Flickr is more fun with friends, but it is a big busy place, and sometimes it can be hard to find the people you know. The new Find Your Friends feature can help with that.

If you have a Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, or Microsoft Live Hotmail account we can look for people in your address book who are already using Flickr. Then you can add them as a Flickr contact. How neat is that?

If you’ve got comments or questions, let us know how Find Your Friends is working for you in the official forum topic.

Photo by Doxieone.

Another event to add to my life list of things I’d like to photograph before I shuffle off this mortal coil — the Battle of the Oranges, Ivrea, Italy:

“Ivrea today is best known for its peculiar traditional carnival. The core celebration is based on a locally famous Battle of the oranges. This involves some thousands of townspeople, divided into nine combat teams, who throw oranges at each other – with considerable violence…” Ivrea, Wikipedia

View more of semantico‘s wonderful photographs of the Battle of the Oranges in this set.

Unless you’re lucky enough to telecommute, traveling to your place of work or study is part of the daily routine. While some think of it as a slog, others find and share the beauty seen in getting from “here” to “there.” Commuters’ Rhapsody by Palm celebrates those found moments that punctuate our journeys. Come share yours.

Photos from nicole degollado, l_zimberoff, tazebao, mikehaskew, and mypresense.
View more commuting photos in the Commuters’ Rhapsody pool.

Photos from ultrapop, Vidiot, istolethetv, scerpica, sn00py78, and celeblung. View more photos tagged with “bunny ears“, “easter bonnet“, and “easter eggs“.

3:55 pm: Oh wait! We’re back! We’re still scrutinizing the patient so if anything else should occur, check back here for additional information.

3:52 pm: Where’d we go? That’s the question! Flickr has been offline for about an hour, and the hard-working supernerds are busily diagnosing the patient. We’ll be back soon with a prognosis. Sorry for the inconvenience.

View more of .dExTeR.‘s amazing photos of Kosovo in this set.

I think it’s safe to say that a good time was had by all who could attend our 4th birthday party last Saturday night here in San Francisco. And how could they not, surrounded with so much beauty? Team Flickr spent the afternoon prior to our party hanging over 2,000 photos that had been contributed to Flickr Turns 4.

To all who shared their photos — you rock! It was an incredible honour to work with such wonderful photography. Let’s do it again next year.

View more photos from the event via the “Flickr Turns 4” and “Flickr 4” tags or in the newly created Flickr Turns 4 – The Party! group.

Photos from Ric e Ette, monkeywobble, in the shadow of za’ha’dum, *Cinnamon, and Ayoumali.

It’s a day when things that aren’t normally green become so. From the Chicago River (featured top left), to your beer and even bagels, today is your day if green is your favourite colour. See more photos in our St. Patrick’s Day clusters.

Photos from jellybeanjill13, -vespertine, JB Imaging, Vark1 and perennialpal.

Photos from Benjamin Goss. See more in in his Urban strangeness set.

We hope that you’ll join us this Saturday night at 111 Minna Gallery for Flickr Turns 4, 6 – 9pm. Please feel free to RSVP (so that we’ll have enough cupcakes).

Our Feline Overlords (some of whom are featured above) would like you to know that it’s not too late to contribute a photo to the group pool if you’d like to see your work on the gallery walls. I picked the first batch of prints up on my way home from work and they look fabulous. More information on how to participate is available in Flickr Turns 4.

Photos from diagonal/, Rock Star, and recompose.