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Flickr Has the Opportunity to Become the Next Flickr

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Re: Flickr Has the Opportunity to Become the Next Flickr

#11
Speaking from the perspective of the photography-enthusiast category, I've been coming to the conclusion that Google+ may become the next Flickr.

It has first-class communications features that Flickr has always sorely needed. Commenting isn't a tiny box at the bottom with awful pagination, you can upvote posts as well as comments, and it has group sharing capabilities well beyond "add to pool".

The photo upload process is also far superior to Facebook, and the photo viewing experience is superior also when it comes to high-resolution, high-quality compression that many photographers desire. Facebook butchers uploads with awful compression artifacts.

I've been seeing a lot of amateur and professional photographers flock towards G+ - doubly so since the launch of Communities.

Personally, I like using Google+ to talk photography a hell of a lot more than I like to on Flickr. That might be telling.

Re: Flickr Has the Opportunity to Become the Next Flickr

#12
post #9
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what I'm saying is that it is more likely that someone else wins that race. The only thing Flickr has going for it is their existing community who have largely abandoned it. They're not going acquire a "new" community better than their smaller competitors. Case in point. It took them years to release mobile apps. Then a year to release a major update. That's millenniums on the Internet. If you think Yahoo! can ch…

I think Flickr still has the chance to rescue itself. There are still some vibrant communities. Say you want to learn/discuss wedding photography, or maybe you want to learn about portraiture photography, or staged photography, there are very active and content rich communities. What flickr can do is expand on the tools they've provided those communities. Right now, there are a few sticking points: -Comments --they'r…

You're probably right. Especially if you're involved in one of those. I'm not, so it's a side of Flickr I don't see.

Re: Flickr Has the Opportunity to Become the Next Flickr

#13
post #7

"Either way, there is currently a gaping void on the Web for people to share higher-resolution beautiful photos." 500px seems to do that quite well. http://500px.com/

The thing that drives me absolutely bonkers about 500px is that you can't disable the stupid right click blocking JavaScript.

If people want to use it, fine, give them the option (even though it doesn't prevent anyone determined to get a photo saved). But, for the love of everything, please don't force users to have it on. I was going to sign up (and pay) for 500px until I found out that you can't actually disable the right click blocking (see: http://support.500px.com/customer/portal/questions/475736-ri...).

Re: Flickr Has the Opportunity to Become the Next Flickr

#14
post #7

"Either way, there is currently a gaping void on the Web for people to share higher-resolution beautiful photos." 500px seems to do that quite well. http://500px.com/

Ehh... I disagree somewhat. 500px is another beast entirely, with its own (huge) set of problems. As an avid photographer myself I can't really get behind it. To summarize a large argument: 500px has an extremely strong groupthink, leading to a very confined set of photos that its community prefers. It is much stronger than any other photo site I've come across, including Flickr. Its notion of beauty is very firmly i…

I agree with that. 500px is a bit elitist (although does have a lot of 'quality' photography in the mainstream sense). Flickr on the other hand is a lot more loose and if one knows how/what to search, there can be real gems and aspiring new artists to be discovered, alongside all the old masters.

Re: Flickr Has the Opportunity to Become the Next Flickr

#15
"People loved — I mean loved! – Flickr"

This is true for me. Flickr was the first web service I paid for, and I still do. It really was a generational leap at the time. Photos were meant to be shared, and they nailed it. Tagging and tag clouds, folksonomy, embeddable badges - these were all fresh back then and they worked well. If only they would have added the ability to tag friends early on, I think it could have taken the place of some social networks.

I really do hope flickr becomes the next flickr. I keep putting my photos there, because I like to have them in one place. However, I do have to admit that sharing them on facebook creates much more interaction and fun.

Re: Flickr Has the Opportunity to Become the Next Flickr

#16
>Could Flickr create a beautiful magazinelike iPad application that allows people to skim through high-resolution images on the service?

How does this Flickr app not already exist? I'm pretty sure a couple of 20yr old coders could make an app like this in a day or two if they had access to Flickr's data. The hard part isn't displaying images on a tablet, its having the high quality images in the first place.

Re: Flickr Has the Opportunity to Become the Next Flickr

#17

Speaking from the perspective of the photography-enthusiast category, I've been coming to the conclusion that Google+ may become the next Flickr. It has first-class communications features that Flickr has always sorely needed. Commenting isn't a tiny box at the bottom with awful pagination, you can upvote posts as well as comments, and it has group sharing capabilities well beyond "add to pool". The photo upload proc…

It(g+) may not not become next Flickr. Mostly because G+ is everything or at least trying to be so and Flickr was(and is) mostly photos and photos only(I mean they added videos but let's not talk about that).

Re: Flickr Has the Opportunity to Become the Next Flickr

#18

Speaking from the perspective of the photography-enthusiast category, I've been coming to the conclusion that Google+ may become the next Flickr. It has first-class communications features that Flickr has always sorely needed. Commenting isn't a tiny box at the bottom with awful pagination, you can upvote posts as well as comments, and it has group sharing capabilities well beyond "add to pool". The photo upload proc…

I wanted to say the same thing. Google+ has a lot of going for it when it comes to photography.

Skipping over the UI, which is really, really good for photography consumption (have you seen the iPad app? it's beautiful), Google+ has one freakishly big advantage when comparing it with Facebook or Flickr that goes unmentioned:

Google Drive - because IMHO, online backup and carrying your huge collection wherever you go, on whatever device, are far more valuable for photographers than sharing.

Re: Flickr Has the Opportunity to Become the Next Flickr

#19

"People loved — I mean loved! – Flickr" This is true for me. Flickr was the first web service I paid for, and I still do. It really was a generational leap at the time. Photos were meant to be shared, and they nailed it. Tagging and tag clouds, folksonomy, embeddable badges - these were all fresh back then and they worked well. If only they would have added the ability to tag friends early on, I think it could have t…

I used to backup my photos on Flickr, but Flickr is awful for backups. You can't upload lengthy videos, you can't backup your raw files, retrieving your whole collection back from Flickr is extremely painful, etc...

So recently I'm switching to Google Drive for my backup needs.

Re: Flickr Has the Opportunity to Become the Next Flickr

#20
post #7

"Either way, there is currently a gaping void on the Web for people to share higher-resolution beautiful photos." 500px seems to do that quite well. http://500px.com/

Ehh... I disagree somewhat. 500px is another beast entirely, with its own (huge) set of problems. As an avid photographer myself I can't really get behind it. To summarize a large argument: 500px has an extremely strong groupthink, leading to a very confined set of photos that its community prefers. It is much stronger than any other photo site I've come across, including Flickr. Its notion of beauty is very firmly i…

I hadn't really thought about the overall types of photos on 500px before, but you're right, it is rather elitist and narrow.

Anyone can post to Flickr, and things like the "interesting" link actually work (based on things like comments, I gather).

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