The Next Level: Live Mobile Photo-Blogging

I photo-blogged live from the Top of the Rock, at Rockefeller Center Saturday.

In some ways, I could argue that I had reached the pinnacle of mobile photo-blogging when I passed my satellite modem up through the turret of a Humvee and transmitted pictures from the Battle of Najaf, while I was covering the Iraq War for the Associated Press in 2004-2005. But the truth is that at least a couple of AP photo editors handled my work before it was passed on to member publications, and then their editors took a turn before the pictures ever got to the readers.

Recently, I got some attention after using my iPhone, Twitter, the Twitterfon iPhone app and twitpic.com to report from a tragic fire in southwest Philadelphia. This is a magnificently efficient process, but with some shortcomings noted below.

Soon after, Twitter user Janis Krums made headlines with his amazing iPhone photo of survivors standing on the wings of Flight 1549 in the Hudson River.

Last week, my blog reports on citizen media contributions from a police chase in Los Angeles and the plane crash in Buffalo also included Twitpics, and I expect we will see more.

The problems with this approach, however, includes the failure to drive traffic directly back to the user’s site – where it might be monetized to help support more independent journalism – as well as the failure to completely protect image rights.

For example, Twitpic’s Terms of Service, while keeping copyright with the owner, permits use on Twitpic and also on “affiliated sites.” I applaud Twitpic for avoiding the egregious rights grabs found on other citizen media sites, but I still want to retain the ability to keep important images on my own blog.

Moving to the next level, I asked my Twitter followers last week to help me find a similarly seamless method to post iPhone photos directly to my WordPress blog, and automatically distribute the link and information via Twitter.

I got a lot of recommendations, though most were dramatically less efficient than the iPhone/Twitterfon/Twitpic approach. Finally a couple of people recommended using the WordPress app for the iPhone in conjunction with the Twitme plugin for WordPress.

This weekend – on a delightful and otherwise uncomplicated personal trip to New York City – I gave this new method a try from the Top of the Rock, and it worked out very well.

First, go to the App Store on your iPhone and download the WordPress application. Enter the registration info for your blog and you’re ready to rock. Just open the app, click on your blog address and look for the “Write” icon at the bottom, right corner of the screen. One nice bonus to this approach is that you are no longer limited to Twitter’s 140-character limit.

Type a title, select tags and categories, and follow the “Photos” button and the “+” sign to either take  a new photo or add one from the images already captured in the photo library. When you are all set, change the Status to “Published” and watch it upload.

To automate the Twitter alerts, grab and install the Twitme plugin for WordPress. Then, find it in your WP admin panel and go to “Twitme:Settings”

There, you can set a message, like “I just posted photos to my blog at…” and choose to exclude categories. (I made a new category for Iphone Photos and set the rest for exclusion, so no other posts will launch this Twitter message.)

I did find one shortcoming in the way this system reduces my iPhone photos size down to 640×480 pixels, and then posts them at an even smaller 300 pixels. I can’t find prefs in the WordPress app, and fiddling with the WP Media Settings made no difference.

A second compromise to consider is that – even while employing blog comments – this process might lend itself less directly to conversation, possibly making it worthwhile to add additional Twitter messages and responses, if you have time.

Overall, I accomplished most of my goals; the process is simple enough, and I keep the traffic on my blog with the images, even if they are unnecessarily downsized.

If you know a better way, please let me know!