Images in the Comments: A Guide for Videogum
Werttrew is like a Goodwill Ambassador, only for Videogum instead of the U.N.
1a. Finding an image
I’ve collected gifs for a couple years now, long before I started regularly commenting on Videogum. If you google “animated gifs,” I soon noted, you’d end up at a lot of commercial sites with lame gifs. The best way to find gifs was to google something like <animated gifs forums> or <animated gifs threads> or <favorite animated gifs> and you’d uncover a lot. As well, the site http://community.livejournal.com/ohnotheydidnt/ is a cornucopia of user-generated gifs.
Also, check out this list of eight great animated gif blogs: http://www.urlesque.com/2009/11/04/eight-animated-gif-blogs/
Other gif sites:
http://www.funnyjunk.com/funny_gifs/
http://www.ilikegifs.com/1.shtml (beware that on this site that after page 10 or so you get mega porny gifs)
Once I find a gif, I’d copy/paste the source (or more often save and upload the image onto tinypic; see #2 below) onto a document or post it on a forum for animated gifs.
1b. Creating a gif.
Honestly? I have no idea how to create a gif except by downloading youtubes into http://www.gifsoup.com/ Probably 90 percent of the gifs I use are just ones I found online. Just be sure to host the image itself on tinypic (see below) and make sure the image is NOT saved as bitmap but as a jpeg or gif.
2. Hosting an image
If you right-click on an image online, you’ll pull up “properties” of the image and be able to find a link to the image’s source. However, it is usually NOT a good idea to simply copy/paste this link. This is called “hotlinking” and you may find that the original site will let the images go blank or replace it with something else (the site Creepygifs does this).
So it is best to right-click and save the image to your computer and then visit http://tinypic.com. Use tinypic to host your image. They are quick and easy and the best site I’ve found to host images continuously and for free. In fact, the only time I recommend “hotlinking” is when the image source is itself already from tinypic, as it often is.
3. Posting an image
With the new changes, all you need do now is post the jpg or gif url staight. No tags, no nothing. Easy peasy! Let me repeat: Just post the link by itself and the Videogum magic elves will automoatically make it an image in the comment.
Note: if you post more than two URLs (including pictures) in a comment, then your comment may get caught in “waiting for moderator approval” limbo. Best to limit yourself to one image per comment.
