MetaChat - Curious about what metachatters think/will do about the Flickr changes?

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01 February 2007

Curious about what metachatters think/will do about the Flickr changes? I'm thinking I will let my account go because I'm pretty sure it's going to be inevitable anyway; I don't use Yahoo mail, and if I create an account I'm not going to remember to sign in, and they'll dump me. [update: maybe not - current info seems to say "no"]→[More:]

And I guess I'm just not motivated enough. Flickr grinds my last nerve to a bloody nub with its poky page loading, and the pages are ugly for a photo site - the design really reduces my enjoyment of the images. For these reasons I haven't bought a pro account; now it's pretty much out of the question.

The best-best thing about Flickr is the groups, though, and I don't think another site is going to be able to compete with them to get enough active members to really challenge them on that level.

What are your thoughts?

post by: taz at: 03:53 | 46 comments

You don't need to sign in to Yahoo! Mail to keep your Yahoo! account active. I don't, and my Flickr/Yahoo! account has been fine for ages.

I sign up for most webby things as soon as they appear -- it's a kind of obsession -- so I already had a Yahoo! account from long ago even though I wasn't really using it. I stayed old-school on Flickr for a while, but merged my accounts a few months ago. So that aspect of it doesn't really bother me.

For all the vaunted success of Flickr, the only people I know who use it are slightly internetty people like us, or their close friends and family. None of the people I know in real life have even heard of the thing. For me, the social aspects of the site are valuable because a lot of my acquaintances are internetty people, and for me Flickr is all about the personal and social.

I never really got into the groups of strangers sharing images with a common theme, nor have I ever browsed Flickr just to search for good 'Photography'. If those things are attractions for you, an account is probably still worth it just for the convenience of being able to easily 'bookmark' groups and photos within the site.

At the end of the day, if the site isn't providing anything useful for you then you shouldn't feel obliged to keep an account there. But I wouldn't let the Yahoo! account merging put you off keeping a convenience account just because you're worried that you'll have to do extra work to 'maintain' it from now on, because I don't think you will.

posted by chrismear 01 February | 04:08

Do you have a pro account? I'm wondering if yahoo users with flickr pro accounts don't get their yahoo accounts dumped for inactivity?

This Yahoo mail address Flickrbugs question seems to suggest that. Apparently, he can log in to his paid account, but not his free account because of the Yahoo mail problem.

posted by taz 01 February | 04:19

Ah! I found you! :) Yeah... pro account - I think that must be why you don't have to log in to your Yahoo mail.

So... in that case pro users would be okay, but I'll probably not go pro unless other changes make it irresistible.

posted by taz 01 February | 04:28

i haven't merged yet but i didn't think it was going to be a problem and i'm not a pro either. i have an old ID from either messenger or possibly just getting a yahoo account for something, and while i haven't checked it in well over a year, i'm fairly sure it exists (have yet to check it).
i'm not very "joinery" and only did finally get a flickr account for this place, although i did (or do) have (or had) have plans of doing things with it such as the moo cards and polyorama, or showcasing sets of things.
Since i plan on sussing out the merge myself soon, i'll let you know how it goes if you like, but while i didn't expect a problem, i also was pretty sure i'd taken care of this a while ago, so it possibly hasn't stuck...

posted by ethylene 01 February | 04:35

I've just tried signing in to Flickr with an ancient second Yahoo! account that I had lying around. The Yahoo! Mail was well and truly deactivated due to inactivity on that one, but I was able to sign in to Flickr just fine with it. So I don't think it's just a Pro account thing.

posted by chrismear 01 February | 04:36

Maybe I'm confused about this (certainly I'm confused!), but you are signing into a pro account with a Yahoo ID on which the mail has been deactivated, right? And the flickrbugs question person was also able to sign in to his pro account with a Yahoo ID with a deactivated mail account, it seems, but not his free account.

posted by taz 01 February | 04:45

Anyway... it's not a big deal for me as a freebie user; I can still browse Flickr to my heart's content even without an account (I think... maybe there are options that won't be there, now that I think about it - like larger image sizes. hmmm). Or maybe I'll try to get a yahoo id and just see how it goes. Apparently, it's really, really hard to come up with a yahoo id that hasn't been used.

posted by taz 01 February | 05:02

No, when I signed in using the mail-deactivated Yahoo! account, I created a new non-pro Flickr account for testing, and it worked fine.

posted by chrismear 01 February | 05:05

I merged my account yesterday. Somehow, I already had an unused unpro flickr account merged with my yahoo account. I must have set it up a while ago. Anyway, even though my yahoo mail wasn't working, that old unused flickr account was.

So, I think you can merge the accounts and not worry about it being deleted.

posted by seanyboy 01 February | 05:06

okay, I'll give it spin... when I can bear to face the registration process.

Just started reading the comments over at Flickr... hoo boy, does Yahoo ever need image upgrade. Heh.

posted by taz 01 February | 05:23

You don't have to worry about your Yahoo account being closed if you're a Flickr user. Yahoo puts a flag in their user database that says "this is a flickr user, never delete them". This is according to the Flickr employee here.

posted by matthewr 01 February | 05:27

It's a bit weird because I signed up for Rocketmail about eight or nine years ago and that became a Yahoo account. I then used that Yahoo account for Flickr. My Yahoo login works but the Rocketmail address doesn't because they stopped using that address a few months ago. So I have a Yahoo account that works, a Yahoo e-mail account that doesn't and a Flickr Pro account that does. Hmmm....

matthewr - thanks for highlighting that

posted by dodgygeezer 01 February | 05:39

I just signed into flickr with a Yahoo! account that was deactivated with respect to email. I'm, frankly, a little surprised and pleased. I'm still sort of pissy at flickr, for a whole host of other reasons, but I mostly just use it for browsing anyway.

posted by muddgirl 01 February | 08:14

Oh man, another Rocketmail user! *waves walking stick at dodgy*

taz, I switched my Flickr account over to a Yahoo login as soon as it became available, and the switch was seamless. (It also doesn't change your Flickr nickname, something a lot of the folks on the Flickr forums can't seem to absorb.)

A Yahoo ID isn't the same thing as a Yahoo email address... you don't need Yahoo email to log in to Flickr.

So basically, make up a Yahoo ID for yourself, and from then on Flickr will work for you just like it does now. (Which may not be a great recommendation, given your experience... I must be the only person who never sees Flickr moving slowly... it always loads up in an instant for me, at home and at work, but I hear others saying it doesn't for them. Don't know what's up with that.)

posted by BoringPostcards 01 February | 08:21

BP, I never have any performance problems with flickr either.

posted by mike9322 01 February | 08:23

So when you click someone's link to a Flickr photo it doesn't move like a glacier?

Why does Flickr hate me? It's so bad, I skip lots of links just because I see "flickr" in the address when I mouse over.

posted by taz 01 February | 08:26

It seems most of the technical issues are answered here, but I figured I'd tell you my thoughts. I think I agree with the gentler tone in the flickr threads. I don't like the tone of being told that in order to keep using something I bought a paid for, I need to sign up with a company I don't use. I mean, I had a yahoo acount, mainly because I felt it was better than hotmail, and this was pre-gmail.

Since gmail came along though, I don't use yahoo at all. For anything. Now I have had to use that account again, and add it to the list of things I need to remember. I mean, I do see that flickr has to do this, I get it, but I sort of agree that it could have been handled better and that perhaps they could have made some sort of gesture for the early members. I paid for multiple years, when they were still in beta, as a gesture of support. It'd be nice if that was appreciated in some way, rather than with a bullying (well not really, but you know what I mean) message to start using the company that bought them...

Anyway...it sounds like by and large, it's not a huge deal, and yeah, Yahoo could use some good PR people it seems.

Oh, and I have on-again-off-again struggles with flickr's page load times. I hear you taz, it has been VERY slow for me on occasion. These days, it's not too bad at all.

posted by richat 01 February | 08:31

Like taz, I get really slow performance from Flickr sometimes. However I understand that some of the new changes should do something to improve performance (restricting the number of tags and contacts).

Having said that I suspect the only way they'll really improve performance is by throwing a wheelbarrows of cash at it.

posted by dodgygeezer 01 February | 08:39

Now that I think about it, I have seen performance problems on flickr, but they were always on other people's machines, and they were always running IE. I doubt that's the case here, but food for thought.

I'm on Firefox, with Fasterfox installed, at work and home. No issues.

posted by mike9322 01 February | 09:01

FF here. I don't know if I want to install FasterFox, since I read about some problem somebody somewhere had somehow with it affecting something. :)

well... baby steps. I did make a yahoo account. It wasn't as hard to get a login as I thought it would be; I got taztaztazzle. Not that I will remember that, but okay, it's not entirely unconnected.

posted by taz 01 February | 09:04

taz, as long as you don't turn on prefetching, fasterfox is pretty benign.

posted by mike9322 01 February | 09:09

I got taztaztazzle. Not that I will remember that

I'll remember that, that's freaking adorable.

posted by chrismear 01 February | 09:12

Remember my flickr tale of woe? I had so much trouble signing up for an account that it was ridiculous. And then I finally got an account and they deleted it. But my tale of woe turned into a tale of whoa when they out of the blue emailed me, apologized, and gave me a 6 month upgrade to Pro. Which I renewed when the 6 months were up, because the Pro account makes the whole flickr experience a lot more enjoyable.

I'm not really invested enough to care about their changes....I don't know. Things change. The things they proposed don't seem all that outlandish or anything, but I can see why some dieharders are getting upset about it. For me though...meh.

posted by iconomy 01 February | 09:13

(the meh was supposed to be ironic)

posted by iconomy 01 February | 09:18

TAZ I AM EXCITED TO FIND SOMEONE ELSE WHO DOESN'T LIKE FLICKR!!

ahem.

Really, though, I avoid clicking Flickr links a lot of the time because I know it'll take forever to load the page. And you're right, it's butt ugly.

I also hate de.li.cio.us (or whatever). But mostly just because it's even more butt than Flickr. But I suspect I may be the only soul on earth who feels this way.

posted by loiseau 01 February | 09:50

I finally signed up yesterday. Eventually I will be uploading some pics-I got a few up yesterday, but nothing major.

posted by bunnyfire 01 February | 09:51

Oh yes - flickr is ugly. It's just so...ugly.

posted by iconomy 01 February | 09:54

Yahoo! has the reverse midas touch, every service they've bought they've eventually degraded the usefulness of said service. The stuck it to me with both GeoCities and eGroups and I was really disappointed when they bought Flickr. (And del.icio.us damn it as I found out yesterday. Flickr's utility to _me_ I can duplicate with my own hosting, del.icio.us not so much.)

How much longer do you think it'll be before they start serving interstitials when browsing streams? Especially since after the forced change over they'll have yummy demographic data on all their users.

loiseau I agree that del.icio.us is ugly however it's also really clean, the benefit of which shouldn't be overlooked for that kind of service.

posted by Mitheral 01 February | 09:58

I very rarely find Flickr slow and I don't know of a good alternative. As for the login what do I care if it's a flickr, yahoo or bob's log-in shack, log-in? I really don't get why people are so upset. and de.li.cio.us does suck. a lot.

posted by arse_hat 01 February | 10:29

joemullins has a good comment on why the reasoning for this forced changed comes across as marketing BS.

posted by Mitheral 01 February | 10:34

No, I won't use bob's log-in shack! YOU CAN"T MAKE ME. I once logged in with bob's log-in shack, and used my cute bunny pic to sell logs. That's just not right. LOGS ARE NO FRIENDS TO BUNNIES.

So... weirdness. I just clicked on BP's diana pix link (just because I love you, BP - don't think I go around clicking on flickr links willynilly), and hey - the page popped right up. No wait. Interesting.

posted by taz 01 February | 10:35

As I've probably made clear, there's definitely a huge gray area between "I HATE THIS WHY DOESN'T ANYONE ELSE HATE THIS" and "OMG STOP OVER-REACTING YOU LUSER". There are a bunch of logisitical issues that flickr has not addressed: namely, this sort of sucks for people with multiple yahoo! email accounts on the same computer, since logging into and out of yahoo!email logs into and out of yahoo!main which will now log into and out of flickr. For those of us who don't store usernames and passwords in our browser, this becomes a huge pain, and really detracts from the service.

posted by muddgirl 01 February | 10:50

I've had the yahoo logon for a while to access my flickr account. For some reason I couldn't get in using old skool and I just started a yahoo thingy. That was many months (more than a year?) ago and I've never checked my yahoo mail account. But my flickr is still there and I can still access it with the yahoo.

I don't see what all the fuss is about.

posted by Doohickie 01 February | 10:52

"LOGS ARE NO FRIENDS TO BUNNIES"

What about loggers? I mean it can get lonely out there in the woods.

Actually muddgirl logging out of yahoo does not log you out of flickr. They use different cookies. You can also be logged into flickr with one yahoo account and be logged into yahoo with another.

posted by arse_hat 01 February | 10:53

taz, I've got connections, don'cha know.

(Actually, that IS weird.)

posted by BoringPostcards 01 February | 11:03

Doohickie, I think I do see what much of the fuss is about because I've now read quite a few of the comments... different fusses about different things: logistics, privacy questions, fears related to Yahoo's past performance with weird behaviors and customer service... A lot of things.

But fundamentally I'm kind of fascinated by the whole thing because it's the "old skool" members who are screaming loudest, and this really is the group that made Flickr viable. It's the same group, essentially, that has supported Google in its various enterprises, and movable type/typepad, and other successful startups. It's not just a few squawking chickens who think the sky is falling, so I'm kind of interested to see how this plays out.

posted by taz 01 February | 11:03

I can see why some people are upset, although some people seem to be upset way outta proportion, but I'm not one of them. I did the yahoo/flickr thing back when it happened and haven't had a problem. I don't think I've checked my yahoo mail in all that time.

posted by deborah 01 February | 12:42

I really don't understand what the big deal is. I'm not an old school member. I had to use a yahoo account to sign up. Ok. Where does this become a problem?
As for it being slow, I've only experienced this twice that I can remember.
Ugly? It's functional, I think, and I'm more concerned with the photos than the site.

::shrugs::
It's not that I don't agree with the people who are like "Forget it, I'm dropping my account then." It's just that I have no idea what their motives are for doing so...

And yeah, having a Pro account makes the experience so much better. Maybe that's part of what I'm not getting here.

posted by CitrusFreak12 01 February | 13:42

The Flickr/Yahoo! account merger actually saved my Yahoo! mail account. I had an oddpost.com account, which was acquired and assimilated by Yahoo!, and a separate Yahoo! login, but I got locked out somehow (almost as if someone stole my password). But because I had merged it with my Flickr account and stayed logged into Flickr, I was able to convince Yahoo! customer service to send a password reset to the gmail email address listed under my Flickr account.

posted by mullacc 01 February | 14:22

It's a problem, for me, because Yahoo! Can. Not. Be. Trusted. Who would ever have thought that without warning Yahoo! would up and purge the archives of eGroups? That's the kind of thing that is hanging over Flickr. For example Yahoo! could change the free account direct links never go bad policy and instead just delete those images. Got 2000 images loaded over the last few years, oh well 1800 of them just got deleted. Kind of inconvenient if you've been using them on your blog or something.

At least when we could use our Flickr logins we could pretend Yahoo! wouldn't screw with Flickr. Yes it was wishful thinking but most people are optimists. Integrated login is the first step to the uselessification of Flickr (along with the petty restrictions on contacts). I'm glad I don't have a lot of time invested in meta data on Flickr.

posted by Mitheral 01 February | 15:37

I don't understand.
At least when we could use our Flickr logins we could pretend Yahoo! wouldn't screw with Flickr.
The only thing that's changed is how you log in. I don't see how that affects your opinion that Yahoo! cannot be trusted. Yahoo still owned Flickr before this change. The whole "Yahoo! could change the 'free account direct links never go bad' policy and instead just delete those images." was just as applicable to Flickr before the log-in change.

posted by CitrusFreak12 01 February | 15:46

True, but the veil of plausible deny ability is being ripped away, especially since they coupled this announcement with the new limits on tags and contacts. Like I said before I could pretend Yahoo! was letting Flickr find it's own way. After March 14th I'll be reminded every time I go there that they are owned by Yahoo! and that Yahoo! is living up to it's history.

posted by Mitheral 01 February | 16:04

After March 14th I'll be reminded every time I go there that they are owned by Yahoo! and that Yahoo! is living up to it's history.
It's history of what? Making you sign in through their website? It's history of limiting the number of tags you can use to describe a photo?
What else has changed??

posted by CitrusFreak12 02 February | 08:53

Little for Flickr yet which is why we have to go on the history of it's past take overs. Yahoo! has:

1) changed the verfication process for GeoCites meaning that not only can I not get my geocites mail I can't get my ID @ Yahoo! because hey, my ID is already taken.

2) Unilaterally changed the GeoCities TOS to essentially take ownership of all content hosted on GeoCities. Rectified after uproar.

3) Not only purged the archives of eGroups without warning they continue to limit the number of retained messages. Larger and/or old mailing lists every new message deletes an older message.

4) Creating your own eGroups archive is extremely painful because of the ads and interstatials.

5) When they took over blo.gs they broke the search for months, effectively locking one out of adding new ones.

And now of course they've started reducing the capabilities of tagging and contacts on Flickr. Personally I wouldn't be surprised to see restrictions on free accounts in the future (either retention or access) because those image views aren't making them any money.

posted by Mitheral 02 February | 13:53

Also, citrusfreak, I just have to say a couple things: I'm not crazy about the whole "I don't understand! ... I don't get it!" etc. tack in debate, by which one hopes to effortlessly make everyone on the other side looks stupid because their points are so "ridiculous" you just can't "get" what they are on about.

It's a really cheap and lazy way of arguing without discussing, without doing any research, and without showing any respect to the people you disagree with. Why bother?

Of course, if it really is all opaque to you, you can say so. But in this case, all you have to do is check out the thread on Flickr to get some background, or check out Yahoo history... something. And then maybe comment on some of the issues that people are talking about, and say why you disagree.

Also, metachat isn't metafilter; we really aren't here to try to score snark points. Metafilter is a lot more than that, but the whole acerbic and/or supercilious, hostile, overwrought thing is kind of a part of the culture there, I guess. This is where we put that dowm for a change.

posted by taz 02 February | 14:28

also, I should say that my observations don't have to do with this thread alone, I'm saying it here because I'm seeing a certain motif in your comments on controversial issues, and this just happens to be the one with the latest comments. I'm not trying to shut you down, just asking you to think of this space in a different way, and also encouraging you to put a little more thought into things.

posted by taz 02 February | 14:46

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