I admin several groups on Flickr and found that video introduction only by accident on Tuesday the night it was launched. No warning. There apparently was a Secret Beta with a dozen or so more active members who participate in the Flickr Help Forums but no one else knew about it and couldn't weigh in on it.
I have been on Flickr for years - since it was Canadian and before it was bought out by Yahoo. Seems it is a gradual shift towards portal status. Movies now, maybe blogs later? While some in the professional photography community look down on Flickr, I and millions of others joined Flickr to post, share, and appreciate photography. Not have it become just one component of what Flickr does. Oh and photos and videos are called 'things' now as well. I didnt want to post things last time I checked.
90 seconds of video (which is the max) won't turn Flickr into YouTube, but it dilutes the singular purpose of the photo sharing site - and puts our paying members' dollars towards video development instead of improving site stability.
It was launched badly (announcement wise not the the app itself) and has been (according to some very vocal camps) received badly. One anti video group has had 15,000 members join it in 24hours. The uproar even reached the Wired Blog today.
And all this doesn't even touch on the changes made to Flickr Group administration that happened at the same time. That is too annoying to mention to those not on Flickr already, but it made our roles as group admins quite tough overnight. Mirroring how images are flagged by members and the groups themselves seems to make sense on the surface pretty much. How come that can't be done or wasn't done?
And organizing group flags/filters that way wouldn't cause the paying Pro members in Germany and elsewhere to get the faucet turned off more than it already is. Despite all the cries of "I am cancelling my account" and so on, I see the Germans being the ones that might actually leave Flickr because of the 18+ changes. That, as much as anything else, is a shame.
Oh and to top it off, NewsCorp and AOL are now likely adding their interest in buying Yahoo (Flickr's parent company). So hmmm. AOHell or Microsoft... Given the two, Microsoft doesn't all of a sudden seem so bad. What a nightmare AOL would be... And Newscorp owns Myspace.... So guaranteed there would be some sort of MyFlickrSpace somewhere down the road...
Sigh again...
Mike
Mike Wood Photography
1 comment:
Good assessment, Mike. Just when I find a tool that I like, it seems it morphs into something else and I'm forced to look elsewhere once again. Nothing is ever "good enough" on the Internet for long. Sooner or later, it's got to get bought out of "improved". And we all lose in the process.
Can't wait to see where the Microsoft-Yahoo dogfight ends up. The longer it takes, however, the less relevant the outcome will ultimately be.
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