Yahoo Asks Users to Switch Photo Sites
Saturday, May 5th, 2007
Yahoo Asks Users to Switch Photo Sites: “Yahoo is shutting down Yahoo Photos and asking users to move instead to its photo-sharing site Flickr, which emphasizes community features.”
This might be because flickr is floundering and Yahoo needs to keep its numbers moving at the same pace that they were before it floundered. From the inside, I think flickr is floundering.
It also might be because of competition from other photo sharing sites, Yahoo needs to consolidate its numbers.
Either way, there are going to be a huge number of new users on flickr soon who will have no clue how a social site like flickr works. Oh boy, time to jump ship.
(Source NYT > Technology.)
I have similar feelings about flickr at the moment. I can’t put my finger on the reason for it though. Perhaps just boredom. It seems to me that other sites are being more innovative and progressing at a better pace. I have been watching Zooomr with interest, although i’m not sure that they have the capacity to accomplish everything that they want to. Not with out more investment anyway.
Where would you jump ship to?
where is yours ship Richard ? ;-)
Jamie and gedasg: Good questions.
Backing up, I’ve been thinking a lot about communities of all sorts and whether there is a natural life span of intense interest that dies down for one reason or another. I mean, virtual connections are always fascinating but for me anyway, less so than analog (real) connection with people.
One of the things that both flickr and jpg share (same originators) is social tools that allow for a kind of “American Idol” like competition. Flickr not only has commenting but an “interestingness” algorithm that is both interesting to watch in action and also gameable so that people use it to become popular. There’s nothing wrong with being popular and there’s nothing wrong with recognizing great photography but somehow when the popularity drives the use it gets old.
Since both of you have weblogs (photo and not) you’ll understand that I’ve been thinking quite a bit about what to do next, both with my own photo site relative to this one, and with my flickr involvement.
Start a new community? Not sure about that in that building something like that is beyond me and it’s less the technical, more the “then what?” feeling I’m battling.
I think these long range questions are also relevant to photo blogs like yours Jamie where the larger context (the photoblogs.org universe) is sort of like a big flickr.
I just love the fact that I’m having this conversation with two people I’ve never met, one in the UK and one in Lithuania. Capturing that spirit is important and makes me happy but formalizing it and keeping the energy fresh (flickr, etc.) seems problematic.
What if we brainstormed a nice name and url and built a nice pixelpost or wordpress photo site for a group of us to use, leaving commenting on and keeping all the web 2.0 connection active. The categories could be artist names and the tags could be the sub-cats… we’d have a nice collection of images quite fast I’d think and might even want to have threads where we talk about things like equipment and technique.
I’m up for that and I already have a small group waiting in the wings who might jump on it. I know both of you have great design skills and can edit CSS so whatever it is will look great.
The group name and purpose is what needs brainstorming.
Up for it?
Very interesting, I still remember well how you have been suggesting I should get a flickr account. looks like that if I ever will, you will have moved over elsewhere. What you have in mind seems like an invite-only network. That has both pros and cons… as I am sure you well know. But a very big plus of course is that you stay in control, until of course it gets too big and people get different idea on direction or who to invite. Tell you what, at some point everyone will end up again running thier own web site the way they like with a kind of web ring or central RRS collection site that gives quick access to the personal sites. Perhaps something like that can provide the best of both worlds…
David, I knew someone would say that and the thing is, most of us already have our own sites and use flickr. I’d like to find a way to do something in between that has the best of both worlds. The idea of teaming up with like minded people seems like a good idea and then we can make a single site a lot stronger than multiple sites linked together through RSS.
Just a dream… The actual doing is quite a bit harder.
I know the issues are not technical, but I am more than willing to help any way I can.
Thanks David. I had an idea today that I think might be a good compromise but I’m not quite sure how to explain it. I’ll post about it soon, either here or as a regular post.
Hi Richard,
Long time no speak (I’ve been on hols). Some interesting questions being posed here. I must admit, flickr is still ok for me. I have also been watching zoomr like Jamie, but they seem to have speed issues, the site takes a long time to load.
We will have to see what happens …… but there is nothing that excites me yet.
Cheers,
Jon
Jon, Zoomr looks like another flickr, what’s the point? I’m not looking for new tools on flickr or a different, hipper, cooler, etc.. community, I’m looking for something different and not that big. I highly recommend that you look at jpg, it’s much nicer than zoomer and easy to use, free too. I’ve got an account there but I don’t use it often as it’s not quite what I want.
I had more ideas walking around New York yesterday and hopefully I’ll congeal them soon.