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Yahoo! Photos to Shut Down

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the flickred-out dept.

prostoalex writes "Yahoo has finally made a decision regarding Yahoo! Photos vs. Flickr battle, and will be shutting down Yahoo! Photos by the fall of this year. Even though Yahoo! Photos currently maintains a higher share of Internet visits, Flickr growth convinced the company to maintain a single photo site from now on. Says USA Today: 'Stewart Butterfield, who co-founded Flickr in 2004 with wife Caterina Fake, says the move is a "validation" of the central idea of Flickr: that photos in the digital age are very different from a physical print. "We saw it as a means of communication and connecting with people," says Butterfield, Flickr's general manager. "People can take a picture and get immediate feedback from all over the world, and you can't do that with a printed photo."'"

4 of 71 comments (clear)

  1. But... by madbawa · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...will I have to create yet another account for Flickr or will my Yahoo login work?

  2. Photobucket 40% market share by lowem · · Score: 4, Interesting

    From TFA, it's interesting to note that Photobucket has 40% market share, at least in terms of hits (as of Apr 2007). Even if you add up Yahoo Photos and Flickr, that's 10.2%.

    1. Re:Photobucket 40% market share by stunt_penguin · · Score: 4, Interesting

      To be honest, I'd go for quality over quantity. I don't mean to sound snotty, but flickr isn't a site where everyone just uploads their OMG funny!! GIF files and every crappy camera phone snap; it's more of a serious photographer's site, and as such doesn't have the same potential market as somewhere like photobucket.

      It does, however, redeem Yahoo! in the eyes of a lot of people, and for that, I suppose they should be grateful.

      --
      When the posters fear their moderators, there is tyranny; when the moderators fears the posters, there is liberty.
  3. Continuity of free services by bill_kress · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This kind of makes me sad. Not that I ever really trusted them, but as a user the ONLY thing I really really need is a continuity of service.

    It would just be nice to know that if I happen to forget about the service for a year or two and then happen to need it, it's there--ready to serve those pictures that you uploaded years ago.

    Paid services are worse because any accidental lapse in payments and your photos all drop into the bit bucket. I know that sounds like a silly worry, but when you are talking about long-term continuity (across generations, possibly), at some point there is going to be a payment screwup of some sort.

    Doing it yourself is probably the worst case. Eventually a server crashes or screws up and you don't reload it, also--what a waste to leave a server running 24/7 for years just in case you need to review a picture!

    This is most significant with pictures. Many people consider the pictures of their family among their most treasured possessions. You could just spam all the services with all your pictures, but that has a bunch of problems. They all use different upload methods and most take a huge amount of manual labor--Also many have limits so you can't really just blindly upload all your pictures anyway.

    Of course, I'm complaining about a "Free" service that I'd use rarely, so I realize I have not right to demand, but to see a site that thousands of people have trusted to hold memories--people that my not even check back before the site closes--makes me a little sad.