Want to Make Your Blogs More Interesting?

Some blogs (like this one) are primarily text and that's okay. But other bloggers may want to combine other media into their blogs and pictures are one way to do that. Unfortunately, copyright doesn't always allow bloggers to include pictures legally. (They do anyway, but that's a rant for another time). 

So, how can bloggers create an engaging blog with pictures without breaking the law or busting out their digital camera every time they want to take a picture?

One great resource is available at Flickr. When Flickr photographers take pictures and upload them to Flickr, they can set the digital rights usage of that picture to a specific setting. These rights are based on the work that Creative Commons is doing for work (http://creativecommons.org/). And one of those settings is attribution 2.0 which says that the photographer gives permission for people to use their pictures for free as long as there is attribution (i.e. a photo credit). There are other restrictions that might be relevant, too, and you can view those here. 

Basically, that means that any picture on Flickr that has a Creative Commons "Attribution 2.0" license can be embedded into your blog and all you need to do is give a photo credit to the person who took the picture. And, to make things even easier, Flickr gives you a page where you can view all photos with this license.

So, click to that page, view the pictures, find one you like, embed it, and give appropriate credit. It's easy!