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Tag: Flickr

  • Yahoo Image Search Gets More Personalized With Flickr Integration

    Yahoo Image Search Gets More Personalized With Flickr Integration

    Yahoo announced that it has revamped its image search offering to include imagery from Flickr on a personalized basis. In addition to showing web results, it will also now display Flickr-based images from your own Flickr account, from people you follow on Flickr, and “top” public photos from the service.

    Yahoo says it only shows images from your Flickr account if they’re actually relevant to the search results. We’ll see how good they are at that.

    The company says in a blog post:

    Don’t forget Yahoo also has advanced search options, like color and size, that now apply to both images from the Web and Flickr. And if you’re looking for a photo to use, just select the use case you need in the “License” drop-down menu.

    There’s also a new “More images” button that appears on each category of Flickr image results and links directly to Flickr.com for even more photos.

    The revamp is currently available in the United States on desktop. It’s unclear if and when it will be available on mobile and in other regions.

    If nothing else, it’s a good example of Yahoo integrating its products together in an organic way. Frankly, it’s a little surprising that Yahoo didn’t offer personalized Flickr image results in image search before now.

    In other image search news, Pinterest just unveiled a new visual search tool that lets you search within image pins to find related items.

    Image via Yahoo

  • Flickr Just Got A Big Redesign. What Do You Think?

    Flickr just unveiled a major overhaul of its upload, photostream, share and search experience across mobile and desktop. It comes with the company’s advanced image recognition technology.

    “This new set of tools and powerful search will make it easier to access, organize, and share your photos anywhere,” a spokesperson for Flickr tells WebProNews.

    So far, I haven’t seen a lot of feedback from users, which is probably a good sign. You definitely see a lot more when users don’t like the changes to a product.

    In a note on the Flickr blog, director of user experience and design Shaun Forouzandaeh writes:

    We’re on different devices and platforms at different times and we never want to think twice about accessing the photos we love and want to share. Flickr for iPhone, iPod, iPad, Apple TV, Android, and Web is now a unified design experience, working seamlessly wherever you are. In addition there are Flickr Uploadr apps for Windows and Mac OS, which allow you to quickly upload thousands of photos up to the Flickr cloud.

    Refined, crafted, and vibrant, Flickr’s new design helps users understand the product as they use it, with new ways to experience gorgeous photography. The UX will help you find photos effortlessly, organize with hyper speed, make pixel edits without destroying originals, and share seamlessly with control over privacy.

    The new desktop Uploadr apps work in the background and provide notifications letting users know when photos have been found and take them directly to them on the web as soon as they’re uplaoded.

    There’s a new profile and camera roll. The main management view now displays and organizes thousands of photos and provides you access to tools as you need them. When you scroll, a timeline scrubber appears so you can jump back and find a particular moment in time more easily.

    “Select photos and the action tray appears, giving you the right control at the right time,” explains Forouzandaeh. “This simple, powerful Camera Roll is the new home for all your photos in the apps and on the web. With refined typography, consistent grids, and useful tools, your photos feel more organized and beautiful from every angle.”

    In an effort to remove friction from the management interface, Flickr has implemented a multi-select swipe gesture on mobile and a click-and-drag experience on the desktop. When photos are selected, the action tray appears with editing tools and options for sharing and creating albums.

    Additionally, in edit mode on mobile, you can swipe over and down with one gesture to select a range of images more easily. Again, click-and-drag works on desktop.

    There’s a new unified search experience that lets you search your photos, photos from people you follow, and the billions of photos on Flickr with a single query. There’s also a new set of filters on the web version for primary color search. You can also combine color filters and aesthetics like minimalism, and depth of field. The search engine recognizes patterns and understands objects and aesthetics.

    They’ve also made design tweaks to comments and descriptions, lightening the backgrounds and placing greater emphasis on the photos themselves.

    What do you think? Big improvement?

    Images via Flickr

  • Flickr Apologizes For Selling User Photos

    A few weeks ago, Yahoo’s Flickr angered some photographers by selling their work for profit, which it would not share with them. The complaints started, and eventually it became a news story, which gained national attention courtesy of The Wall Street Journal. Now, the company is saying it’s sorry, and is changing its plans.

    Did you follow this story when it first started? Do you think Yahoo/Flickr was within its rights to do what it was doing? Do you think angry photographers have overreacted, or did Yahoo cross the line? Share your thoughts in the comments.

    The company launched Flickr Wall Art, enabling users to turn their personal photostreams as well as over 50 million “freely-licensed Creative Commons images and order hand-selected collections from Flickr’s licensed artists” into prints. Well, some who had photos available under Creative Commons didn’t expect their content to be used in this way.

    Yahoo appears to have been within the confines of the law, but still, users felt like they were being taken advantage of. Here are some of the comments we received from readers:

    Another desperate ploy to make money…

    It’s bull … This is exploitation at its finest. Now now Yahoo, trying to gain market share with a stunt like this – I foresee a big drop is flickr photo sharing site … Pinterest should really ride this wave…

    Typical short-sighted big business. How much richer would your photo library be if people had incentive to store their photos there? They could even advertise for the themes they wanted and get thousands if not millions of entries.But if consumers don’t walk, or sue, then they will march on . . . I see an emerging business coming out of this debacle.

    As one pointed out, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has made comments in the past that didn’t sit too well with photographers. She was once quoted as saying, “There’s no such thing as Flickr Pro, because today, with cameras as pervasive as they are, there is no such thing, really, as a professional photographer.”

    Either way, Flickr has now apologized, and announced that it’s no longer offering these Creative Commons photos through the service. Flickr VP Bernardo Hernandez writes:

    We’re sorry we let some of you down.

    About a month ago, we introduced Flickr Wall Art to allow our members to order printed photos on wood or canvas. Over the past few weeks, we’ve received a lot of feedback from the community and beyond — while some expressed their excitement about the new photography marketplace and the value it would bring, many felt that including Creative Commons-licensed work in this service wasn’t within the spirit of the Commons and our sharing community.

    We hear and understand your concerns, and we always want to ensure that we’re acting within the spirit with which the community has contributed. Given the varied reactions, as a first step, we’ve decided to remove the pool of Creative Commons-licensed images from Flickr Wall Art, effective immediately. We’ll also be refunding all sales of Creative Commons-licensed images made to date through this service.

    Flickr says it will be working closely with Creative Commons on programs that “align better” with its community values.

    Meanwhile, Flickr will continue to make its Wall Art service available, utilizing personal photostreams and licensed artists from the Flickr Marketplace.

    Was this right move from Yahoo? Do you think photographers were rightly upset about what the company did? Share your thoughts.

    Image via Flickr

  • Yahoo Angers Photographers By Selling Their Work

    How would you feel if the photo storage service you use decided to start selling your photos, and not share the profits with you? That’s what Yahoo’s Flickr is doing, and it’s leaving a bad taste in the mouths of some.

    Assuming the provider is within its legal bounds to be able to do so, would you mind if they sold your photos and kept all the money? Share your thoughts in the comments.

    Yahoo has upset Flickr users as it sells their photos and keeps all the profit, but at the same time is not actually doing anything legally wrong, according to the company and the EFF.

    It would seem that Yahoo is trying to make better use of the content it hosts in terms of turning it into a revenue stream. This stream should be at its peak during the holiday season.

    Last week, the company launched Flickr Wall Art, enabling users to turn their personal photostreams into prints, search from over 50 million “freely-licensed Creative Commons images, and order hand-selected collections from Flickr’s licensed artists.”

    “In addition, we’ve curated a gorgeous selection of Flickr Marketplace licensed photos in various popular categories — animals, food, abstract, landscapes, patterns, and travel,” the company said in a blog post. “With the option to use Creative Commons, licensed artist images, or a photo of your own, you have endless possibilities to create the perfect holiday gift.”

    For users, that sounds pretty good. Flickr is apparently the biggest Creative Commons content partner for photos. Some photographers supplying those photos, however, aren’t too thrilled about Yahoo using their work to make money without sharing any of the profits.

    The Wall Street Journal, which highlights some complaints from disgruntled photographers, reports:

    Yahoo says it is complying with the terms of Creative Commons by selling only images that permit commercial use. The licenses “are designed for the exact use case that we’re enacting through our wall-art product,” Bernardo Hernandez, vice president of Flickr, wrote in an email.

    …

    A spokesman for Creative Commons, a nonprofit group formed in 2001, confirmed Yahoo is in accord with its licenses. Legally, “it doesn’t appear that Flickr is doing anything wrong,” said Corynne McSherry, intellectual-property director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

    It’s just that some of the photographers made their photos available under Creative Commons under the impression that they’d be used in articles or by other sources rather than Yahoo itself turning them into a source of revenue, much less one that leaves out the content creators. In fact, it’s entirely possible that the move could hurt Yahoo. If enough photographers feel that way, they could simply stop using Flickr, and take their photos to other sites that do share revenue with content creators in these types of scenarios.

    As one photographer the Journal spoke with pointed out, however, leaving Flickr isn’t that simple for those who have already invested so much into the service, and have massive amounts of photos on the service. That photographer, Devon Adams, had this to say in a Facebook post:

    I am very wary about Flickr’s new policies about selling CC images as mural art on their website. Biggest complaint is how rough it is to keep attribution with the image.

    Adams links to a blog post from Carter Law Firm, which says:

    Every Creative Commons license I’ve ever seen requires giving the copyright holder an attribution for their work. (Always give credit where it’s due!) I would hope that Yahoo would put the attribution on the front of the image – in a lower corner, so anyone who sees it can know who created the image. If that’s not possible (and good luck convincing me it’s not possible), at least put a non-removable label or notice on the back of who the copyright holder is and a URL to the original image on Flickr. If they don’t give an attribution as the license requires, they could be committing copyright infringement and could face a cease and desist letter, a bill, or a lawsuit.
    …

    I hope Yahoo is diligent about giving photographers the credit they deserve and respecting when a photographer changes the license on their Flickr account to only allow non-commercial uses. This won’t impact a person’s ability to own wall art of it prior to the license being changed; but Yahoo should stop selling it if the artist doesn’t want the company making money from it.

    This isn’t the first time Yahoo has tried to better monetize Flickr of late. It also started including ads in photo slideshows in another move that irked some of those photo providers.

    While some photographers are clearly not thrilled with Yahoo’s selling of their work, it’s certainly worth noting that the majority of the photographers the Journal spoke with were actually okay with it. 8 out of 14 indicated they were fine with the move, mainly because they’re happy to get the exposure and see people appreciating their work. It’s hard to say, based on this small data set, just how controversial Yahoo’s move is.

    Do you see a problem with what Yahoo is doing? Let us know what you think.

    Image via Flickr

  • Flickr Finally Lets You Embed Photos Across the Web

    In an effort to spread its presence across the web, Yahoo-owned photo sharing site Flickr has finally launched web embeds. Starting today, you can embed any public photo (or stream of photos) on your blog or site.

    Yes, only publicly shared photos – Flickr isn’t allowing people to just embed private photos, so don’t worry.

    Also, it’s not just a single photo we’re talking about. If a photo is part of a set, Flickr’s embed box will let readers cycle through all the photos in the set (in the highest quality, of course):

    “Flickr Web Embeds are contextual and interactive! If you’ve embedded a photo from a set, photostream or group, people will be able to browse through the whole collection. Because Flickr is dedicated to high-quality, full-resolution images, we are also offering a magnificent full-screen viewing experience for the photos on your site. We’ll never compress or resize your images,” says Flickr’s Daniel Elba.

    All you have to do to embed Flickr photos on your site is click the “share” button in the right-hand side menu, select the button, and choose your size. After that, just copy and paste the embed code and you’re done.

    As you can see, Flickr’s embeds contain full attribution. Flickr will also keep track of views garnered from your photo’s placement on another site, “so you get a sense for how popular your photos really are.”

    Main image via Flickr, Rachel Pasch

  • Yahoo Launches Flickr Photo Books

    Yahoo has decided to add a new revenue stream to Flickr with the launch of Photo Books, which let users order books comprised of their photos.

    “Pick your favorite photo set, click on the Photo Book icon, and we’ll automatically turn it into a beautiful book for you,” says Flickr VP Tom Hughes. “In almost no time, you can turn your photos into something memorable, that we’ll send it right to your doorstep (or to a lucky friend or family member.)”

    “Our focus with Flickr Photo Books is to make it simple and intuitive to create a book that always looks great and is beautifully finished,” he adds. “From the handpicked full-bleed layouts, to the heavy stock photo Lustre paper and the image-based cover with matching dust jacket, we know you’re going to love your books.”

    And obviously, this comes just in time for the holidays.

    It will cost you $34.95 for an 11″ x 8.5″ glossy hardcover book with matching glossy dust jacket. That’s for 20 pages. Beyond that it’s $0.50 per page. You can only go up to 100 pages.

    You can get started here.

  • The Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze: The Best Use of Pumpkins You’ll See This Halloween

    The reinvention of the common Jack O’Lantern was kicked into overdrive with the explosion of social media. Pictures from people eager to share their stencil-powered carved gourds that pay homage to everything from video games to favorite sports icons. And this is a good thing. Jack O’Lanterns are pretty damn awesome and so is the creativity and craftsmanship involved. However, every so often, something comes along and blows pretty much everything else out of the water, and like a viral snowball, the popularity grows as social sharing takes over. Take The Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze, which is appearing in the Hudson Valley area of upstate New York.

    As the name implies, the event is simply an incredible explosion of Jack O’Lanterns–over 5000, in fact–which are used to create various monsters, dinosaurs, and various other Halloween themes. There’s even a tunnel of Jacks that needs to be seen to be appreciated. Thankfully, this is where social media kicks in nicely. The sad truth is, most of us won’t be able see the Jack O’Lantern event in person. Thanks to the power of Joshua Bousel’s Flickr account, we can live vicariously via some fantastic photography.

    An example of what The Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze offers:

    Jack O'Lantern Blaze

    Jack O'Lantern Blaze

    Jack O'Lantern Blaze

    Click to enlarge images


    You owe it to yourself to pay a visit to Bousel’s Flickr page, especially if you’re fan of Jack O’Lanterns. The craftsmanship and creativity is pretty breathtaking, and it’s easy to see why people are making the trip to see these displays in person. Thankfully, social media allows those who can’t make the trip to connect to the event, if only virtually.

    [All images courtesy of Joshua Bousel’s Flickr page]

  • Maroon 5 Discovered Amazing Photographer Rosie Hardy

    When Rosie Hardy, just a sweet girl of 15 at the time, was in search for the perfect MySpace picture for her own page, she never could have imagined that search would lead to where it has today. She is, in fact, the girl on the cover of Maroon 5‘s album “Hands All Over”.

    Hands All Over

    “Photography was really just a hobby for me,” Rosie Hardy said. “Never really in my wildest dreams did I think I’d be discovered by Maroon 5 and it would launch an entire new life for me. I still can’t believe it has happened!”

    “It was all a very cliché experience,” Rosie admits, in an interview for Flickr. “I was a fifteen year-old girl, and I really wanted a pretty My Space picture to make the guy I had a crush on fancy me. So I did with a little point-and-shoot camera. But what started off as taking pictures of myself turned into me going outside, getting adventurous and really loving it. I posted them on Flickr and started getting great feedback.”

    What happened then was every artist’s dream come true, and she wasn’t even looking for it! In 2010, Maroon 5 was ready to release their newest album “Hands All Over”, but they had a problem. The band did not have a picture for their album cover, so their management team hit the Internet, desperately searching and using the words “Hands All Over”. Immediately came across Rosie’s Flickr page.

    Rosie Hardy
    “They really liked the concept,” Rosie explains of one of her photos. “So they contacted me and asked if I could redo it, but in a more sexy way for the band. At first, I didn’t believe them, and I thought it was an Internet troll. You know, trolling at his best. I figured they were just trying to trip me up, so he could publish my response on Reddit for the entire world to see!”

    “But when I got contacted again, I realized this was legit,” Rosie says. “So I started to follow through and see what I could do.”

    Rosie got nude, jumped on her parents’ bed, and took several self-portraits. She posed with hands in her hair, hands in the sky, hands everywhere. She edited it all together and sent it back to the Maroon 5 team. Their response was one she never expected.

    “They took a look at it and said, ‘Right, we’re happy with this. No other model needed. It’s going to be you on the cover’,” Rosie says. “I couldn’t believe it. I pretty much fell off my chair when I realized that it was actually happening!”

    After the album release, her photo appeared on buses, billboards, and in store windows. It opened up her career from there to many high profile clients and to do the things she has always dreamt of. The extremely talented 19-year-old says she hopes to be the next Annie Leibovitz, but, “As long as I’m taking pictures, I will be happy.”

    Image via Flickr

  • Flickr Tests ‘New Photo Experience’ with 25% Larger Photos

    Continuing on the path to making Flickr awesome again, the Yahoo-owned company has taken a step to make viewing photos on the web a lot more enjoyable.

    “The new photo experience now gives you the largest possible image, while not deprecating the story around a photo. With the new photo experience the image is about 25% bigger than on the previous photo page. You’ll see more pixels, get a cleaner view without any elements on the top or the bottom of the screen, so that photos can really be the center point,” says Flickr.

    Photos are indeed much, much larger in the new view. Comments, descriptions, likes, and other supplementary information have been pushed to the right-hand side. It allows you to see all of the pertinent photo info without having to scroll down. Flickr is also experimenting with photo recommendations

    Back in May, Flickr unveiled a completely redesigned user interface that did away with a lot of the white space and make photo viewing a more immersive experience. At the time, individual photo pages were improved, but the new design represents a marked improvement.

    Flickr also touts a speed improvement:

    “The new photo experience is build from the ground up and uses new technology to show you photos much faster. While we are still working on improving the performance even more, you’ll see a significant performance boost just by going from one photo to another. Which, by the way, you can now simply do by clicking in the image,” says Flickr’s Emily Yiu.

    You can take the new photo experience for a test drive by clicking the “try our new photo experience” button, which is located on any individual photo page. Flickr says that they plan to roll it out wide later this year.

    Image via Flickr blog

  • Flickr for iOS Gets Auto-Upload, Auto-Straightening

    If you use Flickr on iOS 7, you no longer have to manually upload your photos (unless you really want to).

    Flickr has just announced an update that brings an auto-upload function to the app. Just like auto-upload functions on apps like Google+ and Facebook, you can opt-in to having any photos you take automatically upload to your Flickr accounts. From there, you’ll have granular control over which photos you make public.

    With this update for iOS, Flickr is also adding an auto-straightening feature that they say will alleviate some frustration.

    “Our last update included customizable filters and editing tools, and we’re adding a powerful new addition: auto-straightening. Have you ever framed up the perfect photo but got bumped as you took the shot? It can be pretty frustrating. With the tap of a button, the Flickr app will instantly straighten your picture. It’s a tool that works like magic when your photo is just a little bit off,” says Flickr’s Markus Spiering.

    A little over a month ago, Flickr made a big improvement to their iOS app by adding live filters. Yahoo recently acquired IQ Engines as well, which will be used to improve Flickr in the future. That’s only one of a slew of acquisitions Yahoo has made, many of which seem to have direct implications to Flickr.

    When Yahoo first hired Marissa Mayer as CEO, she got hit with a clear directive from internet users: make Flickr awesome again. Whether or not it’s regained its awesome status is up to users, but Yahoo is definitely trying to improve the photo-sharing network.

    Image via Flickr Blog

  • Flickr Just Launched A Big Improvement For iPhone Users

    Yahoo announced today that it is launching a new photo taking experience for iPhone users aimed at taking better advantage of what the device’s camera has to offer. The iPhone 5, by the way, is the most popular camera on Flickr.

    “In our view, taking a photo should be an enhancement of what you’re experiencing and seeing through your device,” says Markus Spiering, Head of Product at Flickr. “We’ve come up with a camera that gives you full control over how your final photo looks, even before you snap the shot. Our goal is to make it effortless for you to have a beautiful result, with simple but powerful features.”

    Yahoo is taking advantage of recent acquisitions like GhostBird Software and KitCam to improve Flickr. Much of what they’re adding now comes from these.

    This includes live filters, which show you how your photo looks while you take it. You can swipe through filters as you’re setting up your shot, and and view preview tiles to see what it will look like.

    “All of our filters are also customizable after you’ve taken the photo,” says Spiering. “You don’t have to leave the camera and lose focus on your perfectly melting ice cream shot. In addition to our magic wand, we’re adding all the advanced tools so you can enhance, crop, sharpen, balance color, use Levels, add vignette and more – for free. You now have a complete photo studio in your hands.”

    Flickr filters

    Yahoo continues to update its offerings on a daily basis. This follows a slew of redesigns the company launched this week.

    Yahoo also made another acquisition regarding Flickr recently, so we’ll probably be seeing further improvements from that in the near future.

  • Yahoo Buys IQ Engines To Improve Flickr

    Yahoo Buys IQ Engines To Improve Flickr

    Yes, Yahoo is still acquiring companies. This time it’s IQ Engines, an image search company, as first reported by AFP.

    IQ Engines does indeed have a message about the acquisition posted on its homepage:

    We are thrilled to announce that IQ Engines is joining the Flickr team at Yahoo!. As longtime Flickr fans and fellow photography enthusiasts, we look forward to working on improving photo organization and search for the community.

    At IQ Engines, our dream has been to transform the way people search and browse their photos by helping to process them intelligently. We are excited to take things to a global level with one of the most widely used photo services in the world.

    The company will no longer be registering new users. Existing customers will have 30 days to use its API.

    Yahoo also recently acquired Ghostbird Software to enhance its Flickr offering. More on that here. Yahoo has since added new Flickr integration into Yahoo Mail.

    Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

    Image: Flickr

  • Yahoo Mail Gets New Flickr Integration

    Yahoo Mail Gets New Flickr Integration

    For those of you still getting adjusted to the new Yahoo Mail, Yahoo has a new feature for you, and it utilizes Fllickr, another product Yahoo recently redesigned.

    The new integration lets users share individual photos or sets right from Flickr from within Yahoo Mail.

    Yahoo Mail with Flickr

    “Since you’re sending and receiving hundreds of millions of photos in Yahoo! Mail every single day, we wanted to make it an even better experience,” Yahoo Mail principal engineer Joe Covalesky says. “Not only is it simple to share as many Flickr photos as you’d like, but they’re displayed in a beautiful way, just like they are on Flickr itself.”

    “Much like our Dropbox integration, all you have to do is click the arrow next to the paperclip and choose ‘Share from Flickr,’” he adds. “Since you’re logged in already, all of your photos are there waiting for you. Not a Flickr user? No problem, you can sign up without leaving Mail.”

    More on that Dropbox integration here.

    As a reminder, Flickr added a terabyte of storage for Flickr users when it launched the redesign, so as Covalesky points out, this would be a good reason to utilize more of that space.

    Yahoo says it also working on some other new features for Mail, so if you haven’t left in exasperation yet, stay tuned for more.

  • Yahoo Acquires GhostBird Software To Integrate With Flickr

    Yahoo just keeps on acquiring companies.This time it’s GhostBird Software, which the company will use to enhance the recently enhanced Flickr even further. GhostBird makes the photo apps KitCam and PhotoForge2.

    “We’ll integrate many of the mobile photography experiences from GhostBird into our Flickr apps,” a Yahoo spokesperson tells WebProNews.

    Travis Houlette and Ye Lu of GhostBird will join Yahoo’s Flickr team in San Francisco.

    “If users already have the KitCam or PhotoForge2 apps on their devices, they will be able to continue to keep using them,” the spokesperson says. “We won’t continue to update the apps in future versions of iOS are released and as of today, they’ll no longer be available for download from the App Store.”

    Here’s what GhostBird had to say about the news on its site:

    Today we are thrilled to announce that Yahoo! has acquired GhostBird Software!

    Over the last few years, mobile photography has really taken off, and we feel privileged to have been part of its growth. We are especially humbled to have introduced some of the most-loved photography apps to the App Store. We have been dedicated to bringing incredible photo-editing experiences to iOS since 2009; and the best part is that the journey has just begun.

    As photography enthusiasts, we are long-time admirers of Flickr, and we’re thrilled to be able to bring our technology and passion for beautiful photos to the Flickr team. There has been so much exciting progress at Yahoo! as they re-imagine their most-loved products for mobile, including the awesome new Flickr apps for iOS and Android.

    If you already have the KitCam or PhotoForge2 apps on your devices, you will be able to continue to use them in their current versions. However, we will not continue to update the apps as future versions of iOS are released. Also, users who have previously purchased the app but don’t have them on their devices today will not be able to re-download past purchases. As of today, KitCam and PhotoForge2 are no longer available for download from the App Store.

    Thank you for all of your support and feedback. We can’t wait to work with the Flickr team and help you capture even more beautiful moments for years to come.

  • Flickr Now Offers a Terabyte of Storage, New Photo-Rich Interface

    Just one day after Yahoo announced that former Googler Marissa Mayer would be taking the reigns as the new CEO, the internet rose up with its first request: Please make Flickr awesome again. Ever since Yahoo acquired the photo-sharing service back in 2005, users have dropped off and the quality of the experience has gone down – at least according to the general consensus. The common wisdom is that Yahoo kind of screwed up Flickr, and now they’re looking to rectify that damage.

    At a press event in NYC, just hours after Mayer officially announced the company’s acquisition of Tumblr, Yahoo unveiled a completely revamp Flickr – complete with a fresh UI redesign and a whole hell of a lot of storage.

    The latter is probably the most significant news to come out of the announcement. Starting today, you now have a free terabyte of space. That’s huge. As Yahoo says, “you could take a photo every hour for forty years without filling one.” That’s approximately 873,813 4.0 megapixel photos, 436,906 8mp photos, or 218,453 16mp photos. This upgraded storage also means that you can house longer videos on Flickr – 3 minutes at 1080p per video.

    The interface has received a massive upgrade as well, as Flickr has done away with most of the white space on the site to give users a truly immersive photo experience.

    “We want Flickr to be the most amazing community and place for you to share your photos. So, we’re also revealing a beautiful new design that puts photos at the heart of your Flickr experience, where they should always be. Whether it’s a sweeping landscape or a family portrait, we want every photo to be at its most spectacular,” says Flickr’s Markus Spiering. “Your homepage is now a gateway to everything you care about, and all the photos Flickr has to offer. Our new Activity Feed combines your friends’ recent uploads with activity on your own photos, and all in a beautiful design that lets you share and interact right on the page.”

    The individual photo pages have been improved to highlight the image in high-res, pushing the photo information below the fold.

    There are also some new paid options for the service – for $49.99 a year you can get rid of all the ads on the site, and for $499.99 you can snag 2TB of storage.

    Flickr also unveiled a new Android app, which brings it up to speed with the iOS upgrade the service received a few months ago.

    “The world is going mobile, and in December we took the first big step to send Flickr wherever you go with a new and beloved iPhone app. Our brand new Android app pushes the boundaries on beauty even further. We designed it with your needs in mind: how you interact, how you share, and how you view photos when you’re on the go.”

    The new site is live, as is the new Android app. Check it out.

  • Yahoo Launches New Weather App For iPhone

    Yahoo Launches New Weather App For iPhone

    In addition to its new Mail app for iPad and Android, Yahoo has unveiled a new Weather app for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

    The app utilizes images from Flickr to show current local conditions.

    Yahoo Director of Mobile and Emerging Products, Marco Wirasinghe, says, “Inside you’ll find stunning snapshots of weather around the world. With a tilt of your phone, get lost scrolling through photos reflecting the current weather in places that matter to you. We like to think of it as flipping through a stack of postcards from your travels. It’s easy to get the details. Tap the temperature for a quick view of the forecast or scroll down for precipitation, wind and pressure, a radar map, and more.”

    “Our goal is to have amazing photos for every weather condition that cover the globe — morning, afternoon, and night — across every city in the world, and we want your help,” Wirasinghe adds. “Whether you’re simply a daydreamer or an avid photographer, submit photos of your favorite places to our Flickr Group and your image can be seen by tens of millions in Yahoo! Weather for iPhone.”

    The app is available in 30 languages, and can be found in the App Store.

    More on the Flickr blog.

    Flickr weather app

  • Anonymous Hacks North Korea’s Twitter, Flickr Accounts

    Did you know North Korea has a Twitter and flickr account? The nation uses these accounts to spread its propaganda, but recent world events have made the nation’s online presence a target for hackers.

    The Guardian reports that North Korea’s Twitter and flickr accounts have been compromised by hackers claiming to be a part of Anonymous. The reasoning behind the attacks seems to be in retaliation to North Korea’s most recent threat to attack the United States and its allies with nuclear weapons. In fact, one of the images posted on flickr calls out North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un for “threatening world peace with ICBMs and nuclear weapons” among other things.

    Anonymous Hacks North Korea's Twitter, Flickr Accounts

    Other images on the flickr account include an image of the North Korean flag with a Guy Fawkes mask, and a simple “We Are Anonymous” in white text on a black background.

    The Twitter hack is far less entertaining, however, as the only updates to it thus far have been multiple messages that say “hacked” while linking to North Korean Web sites that have been taken down by Anonymous.

    Unlike other recent hacks, I doubt that North Korea will try to wrestle away its accounts from Anonymous. I highly doubt that Twitter and flickr are in the mood to help them get the accounts back either.

  • Flickr for iOS Adds Hashtag Support

    Flickr for iOS Adds Hashtag Support

    The new version of Flickr for iOS bringss the photo-sharing app a little more in line with similar social apps Instagram and Twitter. Now, when you take a no filter, beach picture in the middle of summer, you can post it on Flickr’s iOS app as a #nofilter picture of the #beach in #summer.

    Yep, Flickr for iOS now has hashtag support. You can addd hashtags to any photo’s title of description, and like hashtag functionality in any other app, clicking on the tag will open up a search of other photos on the service with the same hashtag.

    Version 2.11.820 also allows iOS users to participate in Flickr’s weekly photo challenge, #FlickrFriday.

    You still won’t find any “hashtags” on Flickr on the web – it’s still just “tags.” And any current web tags don’t translate to clickable hashtags on the iOS app. It look like for now, this shift toward hashtags is a mobile-only venture for Flickr.

    In other hashtag news, anyone popular social service may be adding them in the near future. Recent reports said that Facebook is working on incorporating the hashtag.

    You can grab the new Flickr for iOS today.

  • Flickr for iOS Gets Faster Uploading, Tagging, and More

    Flickr’s iOS app has just received an update that includes an array of new features as well as the general “making it faster” claim.

    First up, Flickr photo uploading is now faster:

    Uploads from the Flickr app are much faster. We did some magic to optimize uploads, but also start uploading in the background while you think about the photo’s title or where you want to share it to. You basically get the best of both worlds: High resolution uploads that will make sure that you can enjoy your photos in great quality in the future, plus fast uploads in the background, so that you don’t have to wait.

    It’s now easier for you to save photos from your photostream to your camera roll, too.

    Feature wise, Flickr now automatically saves your photos to your camera roll before you add a filter. Also, you can now tag contacts in comments with an @-mention. Whenever someone does that, you’ll now get a notification.

    The high-resolution photos in the lightbox view have gotten even more high-res, and Flickr says that you’ll be more impressed when you zoom in.

    And last but not least, Flickr finally lets you take photos using the iPhone’s volume up botton.

    In short, a couple of nice new features and UI improvements. You can grab the new version of the Flickr app from iTunes today.

  • Yahoo Image Search Gets Creative Commons Flickr Images

    Yahoo announced that it has added images from Flickr that are available for re-use or re-posting under Creative Commons terms to it Image Search results. This includes tens of millions of photos.

    To access these images, simply go to Yahoo Image Search, and search like normal, then if you want to use something, just select the “labeled for reuse” filter on the left-hand side, then hover over the thumbnail to see details about the photo (including the photographer’s name).

    Then, just click on the thumbnail to view the image. You can see the specific Creative Commons license terms for the image by clicking “attribution”. You can also see more pics from that particular photographer if you click “i”.

    The feature is available on the desktop version as well as on mobile devices and tablets.

    This is a welcome addition to search results for bloggers, and anyone writing on the web on a regular basis, who is on the lookout for interesting usable images for articles and posts.