

Flickr still has social networking tools, such as the ability to like, comment, and share content, as well as to create and join groups around a common interest. Users with a free account get a Terabyte (TB) of storage, which makes it excellent for archiving, especially for amateur and professional photographers, who might want to save uncompressed files for later in-depth photo editing. While Flickr was originally designed as part of an MMOG to enhance its user experience, Flickr itself was designed to allow users to organize and store photos, as well as to engage with each other’s photo content.

Nevertheless, Flickr still has a huge database of organized photos, a user base of 92 million as of February 2014, and high profile users, such as The White House. Today, Flickr’s direct competitors in the photo-sharing space include Instagram, Photobucket, Shutterfly, SmugMug, Picasa, Kodak Gallery, Pinterest, and Snapfish and in the social space, include the aforementioned plus Facebook, Google+, Tumblr, and Pheed, among others.

It also had difficulties with mobile engagement as Yahoo Mobile’s Flickr functionality was, according to many critics, poorly designed and only for existing users. While the integration with Yahoo – allowing all registered users to use Flickr, grew Flickr’s user base, the transition likely cost Yahoo the engagement of Flickr’s highly active early users. Yahoo increased user storage limits for users, but, some critics contend, failed to nurture the existing social community, leaving the field open for other players such as Facebook and Instagram to grab social market share.

Butterfield’s firm, Ludicorp, was rapidly acquired by Yahoo in 2005 – a year after launch, for $35 million. Flickr quickly became very popular, attracting a large user base and the attention of industry publications and firms. It game failed, but the firm launched Flickr in its wake as a stand-alone site. The MMOG was created by Canadian husband and wife developers Steward Butterfield and Caterina Fake, and developer Jason Classon. HISTORY OF FLICKRįlickr began, not as a standalone social media website or smartphone app, but as a series of features in a massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) called Game Neverending. In this article, we will explore, 1) the history of Flickr, 2) the purpose of Flickr, 3) the benefits of Flickr, 4) setting up a Flickr account, 5) using Flickr for Business, 6) Flickr terminology, and 7) best practices/case study.
