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This is exciting! I've long believed that Flickr should have doubled down on their existing users instead of trying to become another Instagram. Over on the US

This is exciting! I've long believed that Flickr should have doubled down on their existing users instead of trying to become another Instagram. Over on the USA Today article[0], there's this line: A longtime fan of Flickr, MacAskill says before making any decisions, he plans to collect feedback from employees and users. Hey Don - I used to pay money for Flickr, and I'm happy to start paying again if there is evidence of forward motion. I want to have a place to securely store my RAW files in addition to my edited photographs, and I want to see a focus on community again. [0] https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2018/04/20/smugmug-buys-flickr-verizon-oath/537377002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2018/04/20/smugmug-buys-...

onethumb 9y ago
Don here, thanks so much for the vote of confidence. Big job ahead of us, but the community is the reason we did this. We want to invest, innovate and grow there. We'll be working hard. But first I have a lot of learning to do. Stay tuned.
- jjguy 9y ago
  This is why I continue to hang out on HN. Is there anywhere else on the internet this kind of connection would happen?
  - IrrationalPhoto 9y ago
    Slashdot?
  - sah2ed 9y ago
    In terms of communities where you can get the most qualified person on a topic to reply, I think Quora would also qualify, and to a limited extent, Twitter.
    - reitanqild 9y ago
      Quora really seemed nice until they started publish everything I did there. I also think they had a real name policy. (At least thats how I remember it.) They might have fixed that now but I feel it would take quite some effort for them to make them feel safe again.
  - wccrawford 9y ago
    Reddit has a tendency to gain so much momentum that companies can't ignore people that are having problems like this. In that case, you often see a rep from the company log in and start triageing the situation. Don here is clearly much more on top of the situation than that, but my point is that any big social site ends up seeing this with enough outrage.
    - mygo 9y ago
      I don’t think that facebook facilitates this well. Since you have to go out of your way to find a discussion there. And there is no “right now” feeling if you do find a relevant discussion. But here I just visited the home page of what I consider a general newsfeed and we’re talking to their new owners.
      - wccrawford 9y ago
        If you join a Facebook group about a particular thing, you'll find plenty of discussion about that thing. And when something is big enough news, it makes it to the top-10 news thing on the right-hand side of Facebook.
- audiometry 9y ago
  Don— I was a paying customer too. Then Flickr changed their login, forcing me to get a yahoo account, which I then lost over time. So for years now, my account, and all the photos of my 1-3yo kid are buried and locked behind the “you need (login) and pay premium access to see all your photos”. All because that stupid yahoo login integration. Unrecoverable.
  - onethumb 9y ago
    I will move heaven and earth to solve this for you. We're moving off of Yahoo Auth as soon as we can, but can likely fix before that (which will take awhile). Raising this up the flag pole.
    - bitcoinmoney 9y ago
      Wow. The comments are gold. We should have a best of HN with materials like this and the one on foundationdb.
    - 1024core 9y ago
      > We're moving off of Yahoo Auth So what will replace it? I've been a Flickr user for more than 10 years.
      - mc32 9y ago
        Maybe they'll return the Flickr logins to users?
        happertiger 9y ago
        I would be very surprised if what they did wasn’t common sense. Their track record has been fantastic.
      - onethumb 9y ago
        Already designing and architecting that. Should be great. Stay tuned.
    - 9y ago
- jumelles 9y ago
  I'm glad to hear that! From yet another formerly-paying Flickr user :)
- et-al 9y ago
  Hi Don, Since you're here, may I voice a thing I really enjoyed about Flickr? Community and actual human communication. Perhaps in the mobile era this isn't possible anymore since everyone is attention starved and tiny screens and keyboards aren't conducive to longform communication, but this was Flickr's strength. You'd find a group where your photos were relevant and start conversations with strangers halfway around the world. The ability for groups to self-moderate is key because it kept groups on topic. I just poked around some communities I used to frequent like Hardcore Street Photography [0] and Guess Where SF [1], and they're surprisingly still habited. Instead of trying to be another Instagram, I hope the future of Flickr will play to its strengths. [0] https://www.flickr.com/groups/onthestreet/ https://www.flickr.com/groups/onthestreet/ [1] https://www.flickr.com/groups/guesswheresf https://www.flickr.com/groups/guesswheresf
  - lobster_johnson 9y ago
    Back in 2006 or so when I last used Flickr, one of my biggest problems was spam and noise. One of the biggest annoyances was the constant comments from "award groups" that wanted you to join them, enticing you with some arbitrary "award", which consisted of some kind of gaudy badge. To be honest, most of the Flickr groups seemed completely useless, full of HDR junk and asinine motivational stuff. Though I'm sure it's a bit like Reddit — the good communities are small and hidden. Follower spam is another example of noise, and something Instagram is also rife with.
    - et-al 9y ago
      I forgot about those gaudy animated badges. Social media does have tough challenges ahead, especially as bots/spam become more and more prevalent. I would love to work on a bot-prevention team somewhere, but my background isn't in ML.
      - alanfalcon 9y ago
        I like the idea of building a reputation system that accepts bots as first class citizens instead of imagining them as an inherent problem. Anyone who meaningfully contributes is good even if they are a bot, and anyone who doesn’t gets left behind. (Easier said than done but the approach to the problem is what’s fundamentally different.)
- romwell 9y ago
  I am happy to hear of the new era of Flickr! Some questions: 1. Are you going to keep the 1TB free space for everyone? 2. Do you think you'll have a desktop uploader available for non-paying users? 3. What about open-source integration (digiKam, etc)? Last time I tried, I couldn't get it to work with Yahoo authentication. Thanks, and looking forward to the new life :)
  - onethumb 9y ago
    I'm in heavy learning mode so I don't have these answers yet. I wish I did. The way I run SmugMug is pretty simple: We love our customers, we listen to them, we build great experiences for them based on that feedback, then we do it all over again. We're going to apply that same approach to Flickr. Simply migrating them into AWS, and getting off of Yahoo Auth, and the variety of other urgent issues, will take a lot of time, effort, energy, etc. But we're also very excited to get to work enhancing the existing experiences and building new ones. So please be patient with me as I learn, come up to speed, and tackle some of the big obstacles in front of us. It'll be worth it. :)
    - romwell 9y ago
      Thanks again, and the best of luck to y'all!
- happertiger 9y ago
  I still have an account. If there was a reasonably priced, full featured Flickr I would resubscribe. I have a smugmug account. Is there going to be a way to marry the two??? I have 11 years of photos on Flickr and would hate to have to move them (your sys people would hate it too I’m sure).
  - onethumb 9y ago
    We know we don't want to merge the two. They're both super valuable, offer two different & great experiences, etc. But logically, it makes sense that connecting them somehow makes a lot of sense. SmugMug has consumed the Flickr API for awhile, so some of the plumbing is already in place. Stay tuned while we learn from our customers what they'd like and then build it. My hunch is better connectivity between the two services is going to be high on the list, but I'm going to let our customers drive that decision.
- afs35mm 9y ago
  Hi Don! Are you hiring engineers in NYC by chance for this new opportunity? :)
  - onethumb 9y ago
    We're always hiring great people, so if you're interested, please apply. :)
- IrrationalPhoto 9y ago
  Hey Don, I have been on flickr since 2010 and I have been subscribed to Flickr's "Pro" service for several years. I rely a lot on those statistics to generate more views and contacts I would also like an expansion and more detailed analysis Why can't I know WHICH picture was found through Google (You don't, you say there were X finds through Google, but we can't see which picture)? Why don't you show the Google Search URL? Looking at SmugMug price plans you are MUCH more expensive than Flickr, are you going to be raising PRO costs? And if you do, are you going to pull the PR stunt of saying it is needed to "To Grow and Improve" and"We think the services offered are at the best price point, there is always free" ? Because Free is not a middle ground. Because you acquired Flickr, you knew what was coming with it, IE, customers, there is no way to pass raising Tariffs without upsetting your New user base which has never asked for you and is tired of being thrown around from one company to another.and saying you have "no plans for the immediate future" it really does seem that you care more about your increased bourse instead of offering your clients an increased experience? Are you going to include website hosting services to flickr users within the PRO price and go after 500px, or will you Keep the two Services very clear of each other for a different experience? If you are keeping the two Services Separate, then aren't you really just here to collect a bigger check? If Yahoo / Verizon / Oath was not willing to spend money to upgrade our services and gain more users and you are, wouldn't this mean our subscription fees will increase? Why should we remain here instead of going to 500px which offers a similar service to you but for much cheaper?
  - hackbinary 9y ago
    I had a quick look over their pricing plans, and they actually seem pretty fair to me. $48 per year to store all of your photos on the basic paid tier, and all the other tiers seemed aimed at people that are either enthusiasts or professionals, eg people who want to have their own domain. The old adage of "you kind of get what you pay for" seems to apply.
    - dexterdog 9y ago
      In this day and age using your own domain adds no cost aside from the domain itself.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- aaronbrethorst 9y ago
  Sounds great. I can’t wait to see where you take this!
- RyJones 9y ago
  long time flickr user - I would love to continue paying for the service!
  - onethumb 9y ago
    We'd love to have you keep paying! And we'd love to put your payment to work improving the service for you and everyone else. Thanks!
- TheWiseOne 9y ago
  Don, Will you keep the current 1 TB free storage tier as is?
  - onethumb 9y ago
    I don't know yet, I'm still learning and coming up to speed. That being said, 1TB free is definitely a massive outlier on the Internet. We'll see. SmugMug has offered unlimited storage for more than 15 years, so we know a lot about the space. I'm excited to see what we can do with and for the community.
- killjoywashere 9y ago
  Hi Don, been paying for Flickr and looking lustfully at SmugMug for a long time, user back when Game Neverending was still mixed in. Bought accounts for all my family too. Looking forward to work.
  - onethumb 9y ago
    Thanks! Can't wait to deliver awesome experiences to you and your family. Thanks for being a customer!
- chrissnell 9y ago
  Hi Don, I've been a Pro user of Flickr since 2005 or so. I actually thought for the first time this year that I would cancel it. My number-one complaint is speed. It's so slow. As a professional infrastructure guy, it just kills me and I wished I could buy the company myself and make it fast again. I really hope you will invest in revitalizing this service because I really don't want to go. My life--from young skier/mountaineer guy--to Army soldier--to dating a girl--marriage--kids--it's all documented there. I look at my old photos all the time but it's just so unbearably slow. Chris aka https://flickr.com/photos/Defender90 https://flickr.com/photos/Defender90
  - ausjke 9y ago
    same here, pro user for 10+ years and I rarely use flickr these days but have been letting my credit card renew nonetheless. please revive flickr.
    - onethumb 9y ago
      You have my promise that we'll work very hard to do just that.
  - onethumb 9y ago
    On it. We were a pre-launch customer of AWS, so we've been building both modern and at scale for quite some time. Super-talented team at Flickr, I can't wait to see what we can do together.
- chiefalchemist 9y ago
  Greetings Don. Always had a place in my heart for Flickr. Would love to see if thrive again. My gut sez there's a pretty big space between (the disposalness of) Instagram and the (heavy handiness of) 500px. Maybe you agree. I guess we'll find out. I wish y'all the best. Fun and competition is a positive for all.
- b_f 9y ago
  I've been a Flickr pro user since 2007, and I still think it's the only site and community that is truly dedicated to serious photography. I think the site languished at the advent of the ubiquity of mobile browsing (be it app or even mobile site), and suffered from certain trends that yielded a strange mix of infinite scrolling and wonky pagination (I still have trouble finding my own photos). I'm hoping for the best, and excited for new blood.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- bjelkeman-again 9y ago
  Hi Don, great to hear. Paying Flickr customer for many years. One thing we lost recently was the ability to post a Tweet directly from the Flickr mobile app. I think the way Apple/Twitter interacts changed with an iOS upgrade. I really don’t want to use another platform for storing my photos, even Twitter stream photos, and having Flickr, where I am in control was always my preferred choice. Looking forward to keep using Flickr where the owners actually care.
- amygdyl 9y ago
  Hi Don, I hope you are able to see my post, I think I became a bit invisible here, but I just want to take the opportunity to thank you for all those ZFS filer reviews, back in the day. This had a profound utility for us, which I will date to mention, now shuttered fifteen years ago due to the sudden death of my co-founder and best friend, we were so struck by what you guys were doing that we spent ten man years on a competitor... Ahm, no, no we didn't actually intend to compete, that would have been unable to pass my late co-founder's stringent "is it any good?" test, where I had to convince him as nauseam we had no negative motivation..but we thought we saw a higher end need for photo hosting, in the advertising world, where we saw that a readily available search and lightbox app, like you see at Corbis, or Getty, plus of course actually reliable storage, would be in immediate demand from photographers who liaise with ADs, everywhere. We had nifty features like rendering photos for the display capability, and were planning to hook up deals where the AD could subscribe to get so many 10 by 8 or larger proofs bikes to them, potentially from the nearest photographer who upheld a minimum process standard. This had ambition to take on digital advertising delivery. We thought smugmug was the game changer able to bring credibility to our dream of expanding access to lucrative agency work, to normal photographers. So we set about making the tools... even the dot com is long lost during my life's upheavals that followed from personal loss in large part, I grew up knowing my co-founder, but I think we've still got the unused Twitter handle. It was to be called PhotoAlta. Or PA (short for Photo Agency, which we thought was cute) . This is still a dream about opening the industry in ways that can make advertising affordable to small businesses, which is simply not at all the case now. In 03/04/05, we didn't see the hockey stick of the cloud, not at all clearly anyhow, but we knew that rather than bike proofs about, we'd rather provide on demand runtimes of proofing software, fronted by preconfiguration and parameter checks for avoiding waste. There's a realm of incredibly expensive software loosely categorised as pre press, that we desperately wanted to democratize. This expense was the hurdle to starting out business almost a decade earlier, and I've never been far from my work for opening the advertising industry economy, so random as this is, shame faced and also humbly if you are at all interested in what I'm on about here, I'd simply be delighted to pass on, unreservedly, to where it may do some good.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  This is the very best thing that could have happened to Flickr. The only other long term option would have been a mausoleum at archive.org or Archive Team. Much good luck!
- silveira 9y ago
  Hi Don, I have been a pro member of Flickr since 2008. I love the product and I'm very excited by this acquisition. What I really would like to see in Flickr is a reliable upload application. When I'm back from a trip, I usually have a few gigabytes of photos. Regular applications can handle small (hundreds megabytes) batches but when you are talking about gigabytes they start crashing, or stopping in the middle, and cannot continue where they stopped reliably. I would like an application that uploads to Flickr, with retries, status, and with checksum verification on the client and in the server. The same is true for download. Flickr handle well individual downloads and small batches of download. But when trying to download large albums they simple cannot handle it. I have been writing my own applications and scripts to handle my photos on Flickr, so it's absolutely important to keep the current API open.
  - adjagu 9y ago
    @silveira would any of your applications work on linux and if so would you be willing to share? I've been trying to download my Flickr photographs and so far only single image download works for me.
- throwawayad7d9f 9y ago
  Hi Don, Since you're here and talking about community, can you say what your approach is going to be to the copious content on Flickr that violates SmugMug's content policy (but not Flickr's)? Flickr's approach in the past [0] has allowed most things as long as a content filter is applied to keep it from kids and those who don't want to see it. SmugMug's approach [1] is to very broadly ban anything "indecent" in any context whatsoever (even private backups). I contacted support and the story right now is that SmugMug policy will apply and any Flickr content that violates it is up for removal. Are you sticking to that? If so, why? It seems like a very destructive thing to do to the community as your first act after acquisition. [0] https://www.flickr.com/help/guidelines https://www.flickr.com/help/guidelines [1] https://www.smugmug.com/about/terms https://www.smugmug.com/about/terms
  - onethumb 9y ago
    Flickr has its own Privacy Policy [0] and Terms of Service [1], separate and different from SmugMug's. I actually think this represents a good opportunity to revisit, and possibly update, what is and isn't allowed on SmugMug as well, something we haven't done in ages. We'll see, still learning. :) [0] https://www.smugmug.com/about/privacy-flickr https://www.smugmug.com/about/privacy-flickr [1] https://www.smugmug.com/about/terms-flickr https://www.smugmug.com/about/terms-flickr
lloydde 9y ago
> long believed that Flickr should have doubled down on their existing users instead of trying to become another Instagram. I don’t really remember Flickr trying to become another Instagram, but much of the founding team had left Flickr before Instagram was a thing and the more of the Flickr founding team in the early years of Instagram. I just reread Mat Honan’s April 2012 article “How Yahoo Killed Flickr and Lost the Internet”. It still stands out as an insightful article on what went wrong at Yahoo!’s Flickr https://gizmodo.com/5910223/how-yahoo-killed-flickr-and-lost-the-internet https://gizmodo.com/5910223/how-yahoo-killed-flickr-and-lost...
mc32 9y ago
I think the focus on community is paramount. Make it into a Photographer's go-to watering hole. Serious groups like organizing shows, workshops, quality book printing, blogging (for news and events), and better ways to organize and display photos of interest [group a series of photos regardless of member [so long as the photo was public] --like the group pool stream but allow to showcase photos from sources other then "this group" or "my stream".
- onethumb 9y ago
  I agree. Flickr's community is unique in the world and on the Internet. That's where we'd like to invest.
asix66 9y ago
These article writers miss the mark (IMHO) by comparing Flickr to Facebook and Instagram. Those instant gratification platforms ruin photos by sub-sampling uploads. When I share my photos on Flickr (pro account), they’re available in full resolution. Yes FB and Insta compete with Flickr for eyeballs, but for real photography sharing, there is no competition there. Flickr wins. If anything, SmugMug is (was) competing with Flickr.
- dingaling 9y ago
  Yes I was confused when I recently started uploading to Instagram that I couldn't find a way to view photos at 100%. But in a way that's clever; I think reflects their intention to capture spontaneous moments, regardless of technical merit. You can't zoom-in to be wowed by 50MP of detail and thus it puts everyone on the same level, regardless of tools, and focuses them on composition and timing.
  - akoncius 9y ago
    is there really a need to force everybody to the same level? I don’t think that it is a competition, people just share their moments. why equalize everybody’s photos to same crappy quality?
    - Demiurge 9y ago
      Because the types of moments or compositions that Instagram chooses to focus on are low resolution. 50mp is great for a large print, and Hasselblad sharpness, and 10 lights. But Instagram chooses to offer noise and color filter to everyone with a smartphone, so they can make their salad or dog look cool. I have lots of lenses and I love instagram, because I don't have to worry about pixel peepers and get genuine feedback.
IgorPartola 9y ago
Seconded. I currently pay for Dropbox solely to store RAW files. Would pay Flickr instead if this was offered.
- fencepost 9y ago
  I currently pay for Dropbox solely to store RAW files. If you're under 1TB (on a personal/professional account), you might also test whether Onedrive would work for you - particularly if you're on Windows 10 where Files On-demand is now integrated into the OS. If nothing else, the bulk storage cost of Onedrive is somewhere around half the cost of Dropbox.

onethumb 9y ago

Don here, thanks so much for the vote of confidence. Big job ahead of us, but the community is the reason we did this. We want to invest, innovate and grow there. We'll be working hard. But first I have a lot of learning to do. Stay tuned.

jjguy 9y ago
This is why I continue to hang out on HN. Is there anywhere else on the internet this kind of connection would happen?
- IrrationalPhoto 9y ago
  Slashdot?
- sah2ed 9y ago
  In terms of communities where you can get the most qualified person on a topic to reply, I think Quora would also qualify, and to a limited extent, Twitter.
  - reitanqild 9y ago
    Quora really seemed nice until they started publish everything I did there. I also think they had a real name policy. (At least thats how I remember it.) They might have fixed that now but I feel it would take quite some effort for them to make them feel safe again.
- wccrawford 9y ago
  Reddit has a tendency to gain so much momentum that companies can't ignore people that are having problems like this. In that case, you often see a rep from the company log in and start triageing the situation. Don here is clearly much more on top of the situation than that, but my point is that any big social site ends up seeing this with enough outrage.
  - mygo 9y ago
    I don’t think that facebook facilitates this well. Since you have to go out of your way to find a discussion there. And there is no “right now” feeling if you do find a relevant discussion. But here I just visited the home page of what I consider a general newsfeed and we’re talking to their new owners.
    - wccrawford 9y ago
      If you join a Facebook group about a particular thing, you'll find plenty of discussion about that thing. And when something is big enough news, it makes it to the top-10 news thing on the right-hand side of Facebook.
audiometry 9y ago
Don— I was a paying customer too. Then Flickr changed their login, forcing me to get a yahoo account, which I then lost over time. So for years now, my account, and all the photos of my 1-3yo kid are buried and locked behind the “you need (login) and pay premium access to see all your photos”. All because that stupid yahoo login integration. Unrecoverable.
- onethumb 9y ago
  I will move heaven and earth to solve this for you. We're moving off of Yahoo Auth as soon as we can, but can likely fix before that (which will take awhile). Raising this up the flag pole.
  - bitcoinmoney 9y ago
    Wow. The comments are gold. We should have a best of HN with materials like this and the one on foundationdb.
  - 1024core 9y ago
    > We're moving off of Yahoo Auth So what will replace it? I've been a Flickr user for more than 10 years.
    - mc32 9y ago
      Maybe they'll return the Flickr logins to users?
      - happertiger 9y ago
        I would be very surprised if what they did wasn’t common sense. Their track record has been fantastic.
    - onethumb 9y ago
      Already designing and architecting that. Should be great. Stay tuned.
  - 9y ago
jumelles 9y ago
I'm glad to hear that! From yet another formerly-paying Flickr user :)
et-al 9y ago
Hi Don, Since you're here, may I voice a thing I really enjoyed about Flickr? Community and actual human communication. Perhaps in the mobile era this isn't possible anymore since everyone is attention starved and tiny screens and keyboards aren't conducive to longform communication, but this was Flickr's strength. You'd find a group where your photos were relevant and start conversations with strangers halfway around the world. The ability for groups to self-moderate is key because it kept groups on topic. I just poked around some communities I used to frequent like Hardcore Street Photography [0] and Guess Where SF [1], and they're surprisingly still habited. Instead of trying to be another Instagram, I hope the future of Flickr will play to its strengths. [0] https://www.flickr.com/groups/onthestreet/ https://www.flickr.com/groups/onthestreet/ [1] https://www.flickr.com/groups/guesswheresf https://www.flickr.com/groups/guesswheresf
- lobster_johnson 9y ago
  Back in 2006 or so when I last used Flickr, one of my biggest problems was spam and noise. One of the biggest annoyances was the constant comments from "award groups" that wanted you to join them, enticing you with some arbitrary "award", which consisted of some kind of gaudy badge. To be honest, most of the Flickr groups seemed completely useless, full of HDR junk and asinine motivational stuff. Though I'm sure it's a bit like Reddit — the good communities are small and hidden. Follower spam is another example of noise, and something Instagram is also rife with.
  - et-al 9y ago
    I forgot about those gaudy animated badges. Social media does have tough challenges ahead, especially as bots/spam become more and more prevalent. I would love to work on a bot-prevention team somewhere, but my background isn't in ML.
    - alanfalcon 9y ago
      I like the idea of building a reputation system that accepts bots as first class citizens instead of imagining them as an inherent problem. Anyone who meaningfully contributes is good even if they are a bot, and anyone who doesn’t gets left behind. (Easier said than done but the approach to the problem is what’s fundamentally different.)
romwell 9y ago
I am happy to hear of the new era of Flickr! Some questions: 1. Are you going to keep the 1TB free space for everyone? 2. Do you think you'll have a desktop uploader available for non-paying users? 3. What about open-source integration (digiKam, etc)? Last time I tried, I couldn't get it to work with Yahoo authentication. Thanks, and looking forward to the new life :)
- onethumb 9y ago
  I'm in heavy learning mode so I don't have these answers yet. I wish I did. The way I run SmugMug is pretty simple: We love our customers, we listen to them, we build great experiences for them based on that feedback, then we do it all over again. We're going to apply that same approach to Flickr. Simply migrating them into AWS, and getting off of Yahoo Auth, and the variety of other urgent issues, will take a lot of time, effort, energy, etc. But we're also very excited to get to work enhancing the existing experiences and building new ones. So please be patient with me as I learn, come up to speed, and tackle some of the big obstacles in front of us. It'll be worth it. :)
  - romwell 9y ago
    Thanks again, and the best of luck to y'all!
happertiger 9y ago
I still have an account. If there was a reasonably priced, full featured Flickr I would resubscribe. I have a smugmug account. Is there going to be a way to marry the two??? I have 11 years of photos on Flickr and would hate to have to move them (your sys people would hate it too I’m sure).
- onethumb 9y ago
  We know we don't want to merge the two. They're both super valuable, offer two different & great experiences, etc. But logically, it makes sense that connecting them somehow makes a lot of sense. SmugMug has consumed the Flickr API for awhile, so some of the plumbing is already in place. Stay tuned while we learn from our customers what they'd like and then build it. My hunch is better connectivity between the two services is going to be high on the list, but I'm going to let our customers drive that decision.
afs35mm 9y ago
Hi Don! Are you hiring engineers in NYC by chance for this new opportunity? :)
- onethumb 9y ago
  We're always hiring great people, so if you're interested, please apply. :)
IrrationalPhoto 9y ago
Hey Don, I have been on flickr since 2010 and I have been subscribed to Flickr's "Pro" service for several years. I rely a lot on those statistics to generate more views and contacts I would also like an expansion and more detailed analysis Why can't I know WHICH picture was found through Google (You don't, you say there were X finds through Google, but we can't see which picture)? Why don't you show the Google Search URL? Looking at SmugMug price plans you are MUCH more expensive than Flickr, are you going to be raising PRO costs? And if you do, are you going to pull the PR stunt of saying it is needed to "To Grow and Improve" and"We think the services offered are at the best price point, there is always free" ? Because Free is not a middle ground. Because you acquired Flickr, you knew what was coming with it, IE, customers, there is no way to pass raising Tariffs without upsetting your New user base which has never asked for you and is tired of being thrown around from one company to another.and saying you have "no plans for the immediate future" it really does seem that you care more about your increased bourse instead of offering your clients an increased experience? Are you going to include website hosting services to flickr users within the PRO price and go after 500px, or will you Keep the two Services very clear of each other for a different experience? If you are keeping the two Services Separate, then aren't you really just here to collect a bigger check? If Yahoo / Verizon / Oath was not willing to spend money to upgrade our services and gain more users and you are, wouldn't this mean our subscription fees will increase? Why should we remain here instead of going to 500px which offers a similar service to you but for much cheaper?
- hackbinary 9y ago
  I had a quick look over their pricing plans, and they actually seem pretty fair to me. $48 per year to store all of your photos on the basic paid tier, and all the other tiers seemed aimed at people that are either enthusiasts or professionals, eg people who want to have their own domain. The old adage of "you kind of get what you pay for" seems to apply.
  - dexterdog 9y ago
    In this day and age using your own domain adds no cost aside from the domain itself.
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aaronbrethorst 9y ago
Sounds great. I can’t wait to see where you take this!
RyJones 9y ago
long time flickr user - I would love to continue paying for the service!
- onethumb 9y ago
  We'd love to have you keep paying! And we'd love to put your payment to work improving the service for you and everyone else. Thanks!
TheWiseOne 9y ago
Don, Will you keep the current 1 TB free storage tier as is?
- onethumb 9y ago
  I don't know yet, I'm still learning and coming up to speed. That being said, 1TB free is definitely a massive outlier on the Internet. We'll see. SmugMug has offered unlimited storage for more than 15 years, so we know a lot about the space. I'm excited to see what we can do with and for the community.
killjoywashere 9y ago
Hi Don, been paying for Flickr and looking lustfully at SmugMug for a long time, user back when Game Neverending was still mixed in. Bought accounts for all my family too. Looking forward to work.
- onethumb 9y ago
  Thanks! Can't wait to deliver awesome experiences to you and your family. Thanks for being a customer!
chrissnell 9y ago
Hi Don, I've been a Pro user of Flickr since 2005 or so. I actually thought for the first time this year that I would cancel it. My number-one complaint is speed. It's so slow. As a professional infrastructure guy, it just kills me and I wished I could buy the company myself and make it fast again. I really hope you will invest in revitalizing this service because I really don't want to go. My life--from young skier/mountaineer guy--to Army soldier--to dating a girl--marriage--kids--it's all documented there. I look at my old photos all the time but it's just so unbearably slow. Chris aka https://flickr.com/photos/Defender90 https://flickr.com/photos/Defender90
- ausjke 9y ago
  same here, pro user for 10+ years and I rarely use flickr these days but have been letting my credit card renew nonetheless. please revive flickr.
  - onethumb 9y ago
    You have my promise that we'll work very hard to do just that.
- onethumb 9y ago
  On it. We were a pre-launch customer of AWS, so we've been building both modern and at scale for quite some time. Super-talented team at Flickr, I can't wait to see what we can do together.
chiefalchemist 9y ago
Greetings Don. Always had a place in my heart for Flickr. Would love to see if thrive again. My gut sez there's a pretty big space between (the disposalness of) Instagram and the (heavy handiness of) 500px. Maybe you agree. I guess we'll find out. I wish y'all the best. Fun and competition is a positive for all.
b_f 9y ago
I've been a Flickr pro user since 2007, and I still think it's the only site and community that is truly dedicated to serious photography. I think the site languished at the advent of the ubiquity of mobile browsing (be it app or even mobile site), and suffered from certain trends that yielded a strange mix of infinite scrolling and wonky pagination (I still have trouble finding my own photos). I'm hoping for the best, and excited for new blood.
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bjelkeman-again 9y ago
Hi Don, great to hear. Paying Flickr customer for many years. One thing we lost recently was the ability to post a Tweet directly from the Flickr mobile app. I think the way Apple/Twitter interacts changed with an iOS upgrade. I really don’t want to use another platform for storing my photos, even Twitter stream photos, and having Flickr, where I am in control was always my preferred choice. Looking forward to keep using Flickr where the owners actually care.
amygdyl 9y ago
Hi Don, I hope you are able to see my post, I think I became a bit invisible here, but I just want to take the opportunity to thank you for all those ZFS filer reviews, back in the day. This had a profound utility for us, which I will date to mention, now shuttered fifteen years ago due to the sudden death of my co-founder and best friend, we were so struck by what you guys were doing that we spent ten man years on a competitor... Ahm, no, no we didn't actually intend to compete, that would have been unable to pass my late co-founder's stringent "is it any good?" test, where I had to convince him as nauseam we had no negative motivation..but we thought we saw a higher end need for photo hosting, in the advertising world, where we saw that a readily available search and lightbox app, like you see at Corbis, or Getty, plus of course actually reliable storage, would be in immediate demand from photographers who liaise with ADs, everywhere. We had nifty features like rendering photos for the display capability, and were planning to hook up deals where the AD could subscribe to get so many 10 by 8 or larger proofs bikes to them, potentially from the nearest photographer who upheld a minimum process standard. This had ambition to take on digital advertising delivery. We thought smugmug was the game changer able to bring credibility to our dream of expanding access to lucrative agency work, to normal photographers. So we set about making the tools... even the dot com is long lost during my life's upheavals that followed from personal loss in large part, I grew up knowing my co-founder, but I think we've still got the unused Twitter handle. It was to be called PhotoAlta. Or PA (short for Photo Agency, which we thought was cute) . This is still a dream about opening the industry in ways that can make advertising affordable to small businesses, which is simply not at all the case now. In 03/04/05, we didn't see the hockey stick of the cloud, not at all clearly anyhow, but we knew that rather than bike proofs about, we'd rather provide on demand runtimes of proofing software, fronted by preconfiguration and parameter checks for avoiding waste. There's a realm of incredibly expensive software loosely categorised as pre press, that we desperately wanted to democratize. This expense was the hurdle to starting out business almost a decade earlier, and I've never been far from my work for opening the advertising industry economy, so random as this is, shame faced and also humbly if you are at all interested in what I'm on about here, I'd simply be delighted to pass on, unreservedly, to where it may do some good.
jacquesm 9y ago
This is the very best thing that could have happened to Flickr. The only other long term option would have been a mausoleum at archive.org or Archive Team. Much good luck!
silveira 9y ago
Hi Don, I have been a pro member of Flickr since 2008. I love the product and I'm very excited by this acquisition. What I really would like to see in Flickr is a reliable upload application. When I'm back from a trip, I usually have a few gigabytes of photos. Regular applications can handle small (hundreds megabytes) batches but when you are talking about gigabytes they start crashing, or stopping in the middle, and cannot continue where they stopped reliably. I would like an application that uploads to Flickr, with retries, status, and with checksum verification on the client and in the server. The same is true for download. Flickr handle well individual downloads and small batches of download. But when trying to download large albums they simple cannot handle it. I have been writing my own applications and scripts to handle my photos on Flickr, so it's absolutely important to keep the current API open.
- adjagu 9y ago
  @silveira would any of your applications work on linux and if so would you be willing to share? I've been trying to download my Flickr photographs and so far only single image download works for me.
throwawayad7d9f 9y ago
Hi Don, Since you're here and talking about community, can you say what your approach is going to be to the copious content on Flickr that violates SmugMug's content policy (but not Flickr's)? Flickr's approach in the past [0] has allowed most things as long as a content filter is applied to keep it from kids and those who don't want to see it. SmugMug's approach [1] is to very broadly ban anything "indecent" in any context whatsoever (even private backups). I contacted support and the story right now is that SmugMug policy will apply and any Flickr content that violates it is up for removal. Are you sticking to that? If so, why? It seems like a very destructive thing to do to the community as your first act after acquisition. [0] https://www.flickr.com/help/guidelines https://www.flickr.com/help/guidelines [1] https://www.smugmug.com/about/terms https://www.smugmug.com/about/terms
- onethumb 9y ago
  Flickr has its own Privacy Policy [0] and Terms of Service [1], separate and different from SmugMug's. I actually think this represents a good opportunity to revisit, and possibly update, what is and isn't allowed on SmugMug as well, something we haven't done in ages. We'll see, still learning. :) [0] https://www.smugmug.com/about/privacy-flickr https://www.smugmug.com/about/privacy-flickr [1] https://www.smugmug.com/about/terms-flickr https://www.smugmug.com/about/terms-flickr

lloydde 9y ago

> long believed that Flickr should have doubled down on their existing users instead of trying to become another Instagram. I don’t really remember Flickr trying to become another Instagram, but much of the founding team had left Flickr before Instagram was a thing and the more of the Flickr founding team in the early years of Instagram. I just reread Mat Honan’s April 2012 article “How Yahoo Killed Flickr and Lost the Internet”. It still stands out as an insightful article on what went wrong at Yahoo!’s Flickr https://gizmodo.com/5910223/how-yahoo-killed-flickr-and-lost-the-internet https://gizmodo.com/5910223/how-yahoo-killed-flickr-and-lost...

mc32 9y ago

I think the focus on community is paramount. Make it into a Photographer's go-to watering hole. Serious groups like organizing shows, workshops, quality book printing, blogging (for news and events), and better ways to organize and display photos of interest [group a series of photos regardless of member [so long as the photo was public] --like the group pool stream but allow to showcase photos from sources other then "this group" or "my stream".

onethumb 9y ago
I agree. Flickr's community is unique in the world and on the Internet. That's where we'd like to invest.

asix66 9y ago

These article writers miss the mark (IMHO) by comparing Flickr to Facebook and Instagram. Those instant gratification platforms ruin photos by sub-sampling uploads. When I share my photos on Flickr (pro account), they’re available in full resolution. Yes FB and Insta compete with Flickr for eyeballs, but for real photography sharing, there is no competition there. Flickr wins. If anything, SmugMug is (was) competing with Flickr.

dingaling 9y ago
Yes I was confused when I recently started uploading to Instagram that I couldn't find a way to view photos at 100%. But in a way that's clever; I think reflects their intention to capture spontaneous moments, regardless of technical merit. You can't zoom-in to be wowed by 50MP of detail and thus it puts everyone on the same level, regardless of tools, and focuses them on composition and timing.
- akoncius 9y ago
  is there really a need to force everybody to the same level? I don’t think that it is a competition, people just share their moments. why equalize everybody’s photos to same crappy quality?
  - Demiurge 9y ago
    Because the types of moments or compositions that Instagram chooses to focus on are low resolution. 50mp is great for a large print, and Hasselblad sharpness, and 10 lights. But Instagram chooses to offer noise and color filter to everyone with a smartphone, so they can make their salad or dog look cool. I have lots of lenses and I love instagram, because I don't have to worry about pixel peepers and get genuine feedback.

IgorPartola 9y ago

Seconded. I currently pay for Dropbox solely to store RAW files. Would pay Flickr instead if this was offered.

fencepost 9y ago
I currently pay for Dropbox solely to store RAW files. If you're under 1TB (on a personal/professional account), you might also test whether Onedrive would work for you - particularly if you're on Windows 10 where Files On-demand is now integrated into the OS. If nothing else, the bulk storage cost of Onedrive is somewhere around half the cost of Dropbox.