for dinosaur bones, for example. They also shared photos of their food and drinks - things they really enjoyed. There was also a lot of photos of groups of friends or couples on dates which was great to see, it let us know who was visiting and why, for a date night or just a fun time with friends. I think it was also an added value for our visitors, once they found out about the wall and how to interact with it, the engagement seemed to really pick up!

Photo by @pmisir via Twitter.

3 - Did using sharypic affect the reach and publicity of your events?

I am not sure how to measure that but I will say that I think it had a part to play in enhancing the social media publicity of the event. This series of events was almost exclusively communicated via social media, Twitter and Facebook. After each event I posted the link to the photo wall on the facebook event page and tweeted the link to the photos on the sharypic.com website. People with huge networks also took notice and having them share a photo of the wall in action really helped spread the word both about Friday Night Live and the Sharypic PhotoWall.

4 - What do you do with all the collected photos after an event?

In addition to sharing the album via our social networks directly after an event, we are working on a few projects with the photos we collected (over 2,000!) over the 8 week Friday Night Live series. We have plans to download the best shots and create an album to embed on the ROM website and use for future promotion of the Spring 2013 series of Friday Night Live. We’re also looking at the possibility of creating themed albums from the photos, one on food, drink, experiences and maybe even ‘date night’.

5 - What features on sharypic were the best in terms of helping you to have a great event?

The real time aggregation of both Twitter and Instagram photos was the key feature for us. Having the ability to gather, post and share those photos in real time was exactly what we were looking for. Also, the ability for the live cascading photo wall was equally important, it is great to be able to gather the photos but to be able to post a large photo wall live at the event was epic! This is territory a lot of museums have not yet ventured. The option of the two types of photo moderation was also a key component in the platform, explaining that to my bosses put a lot of minds at ease.

6 - How did your usage change during the series and did this affect the results?

The first night we had the photo wall in one of the galleries, there was limited engagement, mostly because people were hanging out in the gallery watching a jazz performance. We also had the photo wall on the screens behind the admissions desk and behind one of the bars. People noticed but it wasn’t really ‘in their faces’. The second night we put it on the biggest wall in the museum, front and center in the main area and the engagement took off! We also decided to use the photo wall to display programming information and key messages, like when the bars closed, what artists were playing where, etc. This combo of having the photo wall on the main screen and displaying key messages from the museum really ramped up the engagement and we continued this model for a few weeks.

Next we moved the photo wall to a smaller screen but front and center on the dance floor. There was slightly less engagement than when the photo wall was on the larger wall but people still shared a lot of content. I think if you want to have a lot of content shared you have to display the wall where people will see it for long enough to figure out what they are watching. People always want to ‘see their name in lights’ so once they understand how to get their content on the wall, that’s when you see high engagement. As for moderation, I didn’t really use the real time moderation fully. I trusted people wouldn’t post inappropriate content from personal twitter accounts on the wall and, ultimately, the content was being viewed by an adult audience and I knew I could always hide something if I felt it was inappropriate. We did get a few (maybe five over the whole series) spam photos but nothing serious or disturbing.

Thanks Ryan for that very insightful account! If you woul like to try sharypic in your institution, or discuss ideas for how we can work together, get in touch!

Feature Update: iPhone app We’re excited to share with you our...

sharypic — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 14:43:52 +0100

Feature Update: iPhone app

We’re excited to share with you our latest update for the iPhone app. We have been busy working on the following improvements:

The app is now more stable when experiencing network issues, so it is less likely to crash mid-upload.
We created a wizard to explain what sharypic is about and how to use the app.
We enhanced the map so it scales properly to the larger iPhone 5 screen size. The map view is now set as default upon start-up, if geolocation is enabled on your device. Also, the map refreshes events when zooming in or out, so you can see what’s happenning around you.
iOS6 is now better supported, including privacy flags for photos and geolocation.
We reordered the event menu to prioritise personal events.
We fixed various small bugs.

Download the lastest version from the app store. We love your feedback! If you have a comment or suggestion regarding the app, let us know how we can make it better.

Event of the Week: Global Day of Code Retreat

sharypic — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 11:03:00 +0100

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This week we’re celebrating an event aiming to improve the fundamentals of software development and design through a day-long, intensive practice event. Over 100 countries were involved in the Global Day of Code Retreat, on the 8th December. Pretty impressive! They used sharypic to gather photos from participants across the world. We think this a great use of sharypic, that’s why it is the Event of the Week!

The first Global Day of Code Retreat was 3 years ago, and since then it has grown to be a well-attended and valued event. A simple task is repeatedly tackled over the course of several sessions, each session concentrating on a specific area of software development and design. It gives developers the opportunity to take part in focused practice, and experimentation, without the pressure of ‘getting things done’. Practicing the basic principles of modular and object-oriented design, developers improve their code writing skills in a supportive atmosphere. Awesome!

Event of the Week: LeWeb Paris 2012

sharypic — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 18:17:00 +0100

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Our Event of the Week is LeWeb Paris 2012, a three day conference which began on Tuesday. This year’s theme addressed one of the most important technological advances of this century, The Internet of Things, exploring how the physical and virtual are becoming one.

Talks range from how features of the home such as lighting, heating, locks, and even your plants, can all be connected and controlled. There are also discussions on the human body and technology, for example how our brains can be rewired, and how we will eventually become Cyborgs!One of the highlights was a chance to hear from Benjamin Cichy at NASA, who built the software driving the Curiosity Rover’s brain, enabling its mission to Mars.

Check out the photos for a glimpse into this very special conference!

8 steps for a successful personal event with sharypic!

sharypic — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 16:31:00 +0100

Sharypic works brilliantly for personal events such as weddings, trips with friends and family get-togethers. Just in time for the festive season, this post offers a step-by-step guide to optimizing sharypic for your private gathering.

Photo by Emmanuelle Bourgue

Before:
1 - Create your sharypic event ahead of time and let friends know about it using the built-in invite system which syncs with your email address book.
2 - Ensure the privacy settings are configured to your needs. For example, you can make your event private and restrict access to only the people you invite. Or you can open it up to the world, your choice!
3 - Let people know about the many ways they can share photos during and after the event: for example with a hashtag like #SmithFamilyXmas, via the app, direct upload, or by establishing a dedicated email address where guests can email their photos.

During:
4 - Provide props such as silly hats, wigs and moustaches, and let your guests have fun taking photos of each other and seeing them on the live PhotoWall!
5 - Simply plug your computer into a TV screen or projector to see the PhotoWall in action. It will look something like this.

Photo by Katratzi

After:
6 - Schedule reminder emails to be sent to guests, to let people know they can still share their photos and view ones already collected
7 - Display photos on your blog using the embeddable slideshow widget.
8 - Share your sharypic gallery directly to Facebook, Twitter, and Google+, to make sure all your friends witness the awesomeness of your event.

We hope these steps help you to get the most out of sharypic for your personal events! See a full feature list and pricing here. If you want to talk to us about any of these features, or how we can work around your needs, please get in touch: contact@sharypic.com.