Where Have Amanda’s Hands Been?

Here’s a story on Creative Commons Images, and how they can make your hands famous…

Recently I told you that using free images online might get you sued. Did I scare you? I didn’t mean to, but I understand if I made you nervous. I get nervous when I think about all the awesome company blogs out there that are using “free” images incorrectly. It seems like more and more often I’m reading about a person or company getting sued for using an image incorrectly, even if the blog author attributed it correctly.

I really don’t want that to happen to you. In fact, don’t want that to happen to any great blog online.

So what do you do if you don’t have the budget to spend mucho money on stock photos or custom illustrations for your website? You may consider forgoing including any images in your blog posts, but we can’t stand behind that idea. In fact, we believe in using media in your blog posts, and images are a must.

We’ve got great news for you: there are free images online that are safe for you to use on your company blog.

If you weren’t already previously aware, we have a huge collection of photos available on Flickr under the Creative Commons license. We decided to put them up because we’ve used a lot of Creative Commons images in the past and wanted to share the love. You’re free to use them as long as you link back to the original photo or link back to our website (preferred!).

And we aren’t the only group of people sharing free photos online. There are thousands of people out there uploading Creative Commons images for you to use. Just be sure to read the attribution required before downloading the photos, as all users require or allow different things under the license.

Anyway, I’ve got a fun story about free photos for you. There’s one BuzzFarmer’s photo in particular – out of all of our Creative Commons images – that has gotten much more love than others.

It’s a certain ten-fingered one of the BuzzFarmers BossLady.

The first instance of someone using our picture of Amanda and her hands was in this Mashable post. They actually took down the image after Amanda (jokingly) called them out on their associated headline: “Google Fixes the Fat Finger Problem with Mobile Ads.”

Umm, thanks?

But lately we’ve been finding this image on other sites, and I feel as if her hands are getting semi-famous. If all else fails for Amanda, she’ll always be known as “the redhead with the pretty ring looking at her cell phone.” I’m just teasing, I predict big things for her future outside of her new hand-modeling gig.

[Tweet “.@amaaanda’s hands are, like, internet famous now.”]

We were interested to find out just how famous Amanda and her ten fingers have gotten, so today we busted out Open Site Explorer and found 98 different domains using the image. Yes! 98 different sites are currently using the picture of Amanda’s hands. This just goes to show you why sharing free images is so helpful to other online organizations.

The interpretation through headlines is priceless. Check out the gallery below to see some of times Amanda’s hands have been shared.

Did you get a chance to read any of these headlines? On some sites, Amanda is a parent: “5 Cellphone Etiquette Rules Every Mom Should Follow.” In other posts, she’s a child: “6 Simple Ways to Drive Your Parents Insane.”

Our lesson for you is simple: If you share your images online, be prepared to wind up in unexpected places.

If you share your photos under the Creative Commons license, has your picture ever gone viral? We’d love to read your stories in our comments section.