Mr Nobody shoots his shadow

A great shot - incorporating a second shadow from a strong reflection, such as a shop window, right?

Yes, that is what manage to capture here.

The somewhat same place (same street) and idea as here:

the shadow man ...

Fantastic shot! The next challenge will be a triple shadow of Mr. Nobody. :-))

Challenge accepted! =D

And I guess by now you have discovered how deserted groups like this can turn out ;-)

Not much visits on photos that are old uploads or shared only within the group.

I think a small group with only one or two new contributions per week but an interesting and narrow topic is much more interesting for external visitors than an all purpose group where everybody dumps their photos but nobody views the photos.

In recent weeks I have looked at a lot of groups at ipernity. To be honest: Most are boring and won't attract new users (Hopefully I won't be killed for this assertion :-)) ). But I have also found some really interesting groups that are quite much buried. For example I like very much the 50-images-project group:

www.ipernity.com/group/the50

It promotes creativity and motivates users to make photos especially for this group or at least to select very carefully their contributions.

I also like groups like this:

www.ipernity.com/group/353851

It is a funny topic and I am sure it makes visitors laugh although it is very small and has only a low number of members.

The problem is: It is very difficult to find such groups. Users tend to search for big groups hoping that they get a lot of exposure for their own photos. But as an external visitor who is thinking about signing up for ipernity I would be very disappointed when looking on the big landsacpe, animals, flowers or all purpose groups: Usually there is either no discussion thread at all or the newest thread is five years old. Often they contain photos that only vaguely fit the topic and it is my impression that users aren't very selective with the choice of their photos they contribute. Thus many groups don't look much different than the random result of a search for a certain search phrase. And even worse: When I look on several groups with the same or a similar topic I see all the same photos again and again.

So how can groups that are inspiring, promote creativity and are interesting for visitors be made more visible?

I think one possibility could be to add a carefully curated list of selected groups at a prominent place. For example explore could be supplemented with such a list. Or when searching for groups such a curated list could be offered beside the normal search results. And this is not only about groups: There are also some very interesting user profiles on ipernity. But as for groups it is very difficult to find them. I am convinced that curated content could very much increase the attractiveness of ipernity for external visitors. The only problem: Somebody would have to invest time and to do the curation.

And by the way: I am not that much disappointed with the Shadow Selfie group. I have another group that has attracted much less contributions so far:

www.ipernity.com/group/2451928

:-))

Well, I guess one could try to create an algorithm that would put on top of the list groups where are:

1) Most visits in group context
2) Most active discussions
3) Most contributions

And in that order.

I have also written some articles on this subject. According to page visits, you may have not seen them yet:

www.ipernity.com/blog/serola/4698122
www.ipernity.com/blog/serola/4643224

Concerning 50 images group, yes, I administrate it ;-)

Concerning "Vintage Miserable Families". Absolutely hilarious! =D So, especially at old times people looked like Fins ;-)

Concerning "Blank Images"... I don't know what to say... Aka without words! =D