Like many people, I relied on Tumblr to be a permanent storage for images. But then, in December 2018, the company banned all pornographic images. Old saying: One man's pornography is another man's erotica. All of my good work disappeared. Like the rest of the world, I hunted for other options and discovered newTumbl, vowing to publish my own version of images so as to not rely on whatever platform somebody else night have been using.
In June of 2022, newTumbl shut down. Wait? What? Oh, my God! Twice in my lifetime I lost access to an image platform! I looked around again and discovered various restrictions. Flickr, DeviantART, the latest version of Tumblr, etc., all presented in their TOS rules which could see images taken down. It's not like I'm selling the images or publishing them for the entire world to see, but rules are rules, and any platform seemed to represent a risk.
I discovered Gyazo. Was I set for life? Was I safe from the overzealous hand of the censor? This image repository seems to be founded on a simple rule: every image is private, invisible to anybody else in the entire world unless the poster (me) chooses to hand out the URL to the image. Unlike Tumblr or Flickr where the purpose of posting is to show the image to an audience, the purpose of Gyazo is to upload an image, then at the right moment to the right person, hand out the unique URL of that image. The image remains uploaded but unviewable by anybody else.
The website offers a free account. The main restriction is that you can only use their interface to retrieve the last ten images you've uploaded. I either bookmark images in my browser or record the URL to the image in a Word document I use to catalog the images I upload, and as a consequence, I do not rely on Gyazo itself to find images. From what I've seen their interface has cataloging features; it's just that I rely on my own method to do so. My reading of their operation is that once uploaded, my image is permanent. I do not run the risk of six months from now or two years from now, finding my image has disappeared. And more importantly, because they are an image repository as opposed to an image publisher, they don't seem to be scanning images for anything they deem inappropriate. It is up to me to police myself.
Within Second Life, we can share images using textures. However, sending the URL of an image seems easier and faster. Plus, the use of a URL works outside of Second Life, so Gyazo seems like a win-win. Yes, there are other such services, Lightshot comes to mind, but from what I've seen Gyazo does offer some interesting options. An installable program adds these features to your computer:
- Right click on an image in your browser and upload it to Gyazo.
- Right click on an image file in Windows Explorer and upload it to Gyazo.
- Hit a hot key combination and use your mouse to outline a box on the screen to capture an image.
- Hit a hot key combination and use your mouse to outline a box on the screen to capture a 7-second video with sound. (The pro account gives you 60 seconds.)
Alternative to Flickr or DeviantART?
I only have the free version of Gyazo. I have no idea what features a pro account offers. As is, Gyazo is an image respository, not an image gallery system like Flickr. You would need some other system to create a gallery. This article is on Google's Blogger platform. While Blogger is for blogging, I've wondered if there was any way of bending the system to make an image gallery. I don't know at the moment. Whatever the case, let's not forget Flickr and DeviantART, like Tumblr, are platforms dedicated to displaying images. If anybody is searching for an image platform, I would remind you that Flickr's annual cost is not exhorbitant. Oh, I know people want to do it for free, but Flickr did change their rules as they do have the right to make a profit to stay in business. It's a good image system and as I said, it's not expensive.
Final Word
I was prompted to write this because a friend sent me an IM with links to four images on the platform Imgur. I could see the first image but the second one came up with error 404 page not found. The third image prompted me, asking if I was over eighteen, while the fourth one also produced error 404 page not found. This very much reminded me of my experiences with Tumble and the other websites and the danger of a platform deciding, for whatever reason, the image violated their Terms of Service and taking the image down. There had to be a more reliable way of sharing pictures with other people.
When I run across a good image, GIF, or meme, I'll copy it to Gyazo with the idea (hope?) it will be permanent. If the original source ever disappears, I've still got the image. I don't hand out the URL of the source, but the URL of my Gyazo copy. I don't run the risk of the recipient clicking on one of my links and getting error 404 page not found.
I have free accounts with various services, Tumblr, Flickr, DeviantART, Instagram, etc., that I use to access the platforms and see the work of others. I do not do much, if any, of my own publishing. However, I like to, from time to time, share with others, mostly on a one on one basis, various things which require the URL to an image repository. Gyazo, so far, has fit the bill. The free account suits my needs but admittedly, even the pro account is inexpensive. It's worth a look.
References
Gyazo Terms of Service
To Blog Or Not To Blog - June 21/2023
For the past year or so, I've had a blog on newTumbl, dedicated to the more scandalous part of my psyche, where I've posted erotic photos (read: dirty pictures) with captioned thoughts on life, love, and pursuit of happiness. Why newTumbl? This Google blog (Blogger) is text-oriented — I write stuff — while the platform newTumbl, like Tumblr, Instagram, and Pinterest was image-oriented. I can post pictures here in Blogger, too, but newTumbl was dedicated to pictures, and, as I said, for more scandalous things.
This article's opening Gyazo logo is stored in the Google blogger image reponsitory.
The following image comes from Gyazo. You can't tell really the difference
but I can easily share this image with somebody else by giving them the Gyazo URL.
The following image comes from Gyazo. You can't tell really the difference
but I can easily share this image with somebody else by giving them the Gyazo URL.
2024-05-07
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