Wordnik, a new web venture devoted to expanding and cataloguing our lexicon, went live today, allowing word dweebs such as myself to have a social media resource for vocab.

Let me just say: I think it is completely genius.

After searching a word, one isn’t merely greeted with definitions from multiple online dictionaries, but also Flickr photos tagged with that word, quotations that use the word, statistics on how often the word is used, pronunciations, etymologies, synonyms, and tweets from people who have just used the word.  My head is spinning! I love etymologies!

I think Wordnik is especially poignant at a time when many word-lovers are mourning the death of print and bemoaning the digitalization of books—this site, essentially a thoroughly modern Oxford English Dictionary, proves that much can be gained through the evolution of media.

-Elise

I noticed something very intriguing about an ad for the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the 6 train this morning — the photo caption was credited to a Flickr user! (I was so suprised, I even documented it with my bad-quality BlackBerry camera.) It turns out the Met held a Flickr photo contest, and the winning picture was featured in the ad.

In an interesting coincidence, Getty Images just launched a new Flickr partnership today. Getty can now contact Flickr members and ask them if they want to share their images for use in a special Flickr-branded Getty collection. Flickr has long been a great place to find beautiful photography, and it’s fantastic that its users are getting the respect they deserve from the photo industry.

—Alyssa