I Just Can't Stop Watching PingWire

July 13, 2009 11:38 PM

PingWire is an (almost) live feed of images being posted to Twitpic. Clicking on a thumbnail will take you to the full sized photo. As it's a live, unfiltered picture feed, you can expect some inappropriate content will make its way on there as well. Best considered NSFW.
posted by jim.christian (36 comments total)

this is exciting me visually.
posted by BillBishop at 11:44 PM on July 13, 2009

I'm envisioning a drinking game where the participants guzzle a beer or take a shot when the first cat pic pops up. You'd be hammered by page three.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 11:49 PM on July 13, 2009 [2 favorites]

That was totally safe for work. I want my money back.
posted by lekvar at 11:49 PM on July 13, 2009

Can next month's music challenge be: Take a set of N images from PingWire and turn them in to a song?
posted by 0xFCAF at 11:50 PM on July 13, 2009

I expect Jonathan Coulton's already on the case. Remember this?
posted by jim.christian at 11:53 PM on July 13, 2009

I opened up two windows, and found they ran totally different images. I have to say, this tickles the voyeur in me. Yet, I've been waiting, but haven't yet seen the image that made me feel the need to nail the guy pictured.
posted by Goofyy at 11:57 PM on July 13, 2009

Nifty.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 11:57 PM on July 13, 2009

Hooray, finally saw something NSFW! This reminds me of the script that would scrape LiveJournal for the last X uploaded images. Both are way more addictive than you'd think at first!
posted by barnacles at 12:10 AM on July 14, 2009

Hooray, finally saw something NSFW!

Ugh. Well, the second photo to show up for me would be charitably described as "spoochy".
posted by YoBananaBoy at 12:17 AM on July 14, 2009

This is great entertainment when you're drunk. Except the Harry Potter teen porn is kind of freaking me out.
posted by showmethecalvino at 12:21 AM on July 14, 2009

text version
posted by idiopath at 12:25 AM on July 14, 2009

and I was about to go to bed. Damn you!
posted by potch at 12:26 AM on July 14, 2009

A goodly number of pictures of cats and shoes. Also an octopus. And someone's tattoo. Interspersed with the usual shots of people looking stupid at parties.
posted by Peach at 12:38 AM on July 14, 2009

I too felt cheated by the lack of NSFWness, until I saw a picture posted from France of a guy holding a sign saying "Je *heart* rien - Je suis Parisien", and that was good enough to make me happy.
posted by marmaduke_yaverland at 12:38 AM on July 14, 2009 [3 favorites]

Good lord. Is this what Web 2.0 has come to? Edited media replaced by an endless stream of stuff?

I damn you once for clogging the internets. I damn you twice because I keep hearing that otherwise forgettable song by Duran Duran.

In this brave new world, everyone's a media product I don't want to buy.
posted by MuffinMan at 12:38 AM on July 14, 2009

In this brave new world, everyone's a media product I don't want to buy.

just saw this :P (via waxy!)
posted by kliuless at 12:49 AM on July 14, 2009

wow - that's a lot of pictures. Seriously. I always have known there were a lot of pictures out there - but this, sort of graphic representation of how many are being generated at any given instant (by specifically showing a lot from a tiny, tiny slice of the internet) - it really boggles the mind.

How do I stop watching? When I need a new cup of coffee, right? (Will they just keep unspooling while I'm away... I'm sorry, it's kind of like watching a fast moving brook. Need some sound to go with it...)
posted by From Bklyn at 12:59 AM on July 14, 2009

Oh dear. There's also this.
posted by jim.christian at 1:04 AM on July 14, 2009 [1 favorite]

I only get broken images, and clicking on them only yields a 403 forbidden message. Is it just Chrome? Anyone else?
posted by kaspen at 1:50 AM on July 14, 2009 [4 favorites]

...and broken. Looks like twitpic is now filtering by referer.
posted by tomierna at 1:51 AM on July 14, 2009

But picfog works. And just keeps loading, and loading, and...
posted by kaspen at 1:53 AM on July 14, 2009

Looks like you actually have to be logged in to twitter for it to work right.
posted by bigmusic at 2:13 AM on July 14, 2009

This reminds me of the script that would scrape LiveJournal for the last X uploaded images

That was ridiculously addictive (one version here). This is similar, but with more of a focus on pictures of feet from an iPhone.
posted by paulesque at 3:29 AM on July 14, 2009

I only get broken images, and clicking on them only yields a 403 forbidden message. Is it just Chrome? Anyone else?

Same with epiphany.
posted by notreally at 5:17 AM on July 14, 2009

It's broken for me too, and I'm logged in...fortunately, there's still Twitcaps by our very own Boatmeme (Mefi Projects link). And if that fails I can just go back to googling for open networked webcams, like the good old days.
posted by Monster_Zero at 5:29 AM on July 14, 2009

same with safari and firefox.
posted by kolophon at 5:30 AM on July 14, 2009

oh no, I just learned from twitcaps that they are opening a Hooters in Berlin...
Why do they import the worst ideas from America when we still can't buy Corndogs and I Can't Believe It's Not Butter spray anywhere?
I can't believe I still have to ask friends to bring it along when they visit the States so I can giggle to myself everytime I spray it on a toast...
posted by kolophon at 5:43 AM on July 14, 2009

The one in the FPP was broken for me, too, but the Twitcaps linked above worked. I was surprised, actually, at how little was nsfw, especially compared to the photos of cats.
posted by Forktine at 6:21 AM on July 14, 2009

The LiveJournal version
posted by mkb at 6:51 AM on July 14, 2009

I've seen about 20 dogs and this. Neat?
posted by oinopaponton at 7:38 AM on July 14, 2009

The original link loads no images for me (maybe because I'm not a Twitterer (Twit?)), but the other links are fantastic, if largely NSFW. I got 4 or 5 booty shots and a bare woman's torso on the first load of PicFog. Some of the pics are well done or just cute. It's hard to stop watching.
posted by notashroom at 7:54 AM on July 14, 2009

The LiveJournal version

Thanks for this.
posted by fatbird at 8:10 AM on July 14, 2009

Thanks Monster_Zero for linking to Twitcaps.

I am most certainly not an objective reviewer, but I feel like Twitcaps has far, far more functionality than any of the other real-time image sites and there are now many:

http://twitcaps.com
http://picfog.com
http://twicsy.com
http://roooby.com
http://picbrk.com
http://twitpicwall.com/
http://tweetgrid.com/twitpicgrid
and of course,
http://pingwire.com/, which to me is just about the LEAST compelling one.

If you like the dynamic feeling of the images coming into view, just enable the "Auto-Refresh" from the menu-bar.

I realize my app isn't the subject of the post, but I'd still like to put out the call for feedback on Twitcaps. Positive or negative.
posted by BoatMeme at 8:42 AM on July 14, 2009 [3 favorites]

SO much beer.
posted by Skygazer at 12:11 PM on July 14, 2009

Things have changed. Site now says:

[begin quote]

PingWire is an (almost) live feed of images being posted to Twitpic yfrog. Clicking on a thumbnail will take you to the full sized photo.

PingWire has switched to yfrog temporarily.

Evidently, there are people who post photos which may be inappropriate for viewers under 18 years of age. You've been warned.

[end quote]

Shocked. I am shocked.
posted by sidereal at 3:58 PM on July 14, 2009

Also - hopefully not overdoing the tooting of the Twitcaps horn - my application supports by far the most Twitter image hosts:

Twitpic
yFrog
Flickr (both flic.kr and unshortened full-url flickr)
img.ly
tweetPhoto
mobypicture
ScreenTweet

Lest I forget the major distinguishing characteristic of Twitcaps (imo), there is the capture feature (the caps in the twit, natch), which is essentially a bookmark so that you may save all your favorites to view later.

The interesting thing is that any time you capture an image, a copy of that image is stored to Twitpic under your Twitter account so you may later link to the image without worry that the original may someday be deleted.
posted by BoatMeme at 10:52 PM on July 14, 2009