Killer Cars

Screw Webshots. Forget Yahoo photos. Forget even running your own Coppermine or Gallery photo server. Yes. Flick, photo sharing service, even in beta form is lightyears above its time compared to these services. And its obvious why Yahoo corp wanted in on this action.

In a short sentence, Flickr brings to the table a level of fun and addiction that only Friendster, The Facebook, and Myspace can replicate while at the same time being the most functional online photo-sharing application.

Is it a networking site? A community of photoblogs? Or a forum for great photographers? It’s all of them which it does greatly.

The sense of community and sharing is what makes Flickr attractive. It is easy to invite your friends and share photos about events. First you set up an account, set up a username and profile (which can be edited later), and then start uploading your photos. Each photo can then have a multitude of sharing options, either public or within your friends and family. You set friends and family by maintaining your contacts, a list of other users who have accounts and photos to share. See a great photo on one of your friends’ streams? Why not leave a comment, or even better a visual sticky note, or mark it as a favorite. Comments and notes between photos, your own and everyone elses, gets addicting, and that is when Flickr is more than just a online photo album. It’s a community of its own sort, where everybody has their own photoblog, and anyone of its 1000s of users can chime in and leave a comment. Once you get sucked in, you’ll soon be checking your Flickr mail more often than your regular e-mail.

There is also groups you can join and set up. Have a fetish for black and white photography? Join a B&W group and ask for criticisms of your work on the bulletin board. Leave comments on other users and make new friends. On Flickr, everybody has got a niche and it’s easy to find.

Besides being social, Flickr is still a strong service. The Pro account allows for 1gb of uploads a month, more than most users will ever use. They also allow for unlimited photosets, and permanent archiving of your uploaded photos. A highly useful backup to ensure your photos will never see a hard drive crash. There servers are fast, even sustainable enough for their ridiculous slideshow feature, which can be set for even as fast as one second. Also, the ads on Flickr aren’t too obtrusive like they are on other sites. The Pro account even gets rid of them.

Another reason web geeks have been so embracing about Flickr is its feel. The Flickr API is available for anybody to develop and there is a highly visited forum for user ideas and bug submissions. Flickr has the appeal of an open source project, a sense that the application is alive and breathing. Everyone feels they can contribute and that they all know that if they speak loud enough, the developers will hear.

I haven’t ever paid for a web photo sharing service, but I believe in this project. Flickr is awesome, totally awesome, and one of the best sites the web has ever come out with. I have been running my photo server on static templates, and am now starting to feel like I can no longer live without a dynamic site. Flickr is so dynamic it leaves it competitors in the dust. You can edit photo titles and descriptions in any page and it will affect a dozen or so pages. Things can be moved and replaced with ease. Almost everything has its own RSS feed. And this is not even the initial version yet.

I’m still in the process of fully converting to Flickr. My 1gb upload limit maxed out, and I’m only up to September 2004. Pretty soon I’ll be completely converted and will maintain sharing my Peace Corps photos this way. Join and leave comments people! I would enjoy it.

Update (4/20/2005): Flickr announced there would be a suprise gift to those who purchased a Pro account. Flickr gave Pro members a one year extension on their account, and two 1 year Pro account invites to give to friends.

In addition, they cut the price of the Pro account to $24.95 (now cheaper than webshots), and doubled the amount of bandwidth for Pro and free users (2 gb/ month, 20 mb/month)!

So who wants an account? I got 2 to give out. Although I would much rather prefer someone who will actually use it compared to someone who would just like it.

Related Posts

• Beach Party - This Saturday
• Ocean Blue on Black Rocks
• Cambodia, we almost have liftoff
• My official Invitation

Share this post: