Yahoo buys Flickr

So will they finally get rid of that stupid thing by sulli · 2005-03-20 10:52 · Score: 2, Insightful

that makes all the photos Flash? Drives me nuts.

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sulli
RTFJ.

They've renamed it by Anonymous Coward · 2005-03-20 10:52 · Score: 5, Funny

Now it's Fl!ckr

Re:They've renamed it by LuxFX · 2005-03-20 11:30 · Score: 0

No, it's Fhoocker

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Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'

Yarrrrrrrr! by Anonymous Coward · 2005-03-20 10:52 · Score: 1, Funny

There be new bubbles to burst in thar sea!

Yahoos' Dark Helmut by NoGuffCheck · 2005-03-20 10:52 · Score: 5, Funny

Prepare ship for Ludicorp speed!

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serenity now!

Re:So will they finally get rid of that stupid thi by frumin · 2005-03-20 10:58 · Score: 0, Redundant

I concur.

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I punched a baby once.

Re:So will they finally get rid of that stupid thi by huphtur · 2005-03-20 10:59 · Score: 3, Informative

sulli: just turn off javascript, it works fine without.

Re:Flickr? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-03-20 10:59 · Score: 0

No, no one cares to explain, because you've obviously been asleep at the wheel for the past few months.

Re:Flickr? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-03-20 11:00 · Score: 0

It's a hot photo blogging web service.

Re:Flickr? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-03-20 11:00 · Score: 0

It's an amateur porn site.

Re:Flickr? by man_of_mr_e · 2005-03-20 11:03 · Score: 0, Troll

I hate to seem inflamatory, but it's pretty clearn from the article text that Flicr is an RSS Feed agragator. Is your inference engine broken?

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I wish I could make that much moola.... by Rick+and+Roll · 2005-03-20 11:03 · Score: 4, Insightful

It's really amazing how a couple of good ideas and some initiative can turn into such a big buyout. I haven't signed up for an account, because I don't do much picture-taking, so I don't know about all of the features that helped them to make it. What I do know is that there have been many companies trying to make money of the same concept for several years.

I think the difference between them and I is partly that there was more than one competent computer scientist and partly that they understood the users so well because they were users. I can't imagine someone putting together such an excellent photo suite that wasn't into photography.

The one thing that I have in common with them is that I can think of clever ideas for implementation.

So basically, their achievement was a combination of having an excellent development team, being users (domain knowledge), and being able to utilize the latest and greatest technology to create a truly innovative product.

Anyway, I am a little jealous, but if the creators of Flickr are reading this I would like to say "Congrats."

Re:I wish I could make that much moola.... by PepeGSay · 2005-03-20 11:29 · Score: 1

Well, it seems to me to be a web implementation of Photo Album from Adobe, with some Web cruft slapped on.
Re:I wish I could make that much moola.... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-03-20 12:04 · Score: 0

You certainly do talk highly of yourself without much to back it up. That's the difference between you and them.
Re:I wish I could make that much moola.... by janbjurstrom · 2005-03-20 12:06 · Score: 1

Perhaps this is a "big buyout", but I honestly don't think so.

The Ludicorp people themselves speak of their money troubles (on their Typepad, no less, weblog) "It means that we'll no longer have to draw straws to see who gets paid."

So, my take is that while they do have a vibrant, growing, etc. community of photosharing/social networking, they do not have a sustainable business model.

A lot of energy and buzz, no profits.

I.e. Yahoo might not have paid through the nose for Flickr. And now it'll be subsumed in the Yahoo 360 corpus (whatever that turns out to become).

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668.5
Re:I wish I could make that much moola.... by danharan · 2005-03-20 12:17 · Score: 1

They didn't just understand *users*, they also understood *communities of users*.

A lot of companies tried to make money in the same area, but few had the same concepts: build something for the user experience, make it easy for users to share, allow users to create their own taxonomies, open wide your API... this isn't about luck or coding smarts- although they certainly were necessary. I would describe it as a different philosophy or ethic.

Seems there's money for us enterprising geeks, if we quit creating copycat apps. It's going to take a little imagination, and probably some of the ideas that the Flickr crew used.

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Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
Re:I wish I could make that much moola.... by Incadenza · 2005-03-20 12:37 · Score: 2, Informative

Perhaps this is a "big buyout", but I honestly don't think so.

The Ludicorp people themselves speak of their money troubles (on their Typepad, no less, weblog) "It means that we'll no longer have to draw straws to see who gets paid."

So, my take is that while they do have a vibrant, growing, etc. community of photosharing/social networking, they do not have a sustainable business model.

They may not have a sustainable business model because they never needed one. This isn't Stewart's first buyout: he always called himself 'one of the winners of the Internet lottery'. During the dotcom bubble he created one of those 'follow your ex-schoolmates' sites, that by accident got very popular in India, so was sold off the some party that liked that demography (how's that for outsourcing?).
[beware: I do not posses magic checkbook-x-ray-goggles so I might completely miss the mark here]

It always seemed to me like he used that money to develop the things he wanted to develop more than the things he thought would bring revenue. There was certainly no money, but a lot of fun in gameneverending.

And I don't think the developers will rest quietly after this buyout, no matter how small or big it is. You'd better prepare for more fun in the future.
Re:I wish I could make that much moola.... by frostman · 2005-03-20 12:45 · Score: 1

I'm jealeous too of course, but I think these folks deserve it. And I take heart, as I too am working on a new web technology (sorry no link, "stealth" mode still) in a related area.

I don't take many photos but I finally signed up for a Flickr account simply because I think their app is really, really cool. A couple random notes from my notes file:
WHY FLICKR ROCKS (or at least seems to) + entered a *crowded* space (photo sites) + with a *new* trick (tag-based organization) + and a *non-sucking* version of a standard trick (sharing) + plus a *cool* twist (flash image annotations) ....proving once again that a good idea done well can still get far. the image notes are just such a fucking great idea (wish i'd thought of it). i discovered these by just mousing over pictures (normal surfing behavior i think) and seeing the boxes appear. VERY natural.
I could be wrong about it all, but those things occurred to me a few days ago.

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This Like That - fun with words!
Re:I wish I could make that much moola.... by aftk2 · 2005-03-20 13:00 · Score: 1
While I completely agree with you, I think you're missing out on a rather key element of their success.

Blogosphere support

Yes, I know uttering the word "blogosphere" is going to make many people deeply, deeply irritated (and perhaps with good reason), but I don't think Flickr (and Ludicorp) would be anywhere as successful without the frequent linking and press from popular blogs like these:
- Kottke.org
- BoingBoing
- Stop Design
- Adaptive Path's Blog
- The founder's of Six Apart
- etc...
It's kind of like Google, several years ago. Yes, Google was the best at what it was, but it also had an intagible "it" factor, and that was fueled more by word of mouth than by anything else.
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Re:I wish I could make that much moola.... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-03-20 13:17 · Score: 0

Well, it seems to me to be a web implementation of Photo Album from Adobe, with some Web cruft slapped on.

Perhaps you missed the part where your pictures are actually on the web, and you can share them with people. I don't call that "cruft" so much as "the whole fucking point".

The only thing the two have in common is that they involve pictures. They are two very different things.
Re:I wish I could make that much moola.... by dr.badass · 2005-03-20 13:32 · Score: 1

So basically, their achievement was a combination of having an excellent development team, being users (domain knowledge), and being able to utilize the latest and greatest technology to create a truly innovative product.

Most importantly, they were more interested in creating something that they wanted to create than they were in making money off of it:

"The game and styles of playing the game are what matter because they produce identities people care about. Likewise, a business develops an identity by providing a product or a service to people. To do that it needs capital, and it needs to make a profit, but no more than it needs to have competent employees or customers or any other thing that enables production to take place. None of this is the goal of the activity." -- from Ludicorp's "Corporate Philosophy"

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Re:I wish I could make that much moola.... by janbjurstrom · 2005-03-20 13:49 · Score: 1

Yeah, it is a business model in itself of course - creating something that has "potential (possibly)!" written all over it, and selling it to the highest bidder.

Well, if they're doing something neat (which I think flickr is) and are having fun doing it, more power to 'em.

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668.5
Re:I wish I could make that much moola.... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-03-20 14:23 · Score: 0

The Ludicorp people themselves speak of their money troubles (on their Typepad, no less, weblog) "It means that we'll no longer have to draw straws to see who gets paid."

Perhaps you're unfamiliar with the concept of a startup, or are perhaps more familiar with the overflowing-with-cash impending-failure type of the 90s?

This sort of thing is incredibly common among successful startups. It is not indicitive of success or failure.
Re:I wish I could make that much moola.... by PepeGSay · 2005-03-20 14:52 · Score: 1

The Web has been around for how long? If my pictures or online I expect to be able to share them. It is cruft. I bet you bought e-toys stock because it was "toys on the Web, maaaan! toys on the Web, the weeeebbb, man!".
Re:I wish I could make that much moola.... by senzafine · 2005-03-20 16:51 · Score: 1

FotoFlix is even more like adobe photo album. Down to the drag and drop features of labels in Adobe's Photo Album to the search interface.

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Better than Flickr - Manage, Share, Archive
Re:I wish I could make that much moola.... by Threni · 2005-03-21 03:09 · Score: 1

Perhaps you can help me then.

1) How many pics can I upload per email? The limit seems to be about 10, although you don't get an error message if you try to do any more - you just don't get to see your pictures.

2) How do you edit the description of a range of pics? Can't seem to be able to do it (need to remove an email sig file from all my pics).

3) I installed Flash for the Organiser part of the site, but it doesn't seem to do anything, except now the message I get when I click there has changed from `you need Flash` to `hold a or r and click` but when I do that it is this horrible, odd, unintuitive thing I don't understand. Do you get used to it all after a while, or do you end up wishing that it was as easy to manage multiple files that are on another PC over the internet as easily as it is to manage them when they are on your hard drive?

4) What does Flickr understand bandwidth to mean? My 10 meg limit isn't 10 megs of pics, it's not 10 megs worth of accesses to the data by visitors to the site...what is it then?

It's all rather puzzling. Perhaps it'll get fixed now so that it's as easy as a website that's basically letting you email it pictures you can look at them should be?
Re:I wish I could make that much moola.... by Junks+Jerzey · 2005-03-21 09:02 · Score: 1

Agreed. And let's not forget that Flickr was founded by two A-list bloggers, the kind of people who could mention something in passing and have it linked to from dozens of sites. They had a ready-made way to get publicity. Heck, that's how I found out about Flickr.

Flickr allows you to... by Schwarzchild · 2005-03-20 11:06 · Score: 1

upload your photos to the internet so that other people can look at them and laugh at you. :)

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"sweet dreams are made of this..."

Re:excellent! by Anonymous Coward · 2005-03-20 11:06 · Score: 0

Me too!

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Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site!

Re:Flickr? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-03-20 11:06 · Score: 0

Anyone care to explain what Flickr actually is and why I should care?

There's this thing called Google. Maybe you should try it out?

Makes Sense by nzgeek · 2005-03-20 11:07 · Score: 5, Insightful

I think this makes a lot of sense. First Oddpost (for desktop-like webmail), then Flickr (for desktop-like photo management). If they can pull this together, I can see it being pretty cool.

I've been curious about Google's attempts to do email (introduce a new paradigm and confuse users), and photo management (buy a desktop product - wtf does Picass have to do with web?), but I can see some sense of coherence with Yahoo's (both web-based with slick/easy UIs).

Interesting times.

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gadgetophile.com

Re:Makes Sense by fingon · 2005-03-20 11:23 · Score: 1

Looks like you're unaware of the Picasa-Hello-Blogger triangle, probably the easiest way to maintain private photo collection and put part of it on the web (in your blog ;>).

The rest of Hello seems bit pointless - picture chatting? Come on.. But the nice desktop picture management combined with easy blogging of selected pictures is nice.

Web interface ISN'T everything and Picasa is closest thing to iPhoto on wintel PC.. and if you're some Linux nut who thinks that everyone wants to use KDE/Gnome program with 1/10 of the features+usability and 10* the bugs, think again.

For the record, I DO have Linux on my desktop TOO, but it still is ways from Windows and won't be home end-user thing in this decade. For Joe Sixpack et al, that is.

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Re:Makes Sense by bladx · 2005-03-20 11:39 · Score: 0

I agree...
Google has made an excellent product with Picasa2, and it is related to the internet.
Re:Makes Sense by alphakappa · 2005-03-20 13:35 · Score: 2, Informative

"I've been curious about Google's attempts to do email (introduce a new paradigm and confuse users), and photo management (buy a desktop product - wtf does Picass have to do with web?)"

Care to explain how gmail confuses users? Google's stated motto is to organize the world's information. For me, Picassa helps organize my photos and it does a kickass job of it. If you still need a connection between Picassa and the web, there's their 'Hello' service that lets you blog your pictures directly.

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"When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail." - Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)
Re:Makes Sense by nzgeek · 2005-03-20 14:06 · Score: 1

I'd argue that mom and pop email users would be a little confused by the conversation thread collapse thingy in Gmail. If you haven't seen oddpost, it's very very similar to outlook/express/thunderbird, with a tree for folder navigation etc., but all done in jscript & css.

Sure, I think Google's tools are cool, but I think Yahoo has the better ingredients for something totally integrated (if that's what people want...)

Think of an outlook-style web interface (oddpost), with folders for search (Y!), images (flickr), news, rss, blog, etc...

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gadgetophile.com
Re:Makes Sense by muizenkatten · 2005-03-21 06:08 · Score: 1

yes, I do agree, which are free of such views can get a more begin interpretation of what is going on in the same situations, and so are less likely to have such... or if they do, tend to recover from it more readily. Samba, debug, gen two gen too...

Flickr is very cool and I hope it stays that way. by jbum · 2005-03-20 11:08 · Score: 5, Interesting

I'm a big fan of Flickr, which if you haven't heard of it, is a community-oriented photo-sharing service. Their photo-sharing API has enabled me to quickly assemble some nifty things such as this Colr Pickr and photo mosaics. However, I must admit I have mixed feelings about this acquisition, perhaps due my experiences in the late 90s, in which I found myself in a continual battle with new corporate overlords.

If you read the posts that founders Stewart and Caterina have been making in the Flickr Blog, and elsewhere, it's clear that they truly believe that this acquisition is for the best, and I don't doubt that both the Ludicorp folks and the Yahoo folks have the best of intentions.

Just as small children sometimes accidentally mistreat beloved pets, large groups of people with the best of intentions sometimes break things. Flickr currently has the feel of a 'mom & pop shop' and it is hard to believe that this state of affairs will continue with the influx of more money & extra management. But let's hope so!

The Ubiquitous Response by holophile · 2005-03-20 11:08 · Score: 1

I'm waiting for the "I'm surprised Google didn't buy Flickr" posts. Think about it... Blogger and Picasa with a Hello link to Flickr... it only makes sense. I guess next we'll see the "Google announcing Flickr-like service rumor"

Re:The Ubiquitous Response by cmacb · 2005-03-20 13:22 · Score: 1

I was about to say something like that.

It has interested me that over at Blogger.com (a Google property) they haven't immediately come out with their own photo-blogging spin-off. Google mean time acquired another photo company (who's name I forget) that only works for Windows (Hence I don't use it) and they have been recommending that non-Windows users use Flickr instead (which I have).

Now I wonder what Googles response will be? Continue recommending a Yahoo product?

Seems to me there is significant risk in this photo-blogging thing. The industry hasn't even digested the changes precipitated by Gmail yet. All of a sudden they are tripping all over themselves to give away online storage again. A gig, multiplied by 100 million users. Pretty soon you are talking some serious storage requirements there.

Flickr gives away storage for 100 photos. Is that enough? I might decided not to even bother with the free option... and I might or might not want to actually pay for the service. If I send them $30 and upload every huge photo that my monthly quota allows, are they going to make any money? If a few million people do that are they going to make any money? Will they have enough storage? Will their servers grind to a halt (the way Gmail is already starting to do)?

While I hate to discourage the "investor class" from giving away the store, it seems to me there are still a lot of perfectly valid TEXT based applications that would not need so many resources but would be just as valuable to the average person as photo-blogging.

My theory has always been that Google would eventually come out with a free online equivalent to Word and Excel (feature limited no doubt) that would allow most of us to not only dispense with those Microsoft products, but also no longer have to copy our documents from one PC to another. Nothing ground breaking here... but during the last Dot-com bubble, it was only provided as an offline Java program and the online storage was limited to 100 meg or so, after which you had to buy more space. Google, using the Gmail technology, and the server-farm behind it could offer a LOT more for free, and probably convince me (and others) to fork over a small annual fee for added space/functionality. That value proposition along with the NEED to have as opposed to the NICE to have features of photo-blogging is what I think may separate Google from the rest. (Or I could be totally wrong about this).

My other reaction regarding Yahoo, is that they tend to buy things and then change their mind about them only a short time later. Broadband.com I think was a fairly interesting place to download movie clips until Yahoo got them. They also do a lot of joint-marketing deals that don't last long enough to be more than bait and switch deals IMHO. I use, and even pay for some of their old-line core services... but I always take a wait and see approach when they launch something new (especially if it involves buying a company).
Re:The Ubiquitous Response by Momoru · 2005-03-21 00:43 · Score: 1

oh ho ho, just give it a few months and google will come out with a simplified looking version of a similar idea, and we will have a minimum of 50 slashdot articles talking about this ingenious new google product and how its so much better cuz it uses javascript and xml, and then 20 more articles talking about how they work their magic, and finally 10 more articles about how france is suing them for creating such a product because it allows unauthorized pictures of the eifel tower or something.

I'm confused by netdur · 2005-03-20 11:08 · Score: 1, Offtopic

what the differents between flickr.com and photos.yahoo.com ?

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"Steve Jobs invented the world" -- Bill W. GATES

Re:I'm confused by Colol · 2005-03-20 11:37 · Score: 2, Funny

what the differents between flickr.com and photos.yahoo.com ?

Flickr isn't used almost exclusively to host members' amateur porn. ;)
Re:I'm confused by Anonymous Coward · 2005-03-20 12:25 · Score: 0

what the differents between flickr.com and photos.yahoo.com ?

Community tagging, open API, RSS for everything

zerg by Lord+Omlette · 2005-03-20 11:09 · Score: 1, Funny

How do you get bought by Yahoo and then scream "Woohoo?"

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[o]_O

Re:zerg by Rirath.com · 2005-03-20 11:17 · Score: 1

'How do you get bought by Yahoo and then scream "Woohoo?"'

Indeed... I'd shout "Cha-CHING!"

what's a flickr program for your own server? by seringen · 2005-03-20 11:09 · Score: 1

I'm only somewhat interested in flickr, but i'm more interested in what's a good server/platform for photos on my own computer. Is there something with all the flickr features?

Re:what's a flickr program for your own server? by HyperChicken · 2005-03-20 11:57 · Score: 0, Troll

No, but that's the great part of open source! You get to add them yourself!!! See how wonderful that is? And the best part, if it's under the GPL, you'll have to give it all back to the community! See how open that force is?!

(Yes, yes. I know what I said about the GPL isn't 100% true)

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Free of Flash! Free of Flash!
Re:what's a flickr program for your own server? by uss_valiant · 2005-03-20 12:09 · Score: 2, Informative

Gallery2

See Forums->G2->Development->Sticky Thread for Demo Sites
G2 is beta, quite stable since alpha.
Re:what's a flickr program for your own server? by netsharc · 2005-03-20 12:20 · Score: 2, Informative

I know of Photo Organizer and Photos (original name huh?), check them out.

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Re:what's a flickr program for your own server? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-03-20 13:46 · Score: 0

Try Gallery :o)
http://gallery.menalto.com/ [gallery.menalto.com].

Will Yahoo eat this up? by Lewisham · 2005-03-20 11:16 · Score: 4, Insightful

The Flickr guys say that they'll remain separate. I fail to see how much say Ludicorp have left seeing as this appears to be a total buyout.

Yahoo! will do what they have always done, and subsume the functionality into their own, and slap it's own design on to boot. Unfortunately, unlike the Borg, Yahoo! does not look cool. The design of Yahoo! is as poor (both in ugliness and usability) today as it has always been. One of Flickr's many strengths (apart from the obvious technological ones) is that the designers always seemed to recognise the importance of *white space*. Flickr makes my photos look good. It looks professional, but it doesn't take the focus away from the photo. If Yahoo! forces the its unique brand of boring, cluttered onto the site, the usability and visual appeal is going to go down the drain. And isn't visual appeal part of why we take photos?

Geocities was no looker that's for sure, but at least it looked like it had some creativity left in its soul.

Yahoo! stopped that cadaver kicking.

Re:Will Yahoo eat this up? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-03-20 12:09 · Score: 0

Soul means nothing. Usability is everything. Yahoo's website (for Geocities, at least) is sleek. The old Geocities was ugly and unusable.
Re:Will Yahoo eat this up? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-03-20 12:12 · Score: 1, Interesting

Woah there. I'm not sure what part of Yahoo you're refering to, but in general Yahoo is one of the better designed websites / portals.

Their web applications (mail, calender, address book) are superbly designed - and their content pages (search.yahoo.com, maps.yahoo.com, news.yahoo.com, etc) are very clearly laid out and easy to read. Compare and contrast the equivalent pages to MSN or Google and you'll see the difference. I also like that they use consistently simple color schemes - generally black text on white. It's much less headache-inducing if you're tired. It's one site I can trust to never use yellow on red text (like, say, foxnews.com).

Anyway, as a Yahoo fan (and someone who actually pays to use some of their advanced features) I'm happy that they'll be using some of Flickr's ideas / technology to improve Yahoo photos. I'll probably start using it a whole lot more when their 360 blogging service launches soon - assuming they've managed to keep it as simple and easy to use as all their other web applications.

BTW, am I the only person who thinks the person who designed the Flickr logo must be colorblind? The blue and magenta decor is so 1980's.
Re:Will Yahoo eat this up? by Lewisham · 2005-03-20 12:21 · Score: 1

I'm referring to the Yahoo! that has a front page which is entirely made of links, and the Yahoo! that has half page adverts. They simply don't seem to understand...

MSN is a nightmare, no doubt about that one. I don't understand you comment about Google, I find it excellent.
Re:Will Yahoo eat this up? by lavaface · 2005-03-20 14:48 · Score: 4, Insightful

Geocities was no looker that's for sure, but at least it looked like it had some creativity left in its soul. Yahoo! stopped that cadaver kicking.
Sorry, but I think in this case Yahoo's presentation is cleaner and more usable than the old geocities site. I know people 'round here like to jizz all over Google, but the fact is that Yahoo has improved the clutter greatly. Google is still my primary search engine, but I visited yahoo the other day and was fairly impressed. Compare their current page with this or this. Their yellow pages/maps served me better than google's offerings for my most recent visit *gasp*.
Say what you want about Yahoo, but I work in a university computer lab and I see people spend oodles of time over at launch (remember when they were a cd mag?) and YahooGames. They've got more eyeballs and spend more on R&D and more profitable than Google. See?
Having said that, it's hard to see how they could possibly integrate Flickr properly but don't discount them offhand because they are not "teh g00gle"

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harmonious design

Re:excellent! by hunterx11 · 2005-03-20 11:16 · Score: 4, Funny

RTFA; they're buying Flickr, not AOL.

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English is easier said than done.

ludicorp? by shrewd · 2005-03-20 11:17 · Score: 0

ludicrous corporation?

SE's by Sv-Manowar · 2005-03-20 11:18 · Score: 1

The major search engines will pick up the majority of RSS/Blog based tools this year to intergrate or just to 'have'.

I predict FeedBurner will be one of the next to go

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Business Voyeur

Now I know how to get acquired by Yahoo! by DoctoRoR · 2005-03-20 11:20 · Score: 1

Do some nifty programming in a scripting language, and name my company something ludicrous, something related to insanity or laughter.

I will promptly rename my company:
Insanocorp
or
HysterInc!

Tragic? by Free_Trial_Thinking · 2005-03-20 11:20 · Score: 4, Insightful

Am I the only who thinks this is a tragety(sp)?

Flickr was cool because it wasn't too commercial and wasn't in your face with signing up for shit. I can only picture what will happen under yahoo ownership ...

(fade into fantasy sequence 1 year from now)

You go onto Flickr, there are links everywhere for signing up for yahoo junk. I try to upload a photo, but instead I am taken to a page where I am solicited to sign up for something called "Yahoo groups". I try to do a search for a certain tag, but instead of pretty pictures, I get half a page of junk ads and then maybe some layout of pictures that's unusable for some reason. I could go on and on.

I just hope my beloved del.icio.us never sells out.

Re:Tragic? by Uart · 2005-03-20 13:10 · Score: 1

Agreed.

I am not fretting what sort of Yahooisms will invade Flickr. How does this affect my account? Will I now have to go to "Flickr.Yahoo.com" to see my pictures? Will I have to have a Yahoo account?

Etc. Etc.

Independence (like ignorance) is bliss.

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Opinionated Law Student Strikes Again!
Re:Tragic? by Jeff+DeMaagd · 2005-03-20 15:54 · Score: 1

I thought Flickr's tendency to turn images into flash objects to be unncessesary and evil though.

My Flickr account password by Linuxathome · 2005-03-20 11:22 · Score: 2, Funny

I have an account, the password is:

1...2...3...4...5

Brilliant! Just like my luggage combo.

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Linux at home

Re:My Flickr account password by cuteseal · 2005-03-20 12:05 · Score: 1

Comb the desert! Lol... :D

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blogs suddenly becoming big business... by Eternal_Flame · 2005-03-20 11:31 · Score: 1

"Live Journal was bought by Six Apart, while Ask Jeeves snapped up Bloglines."

This makes me pause and ponder the imact blogs in general have had in recent years. Suddenly, many previously supressed voices are jumping out into the world via the web and companies like Flickr, and large corperations such as Yahoo are jumping for the opertunity too buy them up. I remember not so long ago blogger/blogspot were bought out by Google. Interesting perspectives from places you wouldn't usually see them are now suddenly easily accessible via the web, and the older large corperations are just as quickly buying the creators out. I wonder, will the big companies such as yahoo and google do with the blog-related communities and sites like this? And will Yahoo let Flickr remain as-is, or incorperate it into itself as a part of the Yahoo home page?

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~You laugh because I'm different, I laugh because I'm insane~

Re:blogs suddenly becoming big business... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-03-20 11:59 · Score: 0

You're thinking too much. Blogs are a fad, just like personal web pages were back during the dot-com bubble.
Re:blogs suddenly becoming big business... by Eternal_Flame · 2005-03-20 12:05 · Score: 1

Yeah I know, but my real question is where will the fad end?
Will they simply burn out, or will the companies that seem to be buying them attempt to continue to promote them, etc.

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~You laugh because I'm different, I laugh because I'm insane~
Re:blogs suddenly becoming big business... by netsharc · 2005-03-20 12:23 · Score: 1

Personal web pages were (still are?) hard, blogs are easy. And it's all about networking nowadays, comments, trackbacks, RSS, Blogrolls, FOAF, it's fascinating to see how the internet is making a new social network.

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What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!

Smack my _____ up. by StikyPad · 2005-03-20 11:37 · Score: 1

Smack the tattlers and pop the champagne corks! Woohoo!

Not Woohoo.. Yahoo. You're so not making a good first impression with the new bosses.

I won't even ask what a tattler is.

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https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere

Re:Smack my _____ up. by shiflett · 2005-03-20 12:47 · Score: 1

The tattlers are the reason people knew about this before they announced it.

Pricetag? by popo · 2005-03-20 11:44 · Score: 1

Any rumours on the grapevine for what the buyout price was? And what the terms of the deal were?

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------ The best brain training is now totally free : )

Re:Pricetag? by chachob · 2005-03-20 14:18 · Score: 1

What the hell, I'll start a rumor for "the grapevine":

price: 20 bucks
terms: yahoo pwnz flickr

Pass it on.
Re:Pricetag? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-03-20 15:34 · Score: 0

It's pretty well known to us in the VC community that the final price was $20M. They originally agreed on $25M (after running an auction with other buyers) and then YHOO cut the price when the Flickr folks seemed desperate. There is no technology underlying Flickr. In fact, they were choking on the volume. That's why they sold. It is too bad. They could have sold it for 5X in 6-12 months, but they blinked.
Re:Pricetag? by senzafine · 2005-03-20 17:18 · Score: 1

Even $20Mil seems pretty good. They had less than 500K users. Not that yahoo needs more users. Yahoo's market cap is 43Billion...holy crap. That makes me sick.

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Better than Flickr - Manage, Share, Archive

Keeping up with, then shooting, the joneses... by mcc · 2005-03-20 11:44 · Score: 4, Interesting

Perhaps I'm excessively cynical, but I can't help but wonder if along with Flickr Yahoo is acquiring any patents that could be used to chase competing photo-sharing products out of the market... like Yahoo is doing to XFire already...

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Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts

New bubble sighted; investors "Dumbstruck" by nagora · 2005-03-20 11:44 · Score: 1, Insightful

Or just dumb. This is like watching a train crash in slow motion, for the second time. Blogs don't do anything, they don't matter, they serve no purpose other than to make their writers feel better about themselves (and each other in that great big mutual back-pat that is the blogosphere). In other words: they're just like all those great investments that fuckwits made in the .bomb bubble.

Corrected headline: "Yahoo waves goodbye to pile of cash"

TWW

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"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"

Re:New bubble sighted; investors "Dumbstruck" by HyperChicken · 2005-03-20 12:01 · Score: 2, Insightful

I don't know much about Flickr, but I don't think it's a blog company. They deal with images, I thought. You upload them, people view them. Right?

Although I do agree that blogs are just a fad.

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Free of Flash! Free of Flash!
Re:New bubble sighted; investors "Dumbstruck" by smitty45 · 2005-03-20 12:46 · Score: 1

blogs pointed out the Kryptonite lock fault, and it cost the company $10 million in lost revenue.

In 10 days.

some fad, that is.
Re:New bubble sighted; investors "Dumbstruck" by wootest · 2005-03-20 12:59 · Score: 2, Insightful

Flickr isn't a "blog" company, they're indeed a photo management company.

"Blogs" are being adopted at lots of places because they mean *communication*. The proverbial angst-ridden teen talking about his/her lunch and how life sucks is communication as much as team members inside a company making decisions is communication. "Blog" is just a buzzword for communication, and it's good in that it has gotten people to adopt it; the form itself may or may not be a fad depending on if some greater way of communication shapes up.

(Personally I think calling this a fad is arrogant - people kept captain's logs and personal diaries centuries ago. But it all hinges on the definition of "blog" and "fad" respectively, I guess; If you mean that people will not start as many "blogs" and that they won't be as hyped in a few years, you may be right.)
Re:New bubble sighted; investors "Dumbstruck" by Anonymous Coward · 2005-03-20 14:46 · Score: 0

And if it had been posted on a webpage rather than a blog it wouldn't have? Perhaps the person who found it out could have called up a consumer rights tv show instead... a little slower perhaps, but the story would still have broken within a fortnight. A newspaper would probably have only taken a couple of days. Posting it to /. (after writing the aforementioned not-a-blog webpage, and making sure it's coral cached), maybe 12 hours.
Re:New bubble sighted; investors "Dumbstruck" by smitty45 · 2005-03-20 15:06 · Score: 1

fortnight. sure thing.

try getting something printed in a newspaper, without being a journalist who works there.
Re:New bubble sighted; investors "Dumbstruck" by Anonymous Coward · 2005-03-20 16:32 · Score: 1, Interesting

Are you kidding???

Yahoo just bought a bag of eyeballs, on sale. If you're in the content/ad business, eyeballs are good.

Flickr is the bait, and the users are the fish!
Re:New bubble sighted; investors "Dumbstruck" by Anonymous Coward · 2005-03-20 16:35 · Score: 0

Although I do agree that blogs are just a fad.
Websites with chronologically organized content are a fad?

???

Do you know what a blog even is?

Slashdot is a blog!
Re:New bubble sighted; investors "Dumbstruck" by nagora · 2005-03-20 21:42 · Score: 1

Yahoo just bought a bag of eyeballs, on sale. If you're in the content/ad business, eyeballs are good
Yep, heard that one a thousand times in the 90's. Didn't work then.
TWW

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"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Re:New bubble sighted; investors "Dumbstruck" by Threni · 2005-03-21 00:19 · Score: 1

Yeah, I loved that. Some people haven't learned that `mindshare` also went out in the crash. Mindshare doesn't keep the share price up, no matter how many minds are being shared or whatever.
Re:New bubble sighted; investors "Dumbstruck" by nagora · 2005-03-21 20:42 · Score: 1

The proverbial angst-ridden teen talking about his/her lunch and how life sucks is communication as much as team members inside a company making decisions is communication.
That's exactly the attitude that's led to the destruction of Google as a quality search engine. All comments are not equal and while both of these are communication, as you say, one of them is "noise" and the other is "signal".
TWW

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"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Re:New bubble sighted; investors "Dumbstruck" by wootest · 2005-03-22 04:24 · Score: 1

I'm not saying I apply that equality to them. (I don't.) I'm just saying that's how it is inherently *before* any filter - human mind or machine - plays in. The whole signal and noise terminology deals with filtering value out of communication. Machine filters are going to have to get better to resolve this, because people sure as hell aren't going to stop talking about their lunches.

Re:So will they finally get rid of that stupid thi by SirSnapperHead · 2005-03-20 11:53 · Score: 2, Informative

Why? Because it stops you from downloading the photos to yr desktop cause you couldn't be arsed doing a screengrab. Can't see what other reason there would be to get annoyed at this, and maybe that's just what they want. The slideshow application is fantastic IMHO, and yes it uses Flash.

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It's the year of Linux! To celebrate I have x free hotmail accounts to give away

Re:So will they finally get rid of that stupid thi by scupper · 2005-03-20 11:58 · Score: 1

There is the "All Sizes" button above the photo or "Different Sizes" link at the lower right of the photo which allows you to choose 6 different sizes.

Example:
(75 x 75) Square
(100 x 67) Thumbnail
(240 x 160) Small
(500 x 333) Medium
(1024 x 683) Large
(3072 x 2048) Original

Seems pointless by zecg · 2005-03-20 12:00 · Score: 1

Yahoo is damn well a stronger brand than Flickr is at the moment - and they are saying it is to be kept separate. And it's not as if Flickr's functions are patented or as if Yahoo didn't have the infrastructure to pull it off themselves. I fail to see what they gain by buying Flickr, instead of making their own YImages or something. Anyone?

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.i lu doi ringos.star. xu do puku'aroroi dunli dopecaku leni virnu li'u

Re:Seems pointless by aussie_a · 2005-03-20 12:32 · Score: 1

And it's not as if Flickr's functions are patented

Can Yahoo now patent Flickr's functions? If so, they may not have bought Flickr. They may have bought prior art (had they tried to patent Flickr's functions people could shout "prior art". It's likely there is prior art anyway, but Yahoo probably figured the crazy US legal system wouldn't care).
Re:Seems pointless by Anonymous Coward · 2005-03-20 12:35 · Score: 0

"if Yahoo didn't have the infrastructure to pull it off themselves"

yeah, but they didn't. and it takes more than infrastructure to do what flickr does.

Re:So will they finally get rid of that stupid thi by Anonymous Coward · 2005-03-20 12:00 · Score: 0

If you examine the source code to Flickr pages, the image URL is provided as an argument to the flash plugin -> it's possible to get the JPEG directly without capturing the screen.

Having said that, I hate all things Flash - including this. For those of us who have flash turned off / disabled, it's extremely inconvenient. There's no reason that an online image viewer should need to use it. Period.

(And one of the main reasons I have flash turned off is that often sites use flash plugins that consume as much CPU power as they can. I refuse to allow a poorly coded website to consume my CPU cycles, especially when I'm working on a battery powered notebook computer).

A little history by Schwarzchild · 2005-03-20 12:08 · Score: 1

You're right about them having an excellent development team. One of the founders founded the 5k prize which was a contest to see who could create the coolest web app in 5k bytes. That contest has since been absorbed by SIGGRAPH.

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"sweet dreams are made of this..."

Beta by cuteseal · 2005-03-20 12:09 · Score: 1

So, will they ever get out of beta stage? :D

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The friendliest digital photography forums on the net!

Undisclosed amount? by DosBubba · 2005-03-20 12:13 · Score: 1

It's 25.6 million US dollars.

Re:Undisclosed amount? by ceejayoz · 2005-03-20 15:02 · Score: 1

Oh, good, a link to the Yahoo! home page, which doesn't have the term "flickr" anywhere on it. Nice evidence, there.

Re:So will they finally get rid of that stupid thi by Anonymous Coward · 2005-03-20 12:15 · Score: 0

whats actually flickr

Re:So will they finally get rid of that stupid thi by SirSnapperHead · 2005-03-20 12:16 · Score: 1

...which only appears if the Flickr account holder decides to allow downloads.

If not you can still see the Flashified photos but you cannot view any other sizes and easily download photos.

There are obviously other reasons for using Flash here - the preloader is nice and clean, and obviously more efficient than using some horrible DHTML solution.

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It's the year of Linux! To celebrate I have x free hotmail accounts to give away

del.icio.us is next. by jefft · 2005-03-20 12:35 · Score: 1

Along these lines, I bet the horribly named del.icio.us is next. It's a a kind of like Flikr for bookmarks, which could actually be a lot more useful than something for photos.

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The Math Maestro Tutoring Services in Seattle

Re:So will they finally get rid of that stupid thi by Snwbeast · 2005-03-20 12:39 · Score: 1

I use the Mozilla Flashblock plug-in and hate having to click on the icon for every single image. It's just an image already, why on earth would it need Flash? I've managed to build a large gallery of images on my own website and never had to use Flash once, maybe they couldn't figure it out?

Re:So will they finally get rid of that stupid thi by cmallinson · 2005-03-20 12:44 · Score: 4, Interesting

If you examine the source code to Flickr pages, the image URL is provided as an argument to the flash plugin -> it's possible to get the JPEG directly without capturing the screen.

I hate all things Flash - including this. For those of us who have flash turned off / disabled, it's extremely inconvenient. There's no reason that an online image viewer should need to use it. Period.

First of all, you went to the trouble of finding out that the image url is passed to the flash application, but did not realize that they provide that URL in a link next to the picture? Did you also notice that they provide the URL to alternate sizes of the picture as well?

Secondly, Flash is NOT REQUIRED to use Flickr. Turn Flash off, and it still works.

So tell me again about how inconvenient Flickr is to those who are too good for Flash.

What luggage is that? by mangu · 2005-03-20 12:49 · Score: 1

1...2...3...4...5

I have a couple of Samsonite suitcases, they only have three-digit locks. Where did you get luggage with five-digit lcks?

Re:So will they finally get rid of that stupid thi by Fuzzle · 2005-03-20 13:17 · Score: 1

So if the owner of the picture has decided to not allow downloads, the Flash applet prevents you from doing so without a fair amount of extra effort. I think it's serving it's purpose quite well.

Here's my prediction by melted · 2005-03-20 13:26 · Score: 2, Interesting

Yahoo service will not be all that successful and Yahoo management will drive it into the ground. A year later MSN will release something similar, but it will be a half baked unimaginative piece of shit that's 10 times worse than Yahoo Flickr (or whatever its remnants are called). Then Google releases their own picture gallery service and eats their breakfast, lunch and dinner with their first public beta.

Re:Here's my prediction by mieses · 2005-03-20 13:45 · Score: 1

i agree. it's doubtful that flickr will be able to sustain the same level of creative development under the yahoo umbrella.

Yahoo sucks by Kris_J · 2005-03-20 13:28 · Score: 1

Does anyone know of another photo hosting site with similar capacity (infinte storage, decent monthly upload) to Flickr?

Re:Yahoo sucks by Anonymous Coward · 2005-03-20 14:54 · Score: 0

Buzznet has a better UI, and the people there are much cooler.
Re:Yahoo sucks by Kris_J · 2005-03-20 17:58 · Score: 1

Hmm, it looks like Buzznet resizes all images to 400 pixels wide. Is there any way to make larger images available?

In a related story.... by bill_911 · 2005-03-20 13:32 · Score: 1

Before the Fouth of July OS X will no longer work on Flckr.

Change the name please? by teslatug · 2005-03-20 13:36 · Score: 1

Anyone else think of boogers when reading Flickr? Maybe it's just my disgusting self. On the other hand, I'm sure there are some illuminating pictures of the activity on the service.

Re:Change the name please? by kevcol · 2005-03-20 17:10 · Score: 1

Through the power of photo tagging, I present to you...

Boogers on Flickr.

Re:So will they finally get rid of that stupid thi by me+at+werk · 2005-03-20 13:37 · Score: 1

With flashblock, right click the flash and click Allow Flash from this site. I did it for Flickr and H*R, which just makes the internet awesome again.

Also, the flash has some very nice uses, such as "Add note" and you can add notes to parts of a photo do make a 'diagram overlay', which is really useful for our mockups of the new SpreadFirefox.com.

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For context, click Parent.

Crap by Bronz · 2005-03-20 13:47 · Score: 2, Insightful

I for one do not welcome Flickr's Yahoo overlords. I was actually flirting with the idea of subscribing to Flickr after trying it over the last few weeks. Now I fully expect to see a dramatic decrease in the site's responsiveness and a dramatic increase in obnoxious ads.

I for one welcome our new search engine overlords! by Anonymous Coward · 2005-03-20 13:48 · Score: 1, Insightful

I just hope Flickr doesn't go the way of... well, everything else Yahoo seems to get ahold of.

all i have to say... by rinoid · 2005-03-20 14:07 · Score: 1

Is, so much for folksonomies, or other cool stuff happening.

Don't worry, soon Yahoo will have it choked up with ads, code that only runs in IEWin, and any notion of community, folksonomies, or some other cultural shift by design is GONE forever.

Hooray to SixApart for adjusting their license model -- they are keeping the spirit alive, allowing their creation to continue to cause more of a cultural shift, by design, than many others. OK, I know you like WordPress... and it's fine too but it's still totally free so it doesn't necessarily apply here.

Yahoo digest Geocities easily... by also+aswell · 2005-03-20 14:22 · Score: 3, Interesting

What Yahoo says is not what Yahoo does. Take the case of Geocities. What was once a thriving sprawl similar to the one reaching from Boston to Atlanta with spots of brilliance scattered everywhere is now a homogenized mangle of hit or miss. To quote Caterina Fake at the Flickr blog...

What is going to happen to Flickr?
Flickr will be continuing on the path it's on -- to Flickr 1.0 and beyond. We'll be working with a bunch of people that Totally Get Flickr and want to preserve the community and the flavor of what is here. We're going to grow and change, but we're in it for the long haul, with the same management and same team.

I would mod this as Funny if this were a post at /.! I met the guys that were starting Geocities back in the old days at a CA conference here in New Orleans and found their new idea of an online community exciting (I suggested side streets or allys to give them more space in the developed areas.) I learned html on Geocities and still have a couple of pages there (which I cannot get into). But their company has gone into the blender that is Yahoo.

You're not going to become a bunch of suits?
No, no, no! The precious DNA we've got -- that of the Ludicrew -- is on side and revving up for building Flickr. Having the team building out the team's vision for Flickr has been stressed as our number one priority, and keeping us around -- in spite of our wiseassery, tomfoolery and tendency to hoot spontaneously -- is crucial for preserving the Flickrness that is Flickr. They're not going to replace any of us with suits, nor induce us to wear them. Lapel? I don't know what you mean.

The target stores circular in todays paper had some nice ties with ...s and ooos on them and at a good price. Better stock up. You may not be replaced, but you may very well become suits. "Just for this one important meeting" is how it usually starts...

Are you going to become Yahoo Photos?
No. Yahoo Photos will get a lot of Flickr features, and there are alot of other areas around Yahoo that will also be Flickrized where Flickrization would be good. Yahoo Photos and Flickr have different kinds of users with different needs, and will remain separate for the foreseeable future. Flickr would also suffer from a sudden deluge of LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! omg! so we're going to grow it carefully.

It took about a year for Yahoo to totally digest Geocities. It's just a word now that is internet history.

Do I have to have a Yahoo ID to use Flickr?
No. In the future, you'll be able to log into Flickr using your Yahoo account, but you can continue logging on as before.

I'll bet it'll be less than a year on the ID thing. Yahoo is looking to sell you to the advertisers and the ID is the hook, look at what you get. It's a lot. I use my yahoo personal page for a great news feed, totally customizable and with lots of features and look forward to a Flickr module in there aswell.

Waaaaaaaah!! I don't want Flickr to change!
Don't forget to breathe. It's not the end, it's the beginning! As the wise woman who taught us The One True Way of Flickr Massage says, the only thing permanent is change. But we're going to stay true to our vision and to the people who made us what we are -- that's you, the Flickr pioneers. Thanks for making the first year of Flickr so wonderful.

I'm sorry Caterina, but like the old Jefferson Airplane song goes," When the truth within you turns out to be lies, And all the joy within you dies..."

Of course, we will be happy to answer questions, accept backslapping, and do deep breathing exercises with the Flickr community at Flickr Central.

Don't count on it. I've tried to get access to my Geocities pages for over a year now and have yet to find an email address or 800 number at Yahoo to talk to someone about getting access there again, but... Sure there are plenty of forms, with standard replies and forums where there i

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"Where did this apple come from?"
--Alan Turing

Great by bogie · 2005-03-20 14:28 · Score: 2, Insightful

Now all of those cool 3rd party projects will suddently becomes against terms of service.
You can also now probably look foward to having to click "skip this ad" when trying to view photos I'm sure.

The lamest thing that could happen to a cool tech company is to be swallowed up by some big public company. I'm actually not anti-yahoo by any means, I just don't possibly see how this will be good for flickr. And I'm just sure that ipod toting pseudo hipster crowd is going to love paying money to yahoo now.

And finally worst of all is that I'm sure that the previous owners will convince themselves that somehow they will remain independant and that yahoo will just let them run things "like always". Yea right. Anyone want to buy a bridge?

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If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch

Re:Great by bogie · 2005-03-20 14:51 · Score: 1

Having more fun replying to myself. It's kinda sad to see all the "please don't change" responses here http://www.flickr.com/groups/topic/20864/

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If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch

Oh no! by Alazoral · 2005-03-20 14:35 · Score: 1

Urg. There's something inherent to Yahoo that is inherently clumsy and kludgy and bloated. I always associated Flickr with Google's sleek elegant power. Now Yahoo is going to come and Yahoo Flickr up and its all going to be all filled with horribleness. *sigh* Ah well. Maybe Google will do something better (like make a storage facility for Picasa/iPhoto/Something for Linux).

Oh yea by bogie · 2005-03-20 14:42 · Score: 2, Insightful

Forgot to mention you can read the flickr takeover faq at the flickr blog. Again not being a naive teenager and as someone who has followed yahoo since it began, why should I possibly believe that flickr won't become some sort of ad-filled yahoo cobranded site? They are already talking about how yahoo id's will now work at flickr. What, flickr is going to be the ONE yahoo property where your not assaulted with flash ads and somehow its going to remain independant?
I will say congrats to the flickr guys. It's awesome that they are going to get paid. Just don't be too surprised when you lose control of things. I look forward to when one of your founders splits off from yahoo in a few years and createst the next cool thing.

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If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch

NEXT Technology after Tagging by Steward5732 · 2005-03-20 14:50 · Score: 1

The most important feature of Flickr is Tag and easy photo share. So what is the next technology photo sharing that will coming out?

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Free Posting on thousands and hundreds cities in World Cities Community

Re:So will they finally get rid of that stupid thi by ceejayoz · 2005-03-20 15:04 · Score: 2, Informative

It's just an image already, why on earth would it need Flash?

Apparently you haven't used the little "add note" button yet.

Too bad. by boring,+tired · 2005-03-20 15:23 · Score: 2, Interesting

I just started using Flickr about a month ago and I think it's great. Yahoo is going to ruin it. I don't want people who look through my pictures to have to go through pages of ads just to see them.

Re:Tragic? Probably! by Content-Free · 2005-03-20 15:26 · Score: 1

I too feel this is tragic, potentially very tragic. I followed Google's recommendation to use Flickr since I'm not primarily on Windows and have come to really like it. It provides a good service, has good technical and aesthetic design, and I get the sense that the owners/operators grok what people want to do with their photos. I have no such hopes that Yahoo! will agree with the importance of those virtues. I also wonder what feature migration (limitations) Yahoo! will force on Flickr to whip it into its corporate mold and extract every possible "synergy" from it.

Yahoo! will kill... by ElitistWhiner · 2005-03-20 16:00 · Score: 1

innovation in Flickr 'cuz that what Yahoo's do.

Flickr enabled my subscription to remain private - whereupon I was able to build an entirely bespoke web portal based upon Italian architecture. Yahoo! would never allow user control of the interface - in un-corporate of their culture.

You can damn bet you'll be able to kiss that all goodbye.

Next: Google buys FotoFlix by senzafine · 2005-03-20 16:07 · Score: 1

I can forsee Google acquiring FotoFlix so that blogspot users can embed a "FotoFlix" into their blog instead of just posting photos to a blog.

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Better than Flickr - Manage, Share, Archive

Documentary Startup.com by MikeCapone · 2005-03-20 16:33 · Score: 1

This reminds me of the excellent documentary Startup.com.

I recommend it to anybody who's interested in seeing from the inside what the glory days of the dot com bubble looked like. Starting from nothing with a cool idea, getting millions from venture capitalists, and then the fall from grace.

Great stuff.

In another vein, I recommend the other documentary by the same girl.

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Treehugger? Treehugger... Treehugger!

MOD PARENT UP by Anonymous Coward · 2005-03-20 16:51 · Score: 0

that was a good movie

Google's own Flickr by senzafine · 2005-03-20 17:02 · Score: 1

Google should definitely be looking into FotoFlix. Similar service to Flickr but enough uniqueness to add value to Google's line of products (orkut & blogger).

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Better than Flickr - Manage, Share, Archive

Does this mean by Zerth · 2005-03-20 17:21 · Score: 2, Interesting

That Ludicorp might finally get back to working on GNE?

Tragedy in the Making by luna69 · 2005-03-20 18:08 · Score: 4, Insightful

> Smack the tattlers and pop the champagne corks!

This is NOT GOOD NEWS.

Yahoo might have some remnant of niftyism about them for having survived this long, but let's face it. Their site(s)

a) suck
b) look like shit
c) use annoying navigation & layout
d) are too Borg-like to attract people who were attracted by Flickr.

I just finshed uploading lots of pics to Flickr, and am now considering removing all of them and cancelling my PAID FOR membership, given this news of Yahoo's buyout.

I joined Flickr because they're NOT Yahoo/MSN/Google/etc. I love the community feel of Flickr, its layout, design, vibe...and I GUARANTEE that Yahoo won't leave it untouched. And even if it did leave the design the same, the changes to the TOS are bound to be evil by definition (as Flickr's were not).

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No gods, no demons, and no masters. Secular Humanism!

Guess what? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-03-20 18:36 · Score: 1, Interesting

Slashdot is a blog too, you dumb assclown!

Re:Guess what? by nagora · 2005-03-20 21:52 · Score: 1

Slashdot is a blog too, you dumb assclown!
Not really. There is a superficial resemblance but a web log is usually a single person (or couple) reporting or, in the case of Flickr, showing daily mundane things from their lives. Very little of /. is about the lives of the staff or the readers so it's not really a log of any sort. Just posting new stuff every day does not make you a blog unless you think news.bbc.co.uk is a blog.
TWW

--
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Re:Guess what? by wootest · 2005-03-21 04:26 · Score: 1

No, "a single person (or couple) reporting or, in the case of Flickr, showing daily mundane things from their lives" is called a journal or a diary. A web log is not a "blog", seeming as how "blog" is nowadays just a buzzword for easy personal publication in chronological order. The original web log concept includes commentary and linking to relevant information or current events. Slashdot is much closer to this than the vast majority of sites calling themselves "blogs".
Re:Guess what? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-03-21 11:40 · Score: 0

You obviously haven't seen top blogs like Boingboing.net or Engadget.com .
Re:Guess what? by nagora · 2005-03-21 19:55 · Score: 1

You obviously haven't seen top blogs like Boingboing.net or Engadget.com .
I have. Engadget is quite good review site that for some reason the owners have decided to call bloga because they have a facility for commenting on the reviews. Boing boing is a very poor list of things what one can find on other websites with a comment option. Otherwise there's not much to them that justifies the "log" part of the name apart from the occasional boring mention of somthing dull that happened to one of the owners/editors.
To be a real blog it really should be 99% dull things that happened to the owner and 1% interesting or useful comment. Boing Boing is dull, certainly, but since none of it is a log in any real sense, it still doesn't seem to qualify to me. Unless your definition of "blog" is simply any site with news items and comments. Which it seems to be for some people.
TWW

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"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"

OK, I'll bite by RubberDogBone · 2005-03-20 19:04 · Score: 1

I know people love things that come in threes, but since when did Ask Jeeves have anything at all to do with RSS or blogging?

Last time I used it, Jeeves was still a sort of plain-language search engine.

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Sig for hire.

Re:OK, I'll bite by Anonymous Coward · 2005-03-21 11:44 · Score: 0

They bought Bloglines.com, by far the #1 webbased RSS aggregator. Whether they do anything useful with it is a different question of course.

While we're starting rumors... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-03-20 20:54 · Score: 0

I heard was that it was a total of twenty shares of Yahoo! common stock for the company, the name, all it's assets, exclusive copyright on all user-uploaded photos, and the immortal souls of all persons involved in developing flickr...

Re:So will they finally get rid of that stupid thi by phrasebook · 2005-03-20 22:54 · Score: 1

I'm looking at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/isabellevandenberg/69 96328/

I can't find a link to the image URL next to the picture, nor can I see a URL to alternate sizes of the picture.

Do I need to disable Flash (and is there an easy way of doing so in Mozilla?) to see these links?

Re:So will they finally get rid of that stupid thi by Anonymous Coward · 2005-03-20 23:39 · Score: 0

duh, that thing is what makes flickr buyable material as opposed to just another gallery thing

RIA

Re:So will they finally get rid of that stupid thi by Threni · 2005-03-21 00:17 · Score: 1

Does the PrefBar extension work in Mozilla? (It does in Firefox). Gives you a little configurable bar at the top of the screen which lets you turn on/off java, javascript, images, flash etc etc.

Re:So will they finally get rid of that stupid thi by phrasebook · 2005-03-21 01:13 · Score: 1

Thanks, that's useful. Although the Flash setting applies to every site. Would be nice if you could make a blacklist of sites to disable Flash for.

Re:So will they finally get rid of that stupid thi by Threni · 2005-03-21 01:51 · Score: 1

I just turn Flash off, but I know what you mean, and wish for an AdBlock style list of sites to allow Javascript for.

Re:So will they finally get rid of that stupid thi by Anonymous Coward · 2005-03-21 02:32 · Score: 0

Click on 'see different sizes' to get to the page with the urls and such. It'll take you here: http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=6996328&si ze=m

Re:So will they finally get rid of that stupid thi by Anonymous Coward · 2005-03-21 07:28 · Score: 0

> First of all, you went to the trouble of finding out that the image url is passed to the flash application, but did not realize that they provide that URL in a link next to the picture? Did you also notice that they provide the URL to alternate sizes of the picture as well?

Untrue.
You need to log in to get those options

Ick. Yahoo. by Isara · 2005-03-21 09:00 · Score: 1

After all of the secret TOS and Privacy Policy changes Yahoo keeps trying to sneak by, I'm wondering how Flickr thought that they would keep the same vision? Puhleese. It won't be long before Flickr is no more and is just another email harvester.

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BOOP!

Flickr vs. Pbase by fbg111 · 2005-03-21 12:29 · Score: 1

Can any photogs out there tell me how Flickr is better than PBase? I've been using PBase for over a year, tried flickr when it first came out and didn't see a reason to switch. Pbase is also a community-oriented site, with nice design, and provides a high degree of control over gallery design and layout to its members (good example: any of the featured galleries on its home page. I log onto flickr and it feels more like a dating site than a photo gallery site. Anyone, anyone?

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156 comments