DISQUS

Mashable - The Social Media Guide: 2007/01/31/flickr-yahoo/

  • Allen Stern · 2 years ago
    I got the email Pete. I thought I could still keep my userid on flickr, this would just be for a login. Or am I missing something?
  • Pete Cashmore · 2 years ago
    Allen,

    Yeah, that's a worthwhile clarification to make - I added an update.
  • Ubaid · 2 years ago
    I don't see why this is such a big deal - the new Yahoo! login only policy just makes more sense. Google has done the same for Orkut and Blogger without raising much of a storm.
  • Mark · 2 years ago
    In my experience, these aren't your "core members" so much as your loudest members. It is easy to assume that a noticeable amount of backlash and a non-existent amount of praise is representative of the entire user base, but it is rarely the case. Every product has a group of users that take every chance to be slighted at any change to what they are used to. I'd guess that 99.95% of all Flickr users are fine with the changes and could not care less about having to use their Yahoo ID to log in (and have already made the seamless transition sometime during the last year). If people honestly had a problem with using a different log in, they have had a more than generous amount of time to find a new home.
  • nood · 2 years ago
    This reminds me of netscape/aol. late 90's.

    The dumb idiots decided to drop all of the email@netscape.com and forced them to pick an aol account.

    Welp I never visitted netscape again and I'm sure they lost the hundreds of thousands of users with that swift move.

    We all want UNIQUE ID's and not JOHN53242334@aol.com.
  • David G · 2 years ago
    i just went and did it. it is an incredibly intuitive account mergre experience. these are my steps:
    1) goto www.flickr.com - unchanged
    2) enter my y! p/ward and submit - first time I've used it on flickr but same cookie'd experience as on y! V.smart to create stub accounts for y! members.
    3) it recognizes my gmail addi (how?) which is registered to my flickr a/c and asks if I want to merge the 2 accouts?
    4) I click once to accept = the only extra step in the entire process.
    5) done.
    It doesnt get any better or more low-cost (i.t.o. churn) than that. I also think that they would have calculated the risk -- as you point out, y! had the 2005 backlash to help inform their assumptions. Desite the hype, they probably lost no momentum then and probably won't now.
    imo, this is a calculated move with immense upside that was beautifully executed.
    i think you'll still stax of user value added through this via integration of your flickr data with the rest of your your y! data. I'd imagine that a deep y!answers and deli.cio.us integration to flickr would add value to all 3 services for example.
  • Stewf · 2 years ago
    This is a very strange backlash. I don't like being forced to do anything to an existing account without any obvious benefits, but like David says, the switchover is very minor.

    Pete - It's a odd call to expect people to move to an inferior service just to make a point. If people like Flickr, they should use it. Nothing substantial about the service has changed.
  • alan patrick · 2 years ago
    Hi

    I think it is an indication that the user feels they "own" far more of a social media site, given thats its far more of their content, time etc put in. Also, look at all the hoo-ha at Technorati as well now.

    Whether this is valid or not going forward I don't know, as I do not believe Flickr has a viable competitor - but when they do......

    Anyway, linked to your site in my article re Flickr here
  • todd · 2 years ago
    I got the email as well and they've warned of it since the beginning. I think its a loud minority of fanboys who want to be heard for 'being there first' Big deal, get over it and save your login info and you'll never even think about it again.
  • David G · 2 years ago
    The real story here is ... check the (lack of) professionalism on that Zoomr dude ... Thomas Hawk's decision to re-post the flaming comments to his blog is a big mistake -- as readers of his posted have started to point out. If Thomas has any friends in PR, hopefully they're sending him some useful advice by now -- this comment of his on his blog suggests he could benefit from it ..."This is personal weblog Pal. People value my opinion on Flickr because I've spent more time figuring the thing out than just about anyone outside of Flickr itself. I'll blog about whatever the hell I want." He doesn't even realize that he has a bias or that he is damaging his brand. :-) Expensive ignorance.

    ZOOMR was down for a 1/2 hour yesterday. As UX goes, I'd bet that's more frustrating than clicking once to merge accounts. Karma's a bitch.
  • Eric Weaver · 2 years ago
    As an old-skoo' Flickrite, I could give a rat's ass about whether I use my email addy or a Yahoo! addy to log into one of my favorite online communities. I mean, Yahoo! owns the site now...people need to get over that. And your online ID/screenname/whatever doesn't change!

    I'm surprised that such a minor, minor thing gets people's panties in a collective bunch. Perhaps there are more important things to angst over? Crikey.
  • العاب · 1 year ago