3 ms·

Yahoo holds a lot of the blame for the death of Flickr, but it would have been in trouble anyway. Flickr was born for a time when a photograph was a rarer thing

by bonaldi 10y ago

Yahoo holds a lot of the blame for the death of Flickr, but it would have been in trouble anyway. Flickr was born for a time when a photograph was a rarer thing, and was something you'd put a lot of effort into both creating and curating. With smartphones, we are all now firehoses of photography, barely clinging on by adding hearts and likes as the images fly past. Carefully adding metadata and curating Flickr-style would be a full-time job for most of us these days. I guess the closest modern analogue to what Flickr was is Instagram — which is more carefully curated and selective – but Instagram has never cared about quality, and a Flickr that chased the Instagram audience wouldn't really have been Flickr anymore anyway.

pmlnr 10y ago
There are a lot of photographers out there how enjoy "the old way": putting time into the creation of the photo right at the time of shooting instead of taking the same - or more - time for post processing. Some of these people have retreated to their own sites, because none of the social networks offer the slow, steady, carefully crafted publishing what they'd prefer. Indeed Flickr was - still could be - a good place for these people. It's a niche market, true, but if the service is fading, you might want to target a group which is currently not targeted by anyone. ( No, 500px is _not_ an alternative; that is a very long discussion, why, approximately summarized by Sarah Marino[1] ) Instead of targeting high profile amateurs, who are already willing to pay for their hobby, Flickr created a mobile app, which, by default, consumes ALL images and video on the device, acts, works and looks too similar to Instagram. I know growth is god, but it really shouldn't be, especially not in this case. They should have focused on enthusiasts, though it might be too late now. ( I'm just silently noting that maybe they stop making UI changes to the site and make it work without an excessive amount of crappy JS, and instead try to figure out the target market. ) [1]: http://www.naturephotoguides.com/blog/photo-consumption-conformity http://www.naturephotoguides.com/blog/photo-consumption-conf...
swalsh 10y ago
I disagree with this wholeheartedly. Pictures I take with my phone are "in the moment" pictures something like "oh look my son put his pants on his head, that's a keeper". Those I throw on facebook so my mom can check it out... and then i'm done. But when I pull out my $1500 DSLR, it's not a firehose (well it is, but not what i'm going to publish) I'm going to go through hundreds of pics, pick 20 or so that matter, and then put effort into touching them up... because I shot in RAW just so I could do that. After you spent literally hours making that photo "just right", that's what I use flikr for. It's also nice to have other photographers find your stuff, and comment on how nice it is. I think this is just one more point of "if you want to do a startup, look for something owned by Yahoo, and build that"
- bonaldi 10y ago
  I don't disagree with you; it's just that those of us with the DSLRs (and the ILCs) are the last holdouts, we're a niche rump of what used to be a mainstream activity. Someone will make a nice life out of creating a service for that niche, but it's not going to be a Yahoo-scale thing.
  - soundwave106 10y ago
    I would say that's more because Yahoo lacks any real good vision. :) From what I see (based on this chart -- http://petapixel.com/2015/04/09/this-is-what-the-history-of-camera-sales-looks-like-with-smartphones-included/ http://petapixel.com/2015/04/09/this-is-what-the-history-of-...) -- DSLRs and ILCs are "slow but steady" and not crashing too badly. A "niche" for sure. But until smartphones can match the quality of a DSLR in certain situations (low light or zoom for a start) I can see there always being a market for these higher-end amateur / hobbyist type photographers. The category being slaughtered now by smartphones is (obviously) the compact digital. Flickr's not going to be able to compete at this point with the general social media photography. Why not focus on a market they once had a good handle on and probably isn't going away anytime soon?

by bonaldi 10y ago

pmlnr 10y ago

There are a lot of photographers out there how enjoy "the old way": putting time into the creation of the photo right at the time of shooting instead of taking the same - or more - time for post processing. Some of these people have retreated to their own sites, because none of the social networks offer the slow, steady, carefully crafted publishing what they'd prefer. Indeed Flickr was - still could be - a good place for these people. It's a niche market, true, but if the service is fading, you might want to target a group which is currently not targeted by anyone. ( No, 500px is _not_ an alternative; that is a very long discussion, why, approximately summarized by Sarah Marino[1] ) Instead of targeting high profile amateurs, who are already willing to pay for their hobby, Flickr created a mobile app, which, by default, consumes ALL images and video on the device, acts, works and looks too similar to Instagram. I know growth is god, but it really shouldn't be, especially not in this case. They should have focused on enthusiasts, though it might be too late now. ( I'm just silently noting that maybe they stop making UI changes to the site and make it work without an excessive amount of crappy JS, and instead try to figure out the target market. ) [1]: http://www.naturephotoguides.com/blog/photo-consumption-conformity http://www.naturephotoguides.com/blog/photo-consumption-conf...

swalsh 10y ago

I disagree with this wholeheartedly. Pictures I take with my phone are "in the moment" pictures something like "oh look my son put his pants on his head, that's a keeper". Those I throw on facebook so my mom can check it out... and then i'm done. But when I pull out my $1500 DSLR, it's not a firehose (well it is, but not what i'm going to publish) I'm going to go through hundreds of pics, pick 20 or so that matter, and then put effort into touching them up... because I shot in RAW just so I could do that. After you spent literally hours making that photo "just right", that's what I use flikr for. It's also nice to have other photographers find your stuff, and comment on how nice it is. I think this is just one more point of "if you want to do a startup, look for something owned by Yahoo, and build that"

bonaldi 10y ago
I don't disagree with you; it's just that those of us with the DSLRs (and the ILCs) are the last holdouts, we're a niche rump of what used to be a mainstream activity. Someone will make a nice life out of creating a service for that niche, but it's not going to be a Yahoo-scale thing.
- soundwave106 10y ago
  I would say that's more because Yahoo lacks any real good vision. :) From what I see (based on this chart -- http://petapixel.com/2015/04/09/this-is-what-the-history-of-camera-sales-looks-like-with-smartphones-included/ http://petapixel.com/2015/04/09/this-is-what-the-history-of-...) -- DSLRs and ILCs are "slow but steady" and not crashing too badly. A "niche" for sure. But until smartphones can match the quality of a DSLR in certain situations (low light or zoom for a start) I can see there always being a market for these higher-end amateur / hobbyist type photographers. The category being slaughtered now by smartphones is (obviously) the compact digital. Flickr's not going to be able to compete at this point with the general social media photography. Why not focus on a market they once had a good handle on and probably isn't going away anytime soon?