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This is the best possible news for Flickr and its community. I've known the SmugMug founders from the beginning. First of all, they're one of the nicest peopl

This is the best possible news for Flickr and its community. I've known the SmugMug founders from the beginning. First of all, they're one of the nicest people you can imagine. They're also super committed to the photographers and the photography community. Everyone there is not only a photo geek, but they're constantly helping, supporting and promoting photographers. 4 of my photos are printed in large size (one is wall-height) at their office along with many other photographers. That alone just shows you how much they're into their community. An interesting ironic story. In one of my old jobs, I signed a multiyear partnership with them and our company. They had just started. Flicker was couple of years old, but it was already surpassing the early photo sharing site, Pbase. The founders of SmugMug had earlier started FatBrain online bookstore and had a successful exit. But both my CEO and myself were photo geeks and we thought of ourselves as consumer experts. So we kept nagging on SmugMug to change their UI to resemble more like Flickr. Mind you, SmugMug now, looks very different than it did back then. However, the founders were very focused (obviously much smarter than we were) on what they thought should be their main focus, building an online solution for pro photographers. So, for me it's very ironic, that after all these years and us nagging on them to be more like Flickr, that they now own Flickr. I know some of you might be skeptical of mergers, and it remains to be seen. However, knowing the SmugMug DNA, I couldn't have imagined a better custodian for the Flickr and its community. Give the SmugMug guys a chance to prove themselves to you.

onethumb 8y ago
Don (CEO) here, thanks so much for the kind words and the walk down memory lane. I remember those days fondly. :) This is going to be far from easy, but I think it will be fun, exciting and rewarding. We're excited to thrill photographers all over the world.
balladeer 8y ago
I think it will be very important how they deal with the Flickr UI. Whether they will - change Flickr to look more like SmugMug (if at all the platforms are not merged), - or leave it as it is today (the slow, heavy, and glossy Flickr), - or try to bring back something close to the blazing fast Flickr days when it looked so clean and minimal and was not at all glossy. Many of us are pining for the latter.
- onethumb 8y ago
  Definitely not merging. Beyond that, I'm in learning mode while we figure out what people want, what's healthy for the community, what sustains the business. Then we'll go build that. :)

onethumb 8y ago

Don (CEO) here, thanks so much for the kind words and the walk down memory lane. I remember those days fondly. :) This is going to be far from easy, but I think it will be fun, exciting and rewarding. We're excited to thrill photographers all over the world.

balladeer 8y ago

I think it will be very important how they deal with the Flickr UI. Whether they will - change Flickr to look more like SmugMug (if at all the platforms are not merged), - or leave it as it is today (the slow, heavy, and glossy Flickr), - or try to bring back something close to the blazing fast Flickr days when it looked so clean and minimal and was not at all glossy. Many of us are pining for the latter.

onethumb 8y ago
Definitely not merging. Beyond that, I'm in learning mode while we figure out what people want, what's healthy for the community, what sustains the business. Then we'll go build that. :)