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Flickr Users Are Mad as Hell About Today's Yahoo News

thomashawk.com — Flickr is taking a beating in two key forums right now over their decision today to force "old skool" flickr users to merge with Yahoo accounts and new limits on both number of contacts and tags allowed on Flickr. Check out some of the quotes here. Warning, some offensive language.

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  • chrisnixon, on 10/12/2007, -33/+126This is really annoying. I don't really want a Yahoo account. I can't find a decent user name for Yahoo. When I first read your story I wasn't really bothered...but now I see the reality of the situation, I'm pissed off.
    • gardnmi, on 10/12/2007, -178/+37QUIT BITCHING...ITS FREE!
    • gungaroo22, on 10/12/2007, -17/+77@ gardnmi
      So is almost everything else on the internet. There are alot of free things. But when you are forced to resign some control over something you love, naturally you won't be too happy. If Digg did something like this, you wouldn't be too happy.
    • littlebylittle, on 10/12/2007, -19/+79Leave it up to Yahoo to take something good and fu-k it up. Yeah, yeah, it's free. So was Netscape and Napster. The number of people using free applications sure made a lot of people a lot of money. In fact, it changed the world.
    • coldstatue, on 10/12/2007, -14/+23Not to mention, that without a broad user base, these companies would make no money. So, the "shut up, it's free" argument doesn't hold much water. If providers of free content don't satisfy their customers, they will die... or, simply merge with some faceless monolith that doesn't have to provide decent content, because the brainless hordes will utilize their services due to lack of knowledge about alternatives... So um.. yeah, I guess I just out-argued myself there. Content usability and quality don't matter - name recognition does.
    • c6mjohn, on 10/12/2007, -30/+107I don't understand where all the anguish is coming from. From what I have read the only thing that will affect the majority of people is that a Yahoo program will now require a Yahoo log on. You aren't required to use their e-mail or other services. I get the feeling that these "old skool" users want to continue the feeling of being part of an exclusive club more than anything else. Color me confused.
    • DoctaStooge, on 10/12/2007, -21/+15I can see how this pisses people off, because I'd be pissed also if I was in that situation. However, when Flickr signed with Yahoo!, did people seriously not think that this was a possibility? I mean seriously, why would it not be the best interest of Yahoo! to merge the accounts and save server space and maintenance costs? If I were in Yahoo's position, I would rather have 1 set of servers to run instead of 2.

      @c6mjohn

      When you get a Yahoo account, you automatically get a Yahoo e-mail address. This will probably become the default address for a lot of people's Flickr accounts, wheter by choice or not.
    • 5ampl3, on 10/12/2007, -7/+45@gardnmi

      Well it seems you don't use flickr as a Pro account do you? its sure as hell not free... I sure wish i did not have to get a Yahoo ccount when i signed up.
    • grahamcase, on 10/12/2007, -6/+38@gardnmi

      If I was a pro user, I would be pissed off cause I was paying for one service, and then they go and change it on me. And I would have every right to be pissed off.

      As a free user, I can decide to migrate to another free service that is not making stupid decisions about how it treats its users.

      The thing is, with pissed off paying users, and free users leaving, Yahoo's Flickr investment becomes worthless. To Yahoo, the reason they bought it was for the users. If they piss off paying and non-paying users, the lose those users and any revenue they would have brought in.

      Yahoo risks losing more than they're taking away from the current users of Flickr, so it's not just annoying, it seems like a bad business decision.
    • DoctaStooge, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11@ 5ampl3 & grahamcase

      Wouldn't this move (and maybe the merger also) have violated some Terms of Service that you have to agree to when you sign up as a PRO user? If it does, then I would think PRO users could get their money and pictures back without any financial cost. I ask because I don't use Flickr and have no idea how the membership works.
    • UMDWei, on 10/12/2007, -13/+35It's funny.. people complain if it's Yahoo! or Microsoft... but if Google merges Blogger and their many other services to a Google acct, people think it's more convenient.
    • wirah, on 10/12/2007, -7/+83It is.

      Google Accounts aren't loaded with bulk
    • dodoporridge, on 10/12/2007, -5/+8"From what I have read the only thing that will affect the majority of people is that a Yahoo program will now require a Yahoo log on."

      That's the thing. I have a couple flickr accounts (one for personal pix; one essentially for image hosting for something else), and I doubt I'd be able to merge them into one with a Yahoo account--I'm sure some of the pix would be lost because of space restrictions and stuff like that. So create two accounts? The problem: how do I know one account won't be deleted if I don't login to it every few months or whatever? They do that with email; I'm presuming the deletion is across the board. So now I probably have to move every pic to photobucket or something else, which is a drag.
    • fofusion, on 10/12/2007, -17/+2sheeesh looks like a lot of people have sand in their vaginas
    • frishack, on 10/12/2007, -16/+4WAAAAAAAAH, that is all I hear from you crank babies. It's free, and no they don't owe you hippies anything just because you've been freely using it for a long time.
    • tizz66, on 10/12/2007, -4/+38It was pointed out by other users below, so I felt it appropriate to post the same up here so people are aware of it - the submitter (and blog link) is the CEO of zooomr, a Flickr competitor. Whether you think this is overstepping the boundary of self interest or spam is up to you, but bear it in mind.
    • milkham, on 10/12/2007, -7/+16I'm an old school flickr user with a pro account and i don't want another throw away yahoo account ugh!
    • mathew_bug, on 10/12/2007, -6/+61Yahoo! has bought flickr long time ago. I really don't understand why everyone is all pissed off about.

      I own a flickr Pro account and I am "old-school", the only thing different now is that I have to login using Yahoo instead of my email.
      Oh, and for those how are complaining about Yahoo email address, if you have read the email (or news) properly you've realised that your old email will be set as the default email anyway. Nothing changes except for the login.

      About the contacts and tags limits: aren't 3000 contacts enough? You have to be more selective in your life if you have more than 3000 contacts, or you'll end up like "Tom" in "MySpace" (100000000000 friends but keeps in touch with 10 and has met 2 of them).
      Tags? Why do you need more than 75 tags, really? Tags work as a whole so you'd better use "digital still camera" instead of wasting 3 tags on "digital", "still" and "camera".

      Be more selective.

      Last but not least, the author of the blog and digger is Zooomr's CEO (flickr's wannabe direct competition), so bury this story.
    • TOTALineptitude, on 10/12/2007, -15/+2Flickr is FREE. It shows no class to complain about a service that you are using for free.
    • DrewBlood, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Yeah that's not really appropriate for him to be posting this but I have to admit I'm upset by the change as well. It has NOTHING to do with not being "old skool" anymore, cause frankly the change to forcing older members into a seperate login screen annoyed me in the first place. Flickr is the one that applied that stupid tag to the non-Yahoo users.

      I don't want to have to manage multiple Yahoo logins for multiple Flickr accounts, when I don't have the Yahoo addresses for any other reason. As it stands, I have a free Yahoo/Flickr account and a Pro pre-Yahoo account and frankly, I rarely log into the free one anymore because I find the Yahoo login process to be cumbersome and annoying. I know it's not a big thing but when there are plenty of other services out there, Flickr should be respecting it's members' wishes. My Pro account needs to be renewed soon. I'm playing it by ear at this point as to whether I'll be ponying up another $20 or not.
    • takeda, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4@c6mjohn:

      Look at eGroups (or yahoo groups) what they did with it. It was a decent service back then but now it's just another Yahoo service that sucks.

      To signup to eGroups I needed just provide my e-mail, now I need to provide my eMail and bunch of info that they'll use for marketing purposes. Sure I can provide fake information, but it just leaves bad taste (and sometimes it might backfire - e.g. try to forget your password - working e-mail is not enough to recover it)
    • mathew_bug, on 10/12/2007, -8/+3See for yourself why Zooomr sucks, it can't even hold the traffic: http://www.zooomr.com/
    • spyd4r, on 10/12/2007, -4/+131. Sign up for a new account at yahoo.

      sweet my new account name is sw33tbu773rfly23211232313@yahoo.com


      wtf... make us use a 1000 year old service where every user name is taken..

      greeeeeat.
    • popularme, on 10/12/2007, -16/+7you nerds really have nothing better to do huh??

      big freakin' deal. ooooo i can't have more than 3000 friends, or i can't have more than 75 tags!!! MUST KILL MYSELF NOW!

      STFU NERDS!!!!!!
    • DrewBlood, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3Hey does anyone know if the Yahoo login page can be made to autofill? My biggest irritation with logging in through Yahoo instead of the normal Flickr login is that I can store all my logins and not have to type them everytime. Yahoo, as far as I can see, blocks this from happening. I probably wouldn't care about this change if I didn't have to retype my login everytime.
    • rasterbator, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3@gungaroo22:
      "If Digg did something like this, you wouldn't be too happy."

      Don't think for a minute that if AOL or Yahoo! offered a buttload of money to Kevin Rose that he wouldn't take it. Keep in mind that these small, private companies are funded by venture capital firms that invest in them specifically for this reason: they are hoping they hit the Yahoo! or Google lottery. Also, Digg.com is reported to be worth millions of dollars... ON PAPER. None of that means shït to Kevin. He doesn't see a dime unless there is either a big ad revenue stream, or a large whale of a buyer to snatch up Digg.com

      So it would be great if Digg.com remained in tact, but the reality is that in the battle between a minnow and a whale, the money always wins.
    • CohibaVancouver, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5@gardnm

      Not, it's NOT 'free'. I have a paid, PRO account.
    • Atowndownman, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2I'm Mad As Hell About The Fact That You Ignore The Rules Of Capitalization...
    • zioxide, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6"I'm Mad As Hell About The Fact That You Ignore The Rules Of Capitalization..."

      Maybe you should go read those rules yourself... the guy who submitted the story wrote the title in TITLE CASE because its a title. Therefore, you capitalize the first letter of each word with relevance (I think). Technically he should have left 'are' as lowercase, but it doesn't really matter.
    • redivider, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2"It is.

      Google Accounts aren't loaded with bulk"

      The only Yahoo page you have to see is the login page which is relatively lightweight. Flickr couldn't be any less integrated with Yahoo if they tried (aside from the login obviously).

      Once you log in, everything still looks "old skool" and you still have your Flickr username. And as far as I know even with a new account, your Flickr username doesn't have to be the same as your Yahoo username. So the only one that ever see it is you.

      This really is a non-story. No matter what Flickr does, as long as Yahoo is involved people are gonna complain about it. At the same time those very people are taking advantage of (and probably loving) all the good things that Yahoo has brought to the table without even knowing it. You really think merging accounts is the only effect Yahoo has had on Flickr since they've been together? You just don't see the other ones because Flickr has done an excellent job of keeping their identity separate.
    • redivider, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1"That's the thing. I have a couple flickr accounts (one for personal pix; one essentially for image hosting for something else), and I doubt I'd be able to merge them into one with a Yahoo account--I'm sure some of the pix would be lost because of space restrictions and stuff like that. So create two accounts? The problem: how do I know one account won't be deleted if I don't login to it every few months or whatever? They do that with email; I'm presuming the deletion is across the board. So now I probably have to move every pic to photobucket or something else, which is a drag."

      That's a lot of assumptions there, chief. Why don't you look into it first?
    • finite, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1lol, yahoo are still newbs at teh web after all these years!
    • davdav, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3It's not free when you are a paying member of Flickr.
  • klevinson, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8It's really too bad. The ongoing forum topic is massive.
    • techdandy, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6I think their even recent announcement around branding will hurt Social Bookmarking sites even more. check out this story and digg so that people really think about the sneak move by yahoo:

      http://www.digg.com/tech_news/Yahoo_s_Banding_Initiatives_Will_Harm_Social_Bookmarking_sites
    • gummih, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Here is a flickr group that opposes the change
      http://www.flickr.com/groups/flick_off/

      1400 members
    • techdandy, on 10/12/2007, -11/+1I just posted the above article on digg to make the point. Please digg it. Thank you.
    • hanapbuhay, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5At first glance, Flickr's announcement with merging old accounts onto the Yahoo system was understandable. I can live with using a Yahoo account to log into Flickr, but then I wake up this morning to this Digg submission.

      Now, with the recent Flickr announcement of limiting contacts to 3000 (to "improve system performance"), I have to start asking popular Flickr users, such as Thomas Hawk to not delete me? I thought Flickr was all about social networking!

      So, now, I have to make my plea for non-deletion. I'm one of Thomas Hawk's 5000 contacts... I've been following his work (captures and blog) for a while. Ever since I read what happened with his bait and switch camera purchase over a year ago. Should he delete someone else since I've known him longer? Should I remove myself to make room for someone else more deserving? Why should it even come to this point?

      Why can't Flickr optimize their code and servers to faciliate their growing userbase? I hope someone figures out this is not how to run a community-driven site. This will only hurt Flickr.

      Flickr, please reconsider the 3000 contact limit. Thank you.

      Originally posted here: http://flickr.com/forums/help/32686/page2/#reply164944
    • mathew_bug, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1@hanapbuhay: please, stop whining. It's not like Thomas Hawk is god.
      Also, if he's the CEO of Zooomr, why does he keep updating his flickr account?
  • accesory, on 10/12/2007, -2/+27I had to "integrate" my flickr/yahoo accounts last night. The process was really easy, but it's going to be a big hassle in the future... That's what you get for sticking with a service since like day one....
    • Nothlit, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8I simply don't understand how it's going to be such a hassle. I have had a Yahoo account for probably 9 years now. I hardly ever use it anymore now that I've mostly moved to Google services, but it doesn't bother me in the least to merge my Flickr and Yahoo accounts. My public Flickr identity remains the same as it always was; I just have to use different credentials to log in. Big deal. Flickr will continue sending email to me at whatever address I desire; they won't force me to use Yahoo Mail. I have seen some of these "old skool" whiners complaining that Yahoo is going to start spamming/marketing them out the wazoo, but I have not found that to be the case in all the years that I have had an account with them... What's the big deal?
    • carpespasm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1it's a pain for people who never liked or used yahoo services, since yahoo is over 10 years old and the only valid names to register if you don't have an account are alphanumeric crap.
  • anonatron, on 10/12/2007, -5/+11Similar thing happened with the acquisition of gamefaqs, nobody was happy about that either. I guess that is the problem with big business buying the sites we enjoy, they screw a lot up. Let's hope everyone stays away from digg...
    • wild, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5an event like that would destroy every sever on the internet, as diggers frontpage every two bit blog protesting the purchase.

  • kevin45, on 10/12/2007, -5/+16Why do this? Flickr's a decent service. Best not to piss people off like this, theres a lot of good photography via Flickr, would be a shame to start merging it with Yahoo more and more.
    • chriskzoo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15Because then Yahoo can leverage Flickr in their other services - by having a unified sign in, people can post photos to Flickr and easily use them on a Yahoo blog or whatever.
    • koregaonpark, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Who wants a Yahoo! blog? Most people use WordPress anyway.
    • carpespasm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2flickr is one of the only web 2.0 companies that actually had customers who paid for their services and a reasonable setup for free accounts. You would think that having a gem like that would make them want to do everything possible to not piss off paying customers. especially ones that have been with them for years.
  • Miso117, on 10/12/2007, -8/+24My girlfriend uses Flickr, she emailed me 20 minutes ago bitching about these new "enhancements".
    The kicker is she pays for Flickr-PRO, I wonder if she will renew next year...
    The way of the world - Pay More / Get Less -
    • s0u1man, on 10/12/2007, -9/+15Oh please. Your girlfriend has had over a year to migrate her Pro account over to Yahoo's system. Since pretty much the day after Yahoo bought our Flickr, they have offered two ways to log in: with your Flickr ID or your Yahoo ID. They have also warned, since that same time, that users would have to integrate their sites shortly. I don't think a grace period of more than a year is unreasonable.

      And on the note of the integration, which I did over a year ago, it was the easiest thing in the world. Takes all of 2 minutes, and the end result is just that I have to use a yahoo ID to log in instead. I'm not forced to use their email, I don't have to use their IM program, and I don't have to agree to receive any spam from them.
    • sacherjj, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4However, if you get to flicker through certain filtered internet access which has Yahoo! mail on other Yahoo! related sites blocked, you can't log in to Flicker anymore. They will lose many people over this.
    • kilmer, on 10/12/2007, -14/+2Yea except now when someone sends me a message on my flickr pro account I won't be notified through my preferred email carrier I have to either check flickr everyday or use yahoo mail. F that.
    • Nothlit, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6@kilmer

      That is completely false. You can continue to use whatever email address you prefer to receive notifications from Flickr. They are not forcing you to use Yahoo Mail. Here's a quote from the message they sent (to my Gmail account) after I completed the merge yesterday:

      "And by the way, we'll still send communication to your ******@gmail.com address."
    • s0u1man, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5@sacherjj

      What filtered internet are you talking about? The network at your office? Where your employer pays you to work, and you agreed to work, with certain sites filtered out?

      Yeah, sounds about right to me.
    • kilmer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Thanks nothlit for the correction.

      If this is the case it seems like the only real reason for this change is purely financial. Either for advertising or so I buy into other features they offer. If this is the case I don't think that as a paying user of flickr that I should have to serve as another source of revenue for them. This should only be for those who want to use flickr for free or not renew a subscription. That's my opinion though and since I don't own them I can't do much. Anyone know of any good flickr alternatives?
    • redivider, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Thanks nothlit for the correction.

      If this is the case it seems like the only real reason for this change is purely financial."

      How, exactly? Yahoo has been making money off Flickr users since they bought Flickr over a year ago. I doubt forcing people to merge accounts is going to be making them any more money, aside from therandom person who willingly checks out some other Yahoo services as a result of having an account.

      "Either for advertising or so I buy into other features they offer. If this is the case I don't think that as a paying user of flickr that I should have to serve as another source of revenue for them."

      If you are a paid Flickr user, there is no advertising. There doesn't need to be. Because you're already paying Yahoo $24.95 a year for the account. If you don't want to be a source of revenue, you should have cencelled your paid account a year ago.

      "This should only be for those who want to use flickr for free or not renew a subscription. That's my opinion though and since I don't own them I can't do much. Anyone know of any good flickr alternatives?"

      Just ask the guy who wrote the article. He just happens to be the CEO of a Flickr alternative. Go figure.
  • kschlatzer, on 10/12/2007, -27/+68I won't be renewing my pro account.
    I won't evangelize Flickr anymore.
    I won't link to Flickr anymore.

    I don't need Flickr.

    Flickr needs me.
    • DaveV, on 10/12/2007, -7/+25Good for you.

      Finally, someone who takes action rather than blathers about.
    • delarge, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Problem being there is nothing to really rival Flickr out there.... or is there?
    • tHePeOPle, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Congrats. It's liberating. The same thing happened to me years ago when the once great Netscape merged with AOL and combined all the accounts. Everyone with a Netscape account had to set up a new one if the username was already taken by some crap user at AOL.

      As you can see, this really worked out well for Netscape and AOL. Netscape crashed and burned and AOL is a retarded ship full of retards bumbling around the internet on an ocean of 'free' AOL promotional cd's that no one uses.

    • chazcross, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4@delarge

      check this out
      http://picasa.google.com/

      organizes photos on your comp and allows easy uploading to picasa web.

      If all you care about is a place to store you pictures and easy sharing, this is great, But if your one of the people who are all about the community you will be disappointed.
    • perezd, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3@chazzcross


      O wait? Isn't Picasa a *purchased* company that google integrated with and blah blah blah..same ***** different ass hole.
    • prockcore, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1My god, how horrible! Yahoo forced you to sign in under a different user name! Your custom flickr URL didn't change, the name displayed to anyone who looks at your photo didn't change, only the name you use to log in changed.
    • ibis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2A big difference is that barely anyone used Picasa before Google bought it out, and the online part has only existed as a Google service. This is different from having thousands of people happily using an online service, and then changing it.

      That said, the flickr changes are no big deal, their site has been getting slower and slower lately and I had pretty much decided to stop using it, so now I either ditch it, or create a yahoo login (checking, it seems I can still get ibisibisibisibis230923458305834905689080 as a login, so that seems pretty sweet and convienient, and no more difficult to remember than my existing flickr login).
  • heythisismyname, on 10/12/2007, -20/+14is it me or has nothing good ever come out of Yahoo???
    • mikepictor, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Just flickr. Everything else they have is eclipsed by google.
    • aldenhg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Flickr didn't come from Yahoo. Yahoo bought it a while back from it's original developers.
  • doocefan, on 10/12/2007, -10/+18We fear change. Adapting is hard. Let's all go extinct already.
    • sacherjj, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6We like change when it is a good thing. This doesn't help anyone and people without a prior Yahoo account now have choices for username that are: sh43h1ndhje or nsadkjh4n2k. That sucks.
    • shatters, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3@doocefan
      Yeah.. and...We should all just accept things for the way they are and live our lives as puppets!

      /ignorance is bliss
    • DrewBlood, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Are you comparing signing up for an extraneous account on Yahoo to human evolution?
  • masterofNone, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4"Renault: I'm shocked, shocked to find that there is gambling going on here!
    Croupier: Your winnings, sir.
    Renault: Oh, thank you very much. Everybody out at once."
  • grungegbunny, on 10/12/2007, -36/+3okay umm.. wtf is flickr ?
  • NickyBatts, on 10/12/2007, -11/+45Did somebody call the whaaabulence?
  • DaveV, on 10/12/2007, -32/+2BooHoo. Quit your bitching and shut up, or start paying for things.
    • bloobloo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+25And what do you have to say to the people who DO pay?
    • courtarro, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8I'd be willing to bet that most of those complaining have already been 'paying for things'.
    • ICSU, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6Yeah, instead of merging with a Yahoo account, which would take 5 minutes at most, they will waste tens of minutes, maybe hours bitching about it.
      Makes sense .. not!
    • mentat, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3How about companies (in this case Yahoo!) make services (in this case Flickr) WORTH paying for? With a crippled Flickr service (limited tags, etc.) I don't know if I would pay for it.
    • prockcore, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Limited tags? Please.. 75 tags *per* photo? You need more? You're a spammer.
  • ijustam, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Sounds like the perfect time to make a free photo sharing site, if you ask me.
  • PABeachBum, on 10/12/2007, -11/+2Rawr! Wine, Complain, Bitch, Moan.

    Guess what, welcome to something called "an open market". In this wonderful invention, you can do things such as, "take your business elsewhere" and "vote with your dollar".

    So quit wasting your time, and raising your blood pressure, bitching about something as trivial as a f'in Flickr account. Holy crap you would think there aren't better or more important issues going on in the world to raise a fuss about.
    • mentat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Sorry, you're right, I'm wrong for expressing my opinion in a place where it belongs. I'm sorry I'm facilitating the free exchange of information and ideas, not like that's critical to the success of capitalism... oh, wait...
    • PABeachBum, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Uh, No. People would much rather sit on their lazy asses and bitch about something, rather than get off and do something about it.

      Why the ***** do you think Best Buy keeps screwing people over? Because people bend over and take it.

      Same with most every other big company that screws the consumer. I've met many people who talk ***** about Wal-Mart, but still shop there, when other alternatives exist.

      So I'm sorry the truth hurts and mentioning reality of the situation bothers people, but these jackasses will still sit on their asses, and take the pipe from Yahoo while just bitching along the way.
  • gungaroo22, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11If you want to deepen the lance in Yahoo's side, join Google's web album service. It is actually really nice, and has a handy program for your computer as well.

    http://picasaweb.google.com/home
    • gummih, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4For those that havent tried out Picasa, you really should. I'm constantly suggesting it to people :o)
    • mentat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I was thinking "Oh Lordly Loo, I have to go through all the trouble of uploading and retagging all my pictures to another web service." Then I noticed the Mac uploader lives inside of iPhoto (standalone available too!). That'll be FAR more convenient than Flickr, since I already use iPhoto to organize and touch up my photos. Maybe the Picasa's GeoTagger won't fail to load overlays half the time like Yahoo!'s did (it's awful hard to tag a photo when you can't even see roadmaps)
    • spullara, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I've been using iPhoto to export to flickr for 2 years:

      http://connectedflow.com/flickrexport/
    • mumblyjoe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Picasa requires you to run Mega-lo-soft binaries. They get credit for offering instructions on how to do this in Wine, but who wants to run Windows apps??? Ick, ick, ick.
    • mumblyjoe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Ack. It appears I was wrong. Picasa (the application) is a Windoze binary. "Picasa Web Albums", however, does not require the Evil Empire implant.
  • chriskzoo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7FTA: "It looks like I'll also be forced to drop about 2,000 of my contacts at Flickr."

    Seriously, now.
    • kbarrett, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9Some one tell me. Because I really want to know.
      What the is the purpose of having over 3,000 contacts?
    • sacherjj, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7To go without having to wear glasses for your whole life?
    • Machine, on 10/12/2007, -1/+21. If you're a popular photographer on Flickr, you get a lot of people adding you as a contact or a friend or family. Generally speaking... it considered nice to be able to reciprocate by adding them back.

      2. If you post nude or explict work on flickr... they force you to post things as friends and family only... so if you want people to see that work... you have to add them as a friend or family. This reduces the amount of people that I can potentially have viewing my nude work.

      I have around 1300 contacts... I get about 20 per day... and around 1700 people consider me their contact. It used to be higher... more like 2300... but quite a few people are being delete by flickr lately for posting erotic work and refusing to hide it. If I continue with flickr for another year or two... I'll bounce up against that arbitrarily imposed limit.
    • kocurejd, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2How 'bout getting real friends? That might solve part of the problem...
  • simpleid, on 10/12/2007, -3/+18Well, I'm entirely unaffected. I guess I'll get back to work now.
    • tHePeOPle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3You must be new to the internet. Around here we call it 'porn surfing.'
  • JoeCotellese, on 10/12/2007, -2/+19I was an early adopter. Upgraded to a Pro account and have already migrated to the yahoo login? It doesn't seem like it's really that big of a deal.
    • chriskzoo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Same here - I already had a Yahoo account from WAY back (really, who doesn't) and couldn't care less.
    • wh00dini, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6You probably aren't using it as heavily as some of us then. There are two main restrictions that Thomas Hawk is upset about. The first is a contact limit, this is a social networking site that is trying to limit how many people I "Network" with. What??? The second is the amount of tags for an individual photo. People use tags in many ways, if there is a "need" to limit this (as said by Myles (a flickr engineer) it should not be 75 but something more like 500.

      I know when I signed up for a Pro account 2.5 years ago I had a much smaller range of functionality than I do now thanks to my membership fees and Yahoo!. What I do not appreciate is taking away functionality entirely based on poor programming and design. Yahoo's stock my not be near the high it once was but they are by no means too broke to fix this.
  • chriskzoo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Can anyone summarize the new limits? I know that Yahoo said from the beginning you would eventually have to merge your account. Here's an idea for the whiners that can't find a name: just add 'flickr' to your current name.
    • simpleid, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12Shut up, it's funny watching people get worked up over meaningless things. If you help them they stop getting angry.
    • mentat, on 10/12/2007, -10/+3How about ... no? I don't like the idea of having to add "flickr" to my name. I don't like the idea of that. The problem with Yahoo! is that everyone and their brother has a Yahoo! account from years ago, and all the decent nicknames are taken, and Yahoo! never seems to expire them. When I was 13, I made a Yahoo! account under the name "medienow," commenting on how much I sucked at ARC (online CTF-like game). That was nearly eight years ago. After that, I really didn't touch the account. I am not a big fan of the name now, I'm considerably more mature, my skill in gaming is far better (not that this is significant, but it removes all relevance from the name), and the name just sounds so emo... and I'm not. Moreover, I've taken a new alias on the 'tubes: Kichigai Mentat. Through some combination of those two words (if no combination is available, I use my "middle" name: Zirka), I create my accounts. AIM, MSNIM, Jabber, Digg, Flickr, QJ, MaxConsoles, Debian Forums, Del.Icio.Us, you name it. Now, I'm being forced to give up my personal moniker, and have to hope, and pray, that some one else hasn't consumed my nick? I went through this when Yahoo! purchased GeoCities, and I didn't like having to move my homepage and update all of the links to it I have seeded (forum accounts, etc.)

      With an eight year old account (yes, I checked it, it's still active,), makes you wonder how many other accounts have been created nearly a decade ago, and abandoned, leaving that nickname useless. How easy will it be for all these Flickr users to get their nicks on Yahoo!? Your guess is as good as mine. Next time, consider that.
    • delarge, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8@mentat
      "Now, I'm being forced to give up my personal moniker, and have to hope, and pray, that some one else hasn't consumed my nick?"

      Your life is in real turmoil... I'll pray for you too brother
    • kiseki, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I hate to break it to you but flickr names are entirely separate from the yahoo account. The thing that changes is you login with the yahoo account instead of your email. Your flickr links are all still the same.

      This is just a lot of meaningless whining on something they explicitly said they were gonna do 2 years ago.
  • Grossinm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+193000 Contacts, 75 tags per image. If I had nothing else to do (IE JOB), and got erotic pleasure from tagging photos, I'm still not sure I would reach those limits. As for moving to a yahoo account, I'm sure chrisnixon8478 is available.
    • phlyngpngn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14Agreed with the notion that these people complaining need to grow up a bit. 3000 contacts is a lot... anybody who's dropping 2000 contacts isn't likely to miss any of them very much. Anybody who's tagging photos with 75 tags needs to lay off the cocaine. Bitching about these limits is silly. At first I was sort of alarmed at the changes, then I realized it's just people moaning about having conceptual limits that they don't likely meet anyway.

      Next, I took a look at Zooomr for a scond time. I remember when it came out. I got an account and all that jazz. For the record: it's slow. Their response times left the biggest impact on me when they released, and it seems like nothing has changed. I'd login to see what all is different and better than Flickr, but I don't have a reason to wait all day. How's that for a limiting feature?

      I'm a flickr pro user and will continue to be.
  • Viper86, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I think Flickr represents at this moment it's name very good if you know the Dutch meaning of the word Flickr/Flikker ( same pronunciation ).....
  • drjekelmrhyde, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1http://www.flickr.com/news.gne
  • Prysorra, on 10/12/2007, -10/+0Forgive me, but I must admit I am enjoying more of Yahoo's self-inflicted wounds.

    I can't wait until Google makes Picasa publically accessible......
    • simpleid, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I think you yahoo/flickr 'folk' are blowing this out of proportion, but if it makes all of you like Google more then keep it up!
  • KevinWhite, on 10/12/2007, -4/+46Written and dugg by the CEO of Zooomr??? Give me a break....spam
    • M15anthrope, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Written and dugg by the CEO of Zooomr??? Give me a break....spam

      Why has it taken this long for some one to point this out? That was the first thing I noticed.
    • ICSU, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I guess their business plan is something like:
      1. get a nice number of users/page views by criticizing and at the same time copying competition
      2. hope some rich company will pay an unreasonable amount of money without having a clue why they pay so much
      3. PROFIT!

      See they even avoided the ??? step.
    • scottschiller, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Dang, that's kinda low-end in my opinion. (Leave criticism to the masses, someone's due to complain.) It'd be like Steve Jobs submitting stories critical of MSFT to Digg - zing!
      (/sarcasm)

      (Disclaimer: I work at Y!, too.)
    • vitorleite, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Thomas Hawk is one of the main users of Flickr. He has over 5000 contacts and hundreds of photos on the interesting page. If you go on flickr and type a search for san francisco, for instance, the first image is his. So yeah, he's the CEO of Zoomr but he is a power flickr user, that's why his opinion is relevant.

      Now about zoomr, its offline right now. And Flickr is also painfully slow. What gives?
    • kbarrett, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Big deal. Someone who works in the industry can't take an actual interest in it and blog about it?
    • trex, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You guys are aware that Thomas Hawk is one of the most passionate Flickr users there are right?
    • jercraigs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0It is not exactly a big secret that TH supports Zoomr as well as Flickr. That doesn't make his comments less valid.
  • johnnyrocket, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Too bad, should have registered with Yahoo early, all the good handles are taken. You can always get xyzqxr021312, that MAY be available.
    • simpleid, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5No joking, every thing's been taken since ... 1996
  • waken66, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I use and love flickr, i don't really care about it being part of yahoo. So you have a new username but flickr is still the same people.
  • drjekelmrhyde, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Big whoop just make a dummy yahoo account and dont use it is it that ***** hard seriously
    oh but I will only have a maximum of 3000 contacts and 75 tags give me a break
  • ramunas, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Come on, who needs more than 3k contacts anyway?
    Or why would you need more than 75tags per photo?
    • dudu78, on 10/12/2007, -8/+3"Why should anyone ever need more than 640kb of RAM?"
      -Bill Gates

      'nuff said
  • Itkovian, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3One thing I particularly dislike is the fact that - obviously - my flickr account name cannot be used as a Yahoo ID, because somebody else already uses it. So, itkovian@yahoo.com, if you read this ... grmbl!
  • dasunst3r, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Does anybody remember the good 'ol days of webrings? I'm sure that those who are ticked could get themselves some hosting, pop Gallery or some photo management script on there, and register their site on the webring. Problem solved!
  • Neuski, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4If you can't keep your contacts under 3000 and describe a photo in less than 75 tags then write your own software!
    • kbarrett, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Is it per photo or overall tag limit? If it's a per photo limit that's one thing. If it's overall amount of tags that's another.
    • horsman72, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4I believe that Thomas Hawk has nothing but a long and intense relationship with Flickr at heart when referring to his blogs posts and related comments around this subject. He is a well known Flickr community member and has been forthfight and open about his involvement with Zooomr - always clarifying his position when commenting about Flickr. It's up to the reader to gauge conflict of interests against the validity of his comments.

      (btw, this should be attached to the comment below from 'cliph'. I hit the wrong [reply] link. Urgh.
    • kbarrett, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6The zoomr guy is taking a page from the book of Calcanis. Stir up some controversy and get your company's name in the press.
    • tpodr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@kbarret
      "each photo on Flickr can have a maximum of 75 tags."
      http://www.flickr.com/news.gne
    • kbarrett, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I don't see what the big deal is. I don't think I've ever seen anyone with a photo that had over 75 tags. Have any of you?
    • Coffeedemon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Tag (keyword) spamming is one of the reasons web search tools disregard metadata in pages. You don't need 75 tags on one picture unless you wanted to describe all of the contents of that image and that goes against the principle of tags which are derived from keywords and are meant to be terms that encapsulate the main topic/content of a resource. 75 tags just ensures that your lame sunset picture shows up on everyones tag browse and is totally irrelevant to what the original searcher was looking for.

  • cliph, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7And no one has noticed that the author of the blog article and the submitter of this article is the CEO of a flickr inspired, alternative photo sharing site "zooomr" and that the author hopes to gain users by blowing up this non-issue into something much larger?
    • geoffspear, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2He'd get more users by building a site that can actually stay up when he tries to drive traffic to it. Right, I'll be switching to a site whose front page won't even load. That'll be much better than logging in with a Yahoo! id.
  • jonathono2000, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Grapheety.com isn't the exact equivalent of Flickr but it is an interesting alternative, its an alpha release now and isn't anything spectacular but I got a glimpse of the development site (beta) and it looks like geotagging on Flickr on steroids with even the promised ability to embed video and whole host of other features that might make you want to join and reserve that cool screen name now. I did.
  • pjunold, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Isn't this the way it always goes with these services? I've long ago learned the lesson and host my own data. Yes would be much easier to upload my videos to youtube instead of messing with flv converters and what not. But I want my data available in 5 years from now under the same URL.
  • horsman72, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I guess that they have done an audit of the median number of contacts held by individual users and come up with a figure that is way short of the limit that they are setting. I don't believe that 5k+ contact holders are significant but I do agree that by setting a limit they are actively fixing the parameters of community - this doesn't make sense to me.

    My main gripe with this is the awful Yahoo! ID user experience. I've had a mainly dormant Yahoo! ID for around 6 years and I sporadically go back to see if the service has improved. It simply doesn't provide the integrated and seamless experience that would make it beneficial to me. I've got an ID name that I got lumbered with because none of my preferred names were available and the suggested ones didn't make any sense to me. User Id's are a basic yet fundamental element of a person online profile and without a suitable fit the whole experience thereon in becomes tainted. Flickr has now been dragged squarely into the Yahoo! user experience and, for me, is poorer for it.

    Disappointed of Leeds, UK
  • ashwinmudigonda, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3My bitch is that I have cards printed with the website. 100s of them! Crap.
  • Touchdown, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Maybe it's just me, but it seems like there are other things in life to get more worked up about.
  • paulmdx, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8I'm a long-time user of Flickr and converted my account today. Lucky for me I already had identical account names for Yahoo and Flickr. It was very quick to do though, so no complaining there.

    Even if my account name changed my internet-facing web address would not have changed, so as far as the internet at large is concerned there's no difference.

    Flickr has been excellent at remembering me signed in, so to be honest I hardly have to perform the login process anyway. If this continues most users will hardly notice.

    In summary: stop whining.
    • mentat, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Yeah, but you said it yourself: you were lucky enough to have the exact same nickname on Yahoo! Not all of us are so lucky, and I doubt many of the "old school" users will be.
    • superstewy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I agree! I didn't get the exact user ID, instead of superstewy I made superstewy_flickr but who the ***** cares? Flickr remembers my user ID, so I never have to write it, and your user ID in actual Flickr doesn't change, so whats the problem?!

      Oh wait, this is the Internet, I guess I should stat whining.
  • baaaan, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6If Flickr users don't like it, Flickr users don't gotta use it. I don't see what the big deal is.
  • mattverso, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8I've used Flickr almost since the start. Today, I merged my account with Yahoo. So, I sign in with my (not used anymore) Yahoo login. Big deal. Flickr still emails me to my preferred mail address (not Yahoo), the site is still the same as it was, all my contacts, tags, sets, etc are the same, the API still works, the image links on my blog are the same, I can still post pics from my phone, etc, etc.

    This seems to be whining for the sake of whining. As it says in the Flickr help pages, "This doesn't affect anything other than the username and password you supply when signing in: most Flickr users use Yahoo! IDs and everything works the same way."

    95% of Flickr users already use their Yahoo ID to sign in, the only people whinging are the people who thought they were part of some exclusive "club" by still using the "old-school" sign-in page.
    • Changa, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1I have an oldskool flicker pro account.

      I don't even like to stay logged into google... and I don't have yahoo account.

      So for me to use flickr the say way I have been it requires me to stay logged into yahoo and all their services.

      YUCK!

      I don't like this one bit.

  • gotamd, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I voluntarily merged my accounts a while ago. It's really not that big of a deal.
  • patience, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Wow.

    Aren't there like 50+ web 2.0 sites where you can post your amateur "art" photos.

    Stop complaining. No one is looking at your pics except your "friends"

    You have a choice, you know.
    • baaaan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Their friends probably aren't looking, either.
  • kbarrett, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6I just read the blog.
    You people are blowing this *way* out of proportion. And in the end, it looks like these changes are really designed to help speed up the system and provide you with a better user experience.

    So stop whining. You big babies.
  • xhtmled, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This is so frustrating. I created a Yahoo account a while back and used the same login that I use for everything. Apparantely, my account was deleted because I hadn't signed in for some time. I cannot have my password sent to me and it says the account is already in use when I try to create a new account.

    I'm not only mad that I have to use a Yahoo ID, but it has to be something totally different than I normally use. They switched over their mobile site (http://m.flickr.com) over a month ago. I used to use their old mobile site on my phone several times a week, but since they changed it I haven't even used it.
    • scabbers, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0The deleting your ***** if you don't log in is one of the ***** aspects of yahoo. Another is how they ruined the useful "yahoo groups" thing by forcing people to constantly click through ads to post/read/anything.
  • djSyndrome, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I personally don't care about this change - I already have a Yahoo ID (through AT&T DSL) and I only share with a dozen or so people - but the new limits seem mighty restrictive to Flickr's 'power users'. An offer of a prorated refund for these folks would be nice, but knowing Yahoo I wouldn't count on it.
  • tizz66, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I work for a company where we've had to make difficult decisions in the past, with a big uproar from the community being the result. Lots of shouts of 'I'm leaving!', 'That's it, I'm going!' and so forth. Truth is, when the fuss dies down most people didn't leave, and the ones that did we didn't miss. The ones that stayed still wanted what we offered (and we work to carry on providing it).

    Wait till the week after the change. 99% of the whiners will still be there, Yahoo account and all. People on the net just want to be heard, but are often reluctant to carry out their threats.
    • scabbers, on 10/12/2007, -6/+0Well, I'm one "whiner" who still refuses to buy Half Life 2 because of being ***** in the ass for weeks by Valve and Steam a few years ago.

      LONG MEMORY
    • tizz66, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You stick to your threats - good for you, if more consumers did that, then companies would be more receptive to consumer demands. All I'm saying is it's likely that although there's a huge fuss now, it's not like Flickr will lose all its users the next day. Truth is, most of the people complaining likely still want what Flickr offers, and once they get over the initial fuss, they'll weigh up how much they want Flickr and how much they don't want Yahoo ID. I'm willing to bet that in most cases, the former wins.
  • undersky, on 10/12/2007, -12/+51. CEO of Flckr's competitor signed up for numerous Digg accounts.
    2. CEO of Flckr's competitor collected dubious rants about Flckr.
    3. CEO of Flckr's competitor gamed Digg to make his biased anti-flckr article front page.
    4. ????
    5. PROFIT!
    6. Digg becomes the battleground for the new advertisement 2.0
    7. Digg users are hopelessly naive.
    • duxxyuk, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I guess the last comment includes you.
    • thomashawk, on 10/12/2007, -4/+17undersky, I have only a single digg account. I've had many things dugg about flickr in the past including a story last week about the ten best hacks for flickr that *praised* flickr for their open API and talked about all the cool ways you can use flickr. I use flickr every single day and have spent thousands of hours on the site both before and after joining Zooomr. I've been quoted in the mainstream press about Flickr, included in a book about Flickr, etc., etc.

      I joined Zooomr because I saw a lot of things that I thought Flickr was doing poorly that could be done better. (I haven't made a nickel off of Zooomr yet by the way, I don't collect a salary and I've funded the co. out of my own pocket). I was equally critical about Flickr before I ever joined Zooomr (just ask anyone who spent time in the Flickr Central forum and used to listen to me bitch about no trackbacks). I have been one of the most very active Flickr amongst the Flickr community since very early on. I've both praised them for what they've done right and criticized them for what they've done wrong.

      Even though I work for a competitor, I still love and use Flickr every single day. I've faved over 18,000 photos on the site. I've posted over 7,000 photos on the site. I continue to use it and love it but simply because I happen to work for a competitor doesn't preclude me from expressing my dissatisfaction over this move. I'm going to have to dump 40% of my contacts on Flickr, an open social network that I've invested thousands of hours of my personal time in. I'm sure if you were in my shoes you'd feel upset about this too.


    • undersky, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1u don't have to defend yourself, sorry if my comment attacked you, but no matter what i said, it is true that you do work for zoomr...doesn't that say a lot?

      i want to poke at the idea of how easy it is that we can be manipulated on digg. look, right now on the front page, two articles, one anti-google and one anti-flckr, they are both written by their "haters." (gevil.com and this zooom ceo) doesn't this trend alarm us any at all? how could these articles be unpartisan?
  • HurricaneAK, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Hahaha, this quote is so true:

    What really pisses me off is Yahoo's God-awful ID setup. It took me over an hour this morning to set up an ID, mostly because every name I tried was taken - including random letters I got by hitting the keyboard in frustration. So now I'm stuck with a username I didn't want, can't change, don't like, and won't remember.

    I made a yahoo account once, it took about twenty minutes to get the right name. I finally decided on OMGURFATWTFBBQ because apparently every single account otherwise was taken. And honestly, does anyone use Yahoo services? Look how cluttered their web page is. Yeah, I really want to find a pizza service near me Yahoo.
  • SandyThomson, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2I am 6 months into a 2 year run with Flickr Pro, the service is great so far and I love the features, but I am dismayed with this decision and am actively looking for a way to migrate my photos to another service which will respect its user base - I don't understand why they didn't consult the users first?

    I too have a joke Yahoo ID that I don't use very much, par one group I am actively involved in. This sucks.
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