Flickr
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| Website | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Flickr |
| Owner/Maintainer: | |
| Dates: | February 10, 2004 |
| Type: | hosting service |
| Fandom: | N/A |
| URL: | https://flickr.com/ |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Flickr is an hosting service for image and video, as well as an online community, founded in Canada by Ludicorp a Vancouver-based company in 2004. Flickr was previously a common way for amateur and professional photographers to host high-resolution photos,[1][2] but over time it also became popular with fannish community, thus becoming a means of sharing fanarts and fanvids. Predating of Instagram, the only other sites of the same type were Picasa from Google, Fanpop and Imgur, in addition to basic hosting journals or personal websites -- e.g. Geocities, Angelfire, Tripod, Livejournal, JournalFen and etc… -- which, however, did not have the same hosting quantity that could upload image with high quality as Flickr.
Flickr was an early website to implement tag clouds, which were used until 2013, providing access to images tagged with the most popular keywords. Tagging was further revised in the photopage redesign of March 2014. Flickr has been cited as a prime example of effective use of folksonomy.[3]
Hosting and Accounts
Flickr has always offered two types of accounts: free and paid. Until January 7, 2019, free accounts had up to 1 TB of storage. On January 8, 2019, the account offerings changed.[4] The free option is limited to 1,000 photos or videos stored, with videos limited to three minutes.
As a result of the SmugMug buyout, Flickr added the ability for users to download all of their account data, such as photo albums, contacts, and comments.[5]
Changes and Controversies
On June 13, 2008, Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield announced his resignation on July 12, 2008, which followed that of his wife and co-founder Caterina Fake, who left the company on the same day.[6] Butterfield wrote a humorous resignation letter to Brad Garlinghouse.[7]
Since June 1, 2009, Flickr has been blocked in China in advance of the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.[8]
On June 13, 2017, Verizon Communications acquired Yahoo!, including Flickr.[9][10] Verizon reorganized Yahoo!, along with AOL, into a new umbrella company, Oath, which was renamed as Verizon Media on January 8, 2019.
On April 20, 2018, SmugMug acquired Flickr from Verizon's Oath and put an end to Flickr 1 TB storage plan for free users. Those users had until February 5, 2019, to convert to "Pro" accounts or their photo streams would be reduced to a maximum of 1,000 pictures.[11][12][13] The deadline was later extended to March 12, 2019. This policy, however, was never implemented and was abandoned in March, 2022 in favor of a policy that restricted content unless the user upgraded and paid for a Pro account.[14]
References
- ^ Sandler, Rachel. "A small family-run firm bought Flickr from Verizon and says it can bring back its glory days". Business Insider.
- ^ "Flickr vs Imgur: Which is Best? – Best Image Hosting Scripts". January 4, 2016.
- ^ Vander Wal, Thomas (January 17, 2006). "Folksonomy Research Needs Cleaning Up". Retrieved September 4, 2006.
- ^ "Flickr to delete millions of photos as it reduces allowance for free users". The Guardian. Retrieved November 6, 2018.
- ^ Fleishman, Glenn (2019-02-06). "How to download your Flickr photo library and transfer it to Google Photos or iCloud Photo library". Macworld. Archived from the original on 2019-02-27. Retrieved 2020-08-29.
- ^ Arrington, Michael (June 17, 2008). "Flickr Co-founders Join Mass Exodus From Yahoo". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2013-05-21.
- ^ Fitzsimmons, Caitlin (2008-06-19). "'I don't need no fancy parties' says Flickr Founder in Resignation Letter". The Guardian. Retrieved July 24, 2013.
- ^ Branigan, Tania (June 2, 2009). "China Blocks Twitter, Flickr and Hotmail Ahead of Tiananmen Anniversary". The Guardian. Retrieved July 24, 2013.
- ^ "Verizon completes Yahoo acquisition, creating a diverse house of 50+ brands under new Oath subsidiary". PR Newswire. June 13, 2017.
- ^ "Verizon to Own Flickr via $4.8B Yahoo Acquisition". PetaPixel. July 25, 2016.
- ^ Tiffany, Kaitlyn (6 February 2019). "Flickr will soon start deleting photos — and massive chunks of internet history". Vox.
- ^ Guynn, Jessica (April 20, 2018). "Exclusive: Flickr Bought by SmugMug, Which Vows to Revitalize the Photo Service". USA Today. Gannett Company.
- ^ "Why we're changing Flickr free accounts". Flickr Blog. 2018-11-01. Retrieved 2019-01-19.
- ^ Seville, Alex (2022-03-17). "Flickr forever: Creating the safest, most inclusive photography community on the planet". Flickr Blog. Retrieved 2022-04-02.