A new and improved Crank Engine FAQ
The latest PhotoCrank release has brought about some new options and changes that I feel all of our Crank Engine users need to be aware of. We have posted a new FAQ specifically for these new options and if you have the Crank Engine installed on your blog, you should definitely take a few minutes to look it over.
Click here to take a look at the new Crank Engine FAQ and if you have any questions, please let us know by commenting below.
We couldn’t have said it better ourselves
I wanted to give a quick blog shout-out to our Canadian Australian Crank’r Sue Blimely over at SueBlimely.com. She wrote an awesome blog about her thoughts on PhotoCrank and why she has added the Crank Engine to her blog.
Rock on, Sue and thanks for the love!
UPDATE: For some unknown reason I said that Sue was Canadian, when she is in fact Australian. My apologies go out to all of the Canadians out there for the accidental association. 
Hey bloggers: you want some options, you got some options
As we continue to get awesome feedback from all of our Crank’rs, there’s nothing like implementing a highly demanded feature into production. Knowing that there is a huge need for something, figuring out how to get it developed and getting it out to our Crank’rs - this is something that we’ve done many times over the past several months and this is what keeps PhotoCrank more fun, reliable and easy to use.
One of the latest requests, specifically from the bloggers who have the PhotoCrank Engine running, is that we make a simple way for them to make certain photos on their blog ‘unCrankable’. Even though we all love us some Crank’n, there are definitely times when you may not want someone adding a Crank to a photo. For instance, we had some bloggers who wrote a very serious post about George Carlin passing away and they didn’t want the photo to be Crankable out of respect to the man who came up with the 7 words that you can’t say on TV.
Anyways, there are other reasons why a blogger may not want a photo Crankable and it’s our job to give you that option, so we did. There was a way to do it previously, but it wasn’t nearly as simple as the super-simple way that you can do it now. Here’s how it works:
We have added a new option to the Options Menu, which can be seen by clicking the gray button with the down-arrow on it. Then, go down to the Adminstration –> Allow Image To Be Cranked option and uncheck it if you would like the photo to be unCrankable. This can be done to any image after it is posted to your blog.
Each photo is Crankable by default. Simply uncheck to make it unCrankable.
Hopefully this option makes all of our blogger’s Crank’n experience even better than it has been up to this point. If you are a blogger or a Crank’r and you have something you’d like to see changed/removed/added to PhotoCrank, please feel free to comment here and let us know - we’d love to hear what all of you have to say!
A new version of PhotoCrank means a few changes for the better
At the end of last week many hours of hard work, super long meetings and some slightly heated discussions(aka arguments) resulted in an amazing, new version of the PhotoCrank player being pushed out to the world.
Thanks to some great feedback from all of the Crank’rs out there we have added some amazingly awesome new features to this version of the Crank player - most of which make Crank’n much more fun and much more social.
This is a major step in the direction that we want PhotoCrank to head, which is a direction that makes the experience more exciting and fun for Crank’rs, which leads to a much better overall experience for bloggers who add the PhotoCrank Engine to their blog as a way to add a more interactive experience for their readers.
Some of these new features are listed below and something else that you should be aware of is that with all of these great, new features came a change in our Crank’n philosophy as well, which is that we are no longer allowing anonymous Cranks to be created in Cranktown(our community of Crank’rs). This is because many of the new features listed below require that you have a PhotoCrank profile created and we also feel that the more profiles that are created, the better and more active community that Cranktown will become. We hope that you agree with this change for the better and if you haven’t created a profile yet you can head over here now and get it taken care of in a matter of seconds. We appreciate you taking the time to do this and hope that you find that Crank’n a photo is now more fun than ever.
Now, on to the new features:
Here is a clean view of the new Crank player.
See the numbers below for more info on our sweet, new Crank player features.
1. Previous and Next Navigation Arrows: These allow for quicker navigation when viewing Cranks
2. Crank Replies and Multiple Cranks: Any Crank’r now has the ability to create multiple Cranks on any photo and also the ability to reply to a Crank with another Crank
3. Crank Comments: Like the Crank you’re watching? Want to let other Crank’rs know what you think? You can easily do this now thanks to our new Crank commenting system.
4. Crank Sharing: Let your friends know about your latest Crank by sharing it on your favorite social network or by emailing it out to the masses. Also, copy the code to add your Crank anywhere you want by clicking on the embed code button.
More info coming soon on some other new stuff that you all should know about this new version release, but I think that this is enough to digest for one blog post. Now what are you waiting for? Get to Crank’n, sharing, commenting and spreading that PhotoCrank love!
Any questions, feel free to give me a shout by dropping an email to ryan@photocrank.com. May the Crank be with you.
Firefox 3 browser extension coming soon
Brent from boodangy.blogspot.com and several other Crank’rs have been asking about the much buzzed and brand-spankin’ new Firefox 3 that is now available for download on the web and more specifically when our current PhotoCrank Firefox browser extension will support it.
Never fear, my lovely friends of CrankTown, I have asked the PhotoCrank powers to be this very question and according to them there will be a Firefox 3 compatible version ready for download by this time next week(by June 30th). A week’s not too long to wait, right?
If you really need something to do until then, you could always go say hi to one of the latest bloggers to install the PhotoCrank Engine on their site over at The Hanson Life in Texas Blog. Don’t be shy, go ahead and welcome them by giving them one of their first Cranks!
The inaugural Official Trophy of Awesomeness! goes to Jeff O’Connor
As we continue to meet the fine people of the PhotoCrank community, or ‘CrankTown’ as I like to call it, I have been finding myself getting very excited each and every time that I see a new Crank’r going wild on the web. After I notice their initial barrage of Crank’n I try to get in touch with them so that I can find out how they found PhotoCrank, what they think of the product and if there’s anything that they’d like to see changed with the way that they can currently Crank.
After I had gotten really excited seeing a new Crank’n machine doing their thing yesterday, I started thinking about ways that I could show just how awesome I think it is that they have joined CrankTown and how much all of us here at PhotoCrank really appreciate the feedback that they always seem to give us once we catch up with them.
Well, after much thought and some mad Photoshop skillz(like 20 minutes today) I have come up with a new way that I am going to show these new Crank’rs just how much we truly appreciate them. For the first time ever I now present to all of you PhotoCrank’s Official Trophy of Awesomeness!.
As time goes on, I will be randomly be giving these out to Crank’rs who are…Awesome! The inaugural Official Trophy of Awesomeness! is going to go to a new Crank’r named Jeff O’Connor(he also has a health care blog over here). In the past 24 hours Jeff has:
- Crank’d 10 photos all over the web
- Joined the PhotoCrank Facebook group
- Told all of his Facebook friends about PhotoCrank
- Downloaded and installed the PhotoCrank browser extension
For all of these displays of PhotoCrank love, Jeff gets to be the proud owner of a ghetto-esque, photoshop’d symbol of gratitude that comes straight from the hearts of me and the rest of the PhotoCrank team - The Official Trophy of Awesomeness!(and yes, the exclamation point is necessary). Congrats, Jeff!
Here, let me show you how to Crank a photo
As me and the rest of the team constantly continue to improve what PhotoCrank is, how it works and what all it can be used for we have been really focusing on making sure that the fundamentals of creating a Crank are as clear and straight-forward as possible. From our standpoint, considering that we are Crank’n like it’s our job(oh yeah, it actually is), we can sometimes take for granted the fact that there are new people out on the wonderful Web every day who are Crank’n for the first time ever. For these first time Crank’rs we want to be sure that they completely understand how to create the Crank that they are wanting to contribute to CrankTown(the community of Crank’rs and Cranks coined by my friend Scott) whenever the Crankspiration(inspiration to Crank) hits them.
Wow, that’s a lot of Crankified terms - I hope that I haven’t gone overboard, even though I’m suspecting that I have. Oh well, continuing on…
As a way to help first time Crank’rs learn the fundamentals of Crank’n a photo quickly and easily, I created a screencast video(a video of what my screen looks like during a crank, along with voice over) that shows the world what all goes into Crank’n a photo. Honestly, I tried to make it as short as possible and it ended up being around 3 minutes long, which I think(and hope) is bearable for anyone who is wanting to learn about PhotoCrank. Also, I guess that I should mention that this isn’t going on the website like one of last ones did, instead we are embedding this How-To video directly into the PhotoCrank interface(pictured below) that opens up when you begin to Crank a photo. This should make the video more valuable and relevant to the new Crank’rs out there who aren’t completely sure what Crank’n is all about.
Finally, here is the the video that will be added to the PhotoCrank interface, feel free to comment below or email me at ryan@photocrank.com with any thoughts, suggestions or constructive criticism that you may have.
Getting to know the Crank’n community
Yesterday I received an awesome email from Brent (aka Merlinhoot), who is a very active member of our Crank’n community and who has been using the PhotoCrank Browser Extension and the PhotoCrank Engine to spread some PhotoCrank lovin’ all across the Internets - which we always love to see.
Brent even posted a little somethin’ somethin’ over on his blog about how he loves to take advantage of his Crank’n ability when he sees any Crank-worthy image while surfing around the web. I don’t think that I could have said it any better myself, Brent.
Below are a few of Brent’s most recent Cranks and the rest can be seen over here on his Cranks page on PhotoCrank.com.
A new blog joins the family and Crank’n the F1 experience
First things first, I wanted to welcome a new blog to the PhotoCrank family, which is always exciting news to spread around the Interwebs. The blog I’m talking about, WILLisms.com, is a very smart, edgy and entertaining blog written by my man Will Franklin that makes politics fun to read even for a guy like me(which is an amazing feat in itself). WILLisms is going to be using PhotoCrank as a way to add a new interactive element to their caption contests starting next Wednesday, so be sure to check it out if you can remember.
Will, you rock. Moving on…
As I continue on the adventure of contacting bloggers in hopes of getting them to realize the current and future potential of what the PhotoCrank Engine can add to their caption contests, I have been finding hundreds, even thousands of blogs who run caption contests on a regular basis. These have ranged from blogs that talk about comic book characters all the way to blogs that talk about the automobile industry and everything in between and even though the subjects of the blogs vary tremendously, the value that they could realize by adding PhotoCrank to their contests is the exact same across the board. Higher user interaction, an easy voting mechanism and the ability to bring their visitors back to the blog again and again to view all of the new Cranks are just a few of the reasons that I can think of off the top of my head. Considering that all of these new features can be up and running in a matter of minutes and that the content is already being posted anyways, I feel like all of these blogs can definitely benefit from a little bit of Crank’n. But hey, that’s just me.
Anyways, a blog that I have recently contacted about using PhotoCrank with their caption contests is BlogF1, which is a British blog that covers all of the action from the F1 racing series. The blog is well written and very well designed and they run caption contests on a fairly regular basis, which is why I initially contacted them about PhotoCrank (with ‘them’ meaning Oliver White, his dad and whoever else they bring into the mix).
Well, the good news is that Oliver really likes the idea, but he is still questioning how PhotoCrank could fit in with his BlogF1 audience. This is a legitimate concern and one that I’m going to have to answer more and more as I continue to contact bloggers, so I decided to take one of the last images that he used for a caption contest and Crank it a few times so that he can get a better idea of how fun it can really be. I also wanted to show Oliver how a custom images can be added to the Crank Pallet specifically for his blog so that the Cranks are more relevant to the world of F1, so I dug up a few images from other places on his blog and from Google Images. By the time you read this I will have Crank’d the photo below a couple of times and please, don’t be shy - go ahead and Crank it, too!
Crank’n a caption contest: A quick example
In my last post I wrote a pretty lengthy explanation of how a blog/website owner can install The PhotoCrank Engine for use with caption competitions that they are currently running for their readers. I won’t go into all of the details of why PhotoCrank adds some great value to these various contests, but instead I thought that I would take a real-world example that I found while cruising the web and show you how Crank’n would look and be used on a contest that a blogger had already posted. Hopefully this will give you all a better understanding of what I have been talking about as far as caption contests go. I have a feeling that I will be doing this several times as a way to show everyone how easily PhotoCrank can take these types of caption contests to a new level of fun and interactivity.
The blog that I have chosen to be my guinea pig for this first go round is WILLisms.com, which is a blog that has a very edgy and entertaining way to cover what’s hot in the political world. The WILLisms blog holds caption contests like this one on a regular basis and I have decided to use their latest one as an example of how PhotoCrank can make a great caption contest even better.
Here is the image that was used for the last caption contest contest on the WILLisms blog, in which he encouraged his readers to give their best shot at being clever…the image is from a protest that took place after three police detectives were found not guilty after a fatal shooting in NYC.
Comparatively, here are a couple of captions that were submitted via the comments on the blog:
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“Leroy Johnson of 443 fifth Avenue is that you?
Leroy: Shhhhhhhhh!
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This guy thinks he is hiding that he is picking his nose. We can see you!
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These are kinda funny, but with PhotoCrank, they could have had even more fun with it. Also, with PhotoCrank the winner of the caption contest can automatically be determined based on the what the viewers vote on each Crank, making it very easy to find a winner. For more information on how to add The PhotoCrank Engine to your blog, head on over to this page on PhotoCrank.com.