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The Big Easy
Daily Ink
Stored in: Flickr News
Posted On: August 11 2007
By: Bryan Partington
Archival Photo
Over the past week, we've seen and heard two seemingly unrelated tidbits out of flickr.
One is that flickr, for sure this time, is going to be adding video sharing functionality to its suite of features.
The other is that flickr released a new version of its web based uploader.
These features, while attractive to a broad range of users, seen targeted more at the 'casual' flickr user than at the 'hobbyist'. Video is only available on Point & Shoot cameras, not DSLRs, and the web upload form is geared mainly towards those who haven't sunk time into installing a dedicated uploading application.
Not surprisingly, these features seem to be emerging as more users from the increasingly defunct yahoo! Photos adopt new flickr accounts.
Video support is important because the majority of photos posted to flickr come from Point & Shoot cameras with video functionality, not from digital SLRs. The other day, I sat down and randomly reloaded the recent uploads page, seeing that around 75% of flickr photos come from point & shoot cameras or cameraphones. This means that around 25% of uploads are coming from DSLRs, which is out of proportion from the photo snapping population at large, but still the minority.
Flickr is difficult to use for a lot of people. While powerful, it isn't always intuitive to participate for beginners. It might be extremely intuitive given how much functionality it has, but it isn't very easy to use when compared to 'lightweight' photosharing options like fotolog.net or yahoo! Photos. This is problematic because flickr needs to maintain as broad and as horizontal a membership as possible, since photo viewing and photo sharing are so intertwined on the service.
It isn't enough to cater to 'hobbyist' photographers, growing as their ranks might be, because every hobbist photographer has real life friends [or should, at least] and if those friends can't figure out how to upload and share as well, flickr will alienate them. They won't stick around and subscribe to the hobbyist's photos, and flickr becomes an increasingly incestuous monoculture.
So flickr needs to make itself a lot easier to use, less DSLR focused and more accessible to a broader range of photographers. This means simplifying its interface, while also enhancing it to match the needs of these users. It means not sticking with 'what works' for a limited demographic, but instead expanding its horizons and ultimately becoming easier and more useful for more people.
Making things easier is going to be pretty difficult, but it is good that flickr is biting the bullet to make the effort instead of resting on its laurels.
2 comments on this Ink
On August 11, 2007, Wayne Upchurch said ...
I am glad to hear about their adding video to the mix, in general... however..
Ease of use is one thing.. look and feel, I hope, will still be something else? Personally, I don't like the easy site designs of most other sharing/stock sites. There's pretty much no "character" to the presentation on them, sacrificed to ease of use, I presume.
(Sheesh...we Just got used to the way Flickr looks, after Gamma 'matured'.)
Once there Was no Flickr.. then there was Classy Flickr.. then there was YouTube And Classy Flickr..
I Surely Do Hope we're not looking at there Only Being YouTubes ad infinitum, just by different names and management. Frankly... I have been in many a conversation about how Flickr isn't as special as it once was, and this news begins the wondering, all over again, how long it Will be a Class Act.
Oh well.. maybe the Flickr clones can provide Some of what drew us to it over all the others, and I trust Utata to be at least One oasis of character, since there are plenty of "bottom line" driven sites in an inflating bubble (remember dotcom?).
On August 14, 2007, Bryan Partington said ...
i think that flickr has really never been a class act.
there have always been classy corners and rude corners and everything in between.
flickr has been very good at having all these different corners and experiences without having them all crash into one another .. happy snaps and fine art photos, porn and family friendly stuff, flower macros and urban exploration etc. etc. all coexisting.
flickr's approach to video will have to be the same, but i don't suspect they will have to anything special to maintain the approach, since what i'm talking about is fundamentally cooked into flickr's DNA by way of its Contacts and Groups systems.
they'll only have to remember not to mess it up.
Otherwise, in Flickr News:
- Previously: Paper Crane Project Gets Flickrblogged
Utata Ink is a daily publication edited by Bryan Partington (striatic). Photos used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and obtained via the flickr API unless otherwise noted. To make a contribution to Ink, please visit Ink Me.
