Flickr has gone all pretty

I (used to when I had more time to take pictures) post at 3 sites:

Flickr - my own interesting one-offs, but more importantly for seeing what others are doing, both photographers and artists - tons of Favorites
My own blog - so I can collect images into a single post and write about various topics
Zenfolio - to share family photos with family and friends

Starting in reverse, Zenfolio is great and is optimized for photographers, but does not have the community. My own blog is dead in the water for the reasons I stated above, and I really miss it, though no one knew about it except my dad. Flickr was great until yesterday, but it is the only place for discovering the work of others. Not just pros like at 500px, but everyday photographers with passion like you and me. But I find Flickr to be so much visual noise now that it's hard to focus on the content. - the whole point for going there. Even my wife has read many discouraging remarks about the Flickr redesign on Facebook from people who are for the most part not photographers. So, it's not good for photographers, it's not good for families, it's not good for socialites... who is good for???

Flickr will (or may!) appeal to the socials, but I believe that they have underestimated their core audience and reason for being - and therefore their viability. I saw a complaint on the feedback on the new design thread from an organization that officially archives old photographs for the state of North Carolina. They had very specify feedback about the new design and basically stated that the new design made their mission irrelevant. Whether or not it was wise to use Flickr in such a way is another question, but the point is that Flickr, in my opinion, forgot about many things while they were so blatantly focused on being yet another billion dollar social Internet site.

Flickr may come and go. My Kindle just went away because I prefer to hold and feel and smell my books. My VW GTI has a fancy nav system but I never use it just cause I love the thrill of driving. I don't watch TV except for the occasional streamed movie or really good episodic content. I went back to using my Ricoh GXR and decided maybe I'll just take pictures rather than buy new gear (except for that new GR!!!). And just maybe Flickr will go away and I'll print my own pictures and rely on the local community of artists to discover great art.

Maybe I should go take a walk for 15 minutes rather than browse or complain about Flickr :D
 
First look at it tonight seems not so bad as expected from what I read here. Used to use it more with a paid pro subscription. But that expired last year. I do like the 1T storage! Maybe they will listen and refine based upon feedback. :)
 
I'm considering a move to another site. Ipernity has all the visual layout of the old flickr but I'm holding back for now. I'm a fully paid (formerly known as) Pro flickr member until next April, which gives me a little time to figure out what I'd like to do. The problem is that Ipernity doesn't have the huge group membership that flickr does. There are massive Ricoh GRD groups on flickr, huge Fuji X100 and Leica groups, but nothing with that kind of membership and traffic that flickr does. In the meantime, I'll keep investigating alternatives.
 
Archiver said:
I'm considering a move to another site. Ipernity has all the visual layout of the old flickr but I'm holding back for now. I'm a fully paid (formerly known as) Pro flickr member until next April, which gives me a little time to figure out what I'd like to do. The problem is that Ipernity doesn't have the huge group membership that flickr does. There are massive Ricoh GRD groups on flickr, huge Fuji X100 and Leica groups, but nothing with that kind of membership and traffic that flickr does. In the meantime, I'll keep investigating alternatives.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I searched the Ipernity groups last night for Ricoh and there were 5-6 total, with very little activity. Until there is a critical mass on other sites Flickr is the place for community.
 
A word to the wise on iPernity... I made the mistake of signing up from Safari on my iPad (the experience may be different if you do it on a desktop/laptop) and I used my G+ to sign up. I was not at any time given the opportunity to create a password, nor was I given a temporary password. No worries, I thought, I'll send a support request. They responded (eventually) with a link... which I needed to sign in for, to be able to view. Could not do this anywhere but the iPad, which still remembered who I was from the email verification process...

So heres the thing... Don't use G+ or Facebook to do the signup, and don't *ever* forget your password (either that, or have it written somewhere so its always available to you). I've suggested that they might need to change their processes for password resetting.

[edit] So I just did my first upload to ipernity... they keep tabs on how much you can upload, so how much is left of that 200Mb shows immediately. However... I am finding the site too slow, and too restrictive, and theres nothing yet to recommend it, to make me want to pay for the service. You can upload, but you cant download your photographs. You can share only by email, Facebook, Google+ and Twitter (there dont seem to be any general links for forum posting). A right click and copy image location only gets you a transparent gif. So... its not for me.

perhaps its time to make a thread for Flickr alternatives.
 
That's odd sue, I wanted to reset my password after signing in via google , but it was perfectly straightforward for me. Didn't have to raise a ticket, just clicked "forgot my password" and got the usual email back instantly.

One thing I will note though : you can't get link code for your ipernity images unless you sign up for a paid account :rolleyes:
 
pdh said:
That's odd sue, I wanted to reset my password after signing in via google , but it was perfectly straightforward for me. Didn't have to raise a ticket, just clicked "forgot my password" and got the usual email back instantly.

One thing I will note though : you can't get link code for your ipernity images unless you sign up for a paid account :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Yes, see above where I edited my post. I shant be pursuing it any further.
 
Looks like they're offering to continue existing Pro accounts with unlimited storage, no ads, for only $25 a year. If they're doing that, I may just keep my pro subscription going.

I never really liked Flickr's layout anyway - it's hard to navigate, difficult to peruse and edit my photos without being forced to do a lot of scrolling. I'd much rather choose the way my photos are presented - ie. via sets of selected photos rather than a photostream. But compared with the other photo sites, this was the cheapest and easiest for me to manage. So in that context I'm not losing 'too' much with these new crappy changes... if that makes sense.
 
TraamisVOS said:
Looks like they're offering to continue existing Pro accounts with unlimited storage, no ads, for only $25 a year. If they're doing that, I may just keep my pro subscription going.
Click to expand...

I was an idiot and jumped to free before I knew about this. What a fool. Oh well. I'll be hard pressed to fill 1TB anyway, Adblock PLus works a treat, now to find an adblocking browser for the ipad (which I think may be iCabMobile)
 
I tried browsing contacts latest images this morning by clicking on the big Flickr logo top left. At first i though it was really nicely done but I gave up after two images because they take so long to load. I was beginning to think the new look was quite good but now I'm not so sure. If they can speed things up a lot so the new look was usable rather than "pretty" then i would be happy.

I've decided to change my link so it points to Fluidr which I think is now a better place to view my images than Flickr.
 

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