

Your images are a virus. They are everywhere on the Internet - joeyespo
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/YourImagesAreAVirusTheyAreEVERYWHEREOnTheInternet.aspx?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ScottHanselman+%28Scott+Hanselman+-+ComputerZen.com%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

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nostromo
I've had a similarly surreal experience. I took a photo of a cup of coffee in
Zeitgeist Cafe in Seattle early in 2005. I was new to Wikipedia so I uploaded
it and put it on the page for Coffee, where it has stayed since.

I see it _everywhere_. The most surreal experience was when I was waiting for
my luggage at SeaTac last year, and on the TV in front of me was an ad for a
national hotel chain -- and they used my photo (violating the CC license by
the way) when touting their continental breakfast. You can see the way this
photo "virus" has spread on the new Google Image search as well:
[http://images.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=cup...](http://images.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=cup+of+coffee&tbm=isch&tbs=simg:CAQSZRpjCxCo1NgEGgIIAAwLELCMpwgaPAo6CAESFLoHtwebBPcGtQekA70HoAOZB5gHGiCTpVNXr0ZfppAicZWlpcNj15Qjemi4kJuVCV3PzOJIJQwLEI6u_1ggaCgoICAESBBjkEcsM&biw=1200&bih=964)

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felipemnoa
It would have been awesome if you had put a secret message in the image, just
for kicks.

~~~
tintin
A little off-topic, but maybe it would be possible to 'unwrap' the cup and
construct a little panorama of it's reflection.

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simonw
Just wanted to highlight this bit:

""" I can't see how to reliably hotlink to Google Image Search results, so go
to <http://images.google.com/>, click the little camera icon and paste in the
URL to the image, like
[http://www.hanselman.com/blog/content/binary/WindowsLiveWrit...](http://www.hanselman.com/blog/content/binary/WindowsLiveWriter/2dc61d7e4a66_13443/image.png)
"""

For a company that built its original USP on analysing hyperlinks, Google have
a remarkable cultural tendency to screw up their URLs.

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ximeng
[http://www.marc.cn/2011/10/elaines-picture-removed-from-
hall...](http://www.marc.cn/2011/10/elaines-picture-removed-from-halloween-
products-the-chinese-way.html)

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ofca
Don't worry about credits. Give something back to the amazing online
community. If someone claims it is his image? So what? He probably is a very
sad man and you probably can prove that it is indeed your picture. Stop
worrying about these petty things.

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niyazpk
208 results? Meh :)

Some time ago I created a theme for my WordPress site, which I released
publicly later. I included a (cheesy?) line in it (plus a grammatical error)
and it is frightening to see it in 500K+ pages now:

[http://www.google.co.in/search?q=%22What+I+say+is+immensely+...](http://www.google.co.in/search?q=%22What+I+say+is+immensely+important+than+who+I+am.+Let+the+search+be+for+the+meaning+and+substance+in+my+words+rather+than+the+intricacies+of+my+existence%22)

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alexhawket
That image is missing a fourth circle: stuff you can do that's better than the
current stuff (with the resources you have available to you.)

If whatever you want to do is not better than existing options then there's no
point in doing it since your customers will just continue using the old thing.

~~~
noblethrasher
In this case Microsoft represents the thing that can do stuff better than
everyone else:

Scott had just gotten a job with Microsoft. I recall thinking that the point
of his picture wasn't just to convey how happy and lucky he felt about the new
opportunity, but to also explain why he was leaving his old employer.

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erikb
I never saw this picture before, nor do I think it's any special. Try googling
for me_gusta.jpg, if u look for "virus like" spreading of one picture.

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UIZealot
Somehow he made his site unzoomable on the iPad. Now I won't read it, however
interesting his story might be. Shame!

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drivingmenuts
This is where I start to have all kinds of issues about copyright. If someone
is making money off my work, without permission and/or without some sort of
recompense, then I start to get a little bit edgy about it.

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mcritz
You should try the magical image finder: tineye.com

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lwat
'Meme' is the correct term, not 'virus'

~~~
MindTwister
I read an article, though I cant remember where that refers to memes as a new
kind of hard-to-kill virus, even the wikipedia article has references to it
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme>

