Flickr

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Flickr
Web service logo
www.flickr.com
description Online community , photo community, image host
languages German , English , French , Italian , Portuguese , Spanish , Korean , Cantonese , Indonesian , Chinese , Vietnamese
owner SmugMug
Originator Ludicorp
Published February 10, 2004

Flickr ( listen ? / I ) (from English to flick through something , “ leaf through something ”, for example “device for leafing through” or “ flicker ” or from English to flicker , “flicker”) is a commercial online service with community elements which allows users to upload digital and digitized images as well as short videos of a maximum of three minutes with comments and notes to the website and thus make them accessible to other users ("share"). In addition to conventional uploading via the website, the images can also be transmitted by e-mail or from a mobile phone and later linked from other websites. Audio file / audio sample

history

Flickr was created by Ludicorp Research & Development Ltd. , a Vancouver- based company founded in Canada in 2002 . Originally uploading pictures was of the online game only one aspect Game Neverending , the Caterina Fake and her husband Stewart Butterfield had programmed. However, this component was particularly well received by users, which resulted in work on the online game being discontinued and Flickr in its current form. In March 2005, Flickr and Ludicorp were bought by Yahoo .

According to its own information, Flickr had around 5000 uploads per minute and almost 77 million unique users in 2011. According to the search engine Alexa , Flickr was one of the 50 most popular sites on the Internet .

Flickr has been available in various languages (including German ) since June 12, 2007 .

On November 12, 2007, the two billionth photo was uploaded to Flickr, and just under a year later, on November 3, 2008, the three billionth. Since August 2011 there are more than six billion images on the platform. In December 2012 there were eight billion photos.

In May 2013, Flickr announced an expansion of the free storage space for each user to one terabyte , and images in maximum resolution and videos of up to three minutes in high definition could be uploaded. In addition to the new functions, the design of the service has been redesigned.

As of June 2016, uploading files via the mobile websites and the Flickr app was not available in Germany. The reason given for this was a cease and desist judgment imposed by the German court for patent infringement. After two months, Flickr reactivated the upload.

In April 2018, Flickr was sold by Yahoo to SmugMug .

As of December 2018, a maximum of 1000 saved images was set for users of a free account. From February 2019, starting with the oldest, excess images were deleted from the previously unlimited storage space.

Functions

Flickr offers the possibility of sorting photos into categories (also called tags ), adding them to so-called pools , searching for keywords, viewing so-called photo streams (user profiles in the form of small " photoblogs ") of other users and commenting on pictures with image details.

In addition, there are a variety of RSS - Web feeds available that are designed to simplify the representation of images on any web sites or finding new images on a specific topic.

Flickr offers a special search function to find images in the public domain and images with Creative Commons licenses that allow the user to further process them.

The development status of the underlying software was changed from a beta to a gamma version on May 16, 2006 . On June 12, 2007, further localization in German and six other languages ​​was announced. In February 2012, Flickr began redesigning its pages; The goals were easier navigation, fewer white areas in the layout , expanded social features and better communication among the Flickr community .

Cooperations

In November 2009, Flickr entered into a cooperation with the photo printing service provider Snapfish from Hewlett-Packard . This gives users the option of ordering photo prints or designing photo products such as books, calendars and greeting cards.

As part of a cooperation with Getty Images , Flickr members were also able to license their images commercially. As a first step, the photo editors at Getty Images decided on the images in question. Getty Images also hosts the Flickr group "Getty Images Call for Artists", whose members could submit a portfolio of 25 images per month to be proposed for an invitation to the Flickr collection. In 2014, Getty Images decided not to extend the cooperation with Flickr.

To edit the uploaded photos online, Flickr originally integrated image editing software ("Editor") from Aviary. Without any further explanation, the very well-functioning software was shut down in 2017 and, after a long wait, replaced by an in-house development called "Photo Editor by Flickr".

visibility

Users can publish the images so that they are visible to everyone or upload them so that only they themselves can access the images. The viewing permission can also be restricted to a group of other Flickr users. In 2005, 82 percent of users made their images available to everyone. The images can with one of the six Creative Commons - licenses are provided.

Tags and categories

The possibility of freely categorizing each image, adding a description and having others comment on it, supports the user in quickly building up metadata .

With the help of search engines that can evaluate this data in a targeted manner, one obtains a more organized web that has been classified and rated jointly by many. In English this phenomenon is called folksonomy , in German the term “ community indexing ” fits best .

Flickr offers a category search, which you can use to e.g. B. can see the latest images, web links and blog articles for any search term.

The “People in Photos” function also makes it possible - if the users allow it in their settings - to mark each other on photos and to give them names.

Interaction and interfaces

Flickr uses Ajax to dynamically build the web pages; Flash generated by open source software continues to be used for slide shows and other applications . Flickr supports the external connection of various applications such as blogs through open interfaces . IPTC comments and keywords of the image data are automatically adopted as "tags" and descriptions. Flickr user pages and categories can be subscribed to via RSS and Atom . GPS data contained in the photo data is automatically read out by Flickr or can be added later by the user as “machine tags ”. The positions of the photos are shown on maps worldwide.

In this context, Flickr consistently relies on the use of open standards, so that many further developments and uses of Flickr images or metadata only arise because the data required for this is available at open, well-documented interfaces.

criticism

On June 12, 2007, Flickr was updated. Since that day, some countries ( Germany , Romania , Hong Kong , Singapore , South Korea and users of the Maktoob.com site ) were limited in the search. The Yahoo ID was decisive for this .

“If you are using a Yahoo! ID from Singapore, Hong Kong, India, Korea or Maktoob.com, you will only see content that is safe and in accordance with the terms of service in your country. So you cannot turn off safe search. If you have a Yahoo! ID from Germany or Romania, you cannot view any restricted content due to the terms of service applicable there. "

- Flickr help

This met with strong rejection, especially from the German community. As a result, a number of groups and forums were formed trying to help Yahoo! to move to a repentance. Yahoo Germany justified this with reasons for the protection of minors, with the measure to comply with the German protection of minors in the media.

Since April 9, 2008 it has been possible to publish short video sequences (max. 90 seconds) on Flickr in addition to pictures. This met with strong resistance in the community, who called for a demarcation from video portals such as YouTube .

Selling images under a Creative Commons license

Since the end of 2014, Yahoo has been selling the images of individual Flickr photographers who have published them under a Creative Commons license that enables commercial use. Several of those affected were upset.

Access restrictions

The following access restrictions came into effect on May 20, 2013:

  • Each user receives 1 TB of storage space.
  • A photo can be 200 MB in size and any dimensions.
  • A video can have a resolution of up to 1080p, be 1 GB in size and last three minutes.
  • There is no (official) bandwidth limit (megabytes per month or similar for new files).
  • The advertising can be switched off against payment (English: "ad free")
  • Against further payment of storage space can be doubled to 2 TB ( "doublr" jokingly for English double "double" "double" or).

At the same time, the appearance of the website was fundamentally changed, which met with massive criticism, and many users migrated. There were also technical difficulties, for example with the full screen view on certain web browsers.

Deletion of files from non-paying users

On November 1, 2018, Flickr changed its access restrictions as follows:

  • From January 8, 2019, non-paying users will only have the option of uploading up to 1000 files free of charge.
  • Active deletion of the oldest files, based on the upload date, will begin on February 5, 2019, until the limit of 1000 files is met. The size of the individual files is not relevant here. Alternatively, the Pro subscription can be taken out.

Alternative free file hosting services for images

Web links

Commons : Flickr  collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. An Amazing 8 Years. In: Flickr Blog. February 10, 2012, accessed November 7, 2017 .
  2. gnespy.com "Screenshots of the original website of Game Neverending" ( Memento of the original from January 9, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.gnespy.com
  3. Comscore October 2011
  4. alexa.com: “flickr.com - Traffic Details from Alexa” , accessed on March 10, 2009.
  5. Heather Champ: 3 Billion! November 3, 2008, accessed November 3, 2008 .
  6. http://blog.flickr.net/en/2011/08/04/6000000000/
  7. http://blog.flickr.net/de/2012/12/12/flickr-noch-besser-nutzen-besser-navigieren-und-fotos-enthaben/
  8. Jan Tißler: Flickr: Now 1 terabyte of storage for free, radically new design. (No longer available online.) In: t3n magazine . May 21, 2013, archived from the original on June 7, 2013 ; accessed on May 21, 2013 : "Flickr is back with a bang: The photo platform has received a comprehensive redesign and now lures users with no less than 1 terabyte of free storage space for photos and short videos." Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / t3n.de
  9. Andreas Wilkens: Patent dispute: Flickr deactivates mobile photo upload . In: heise.de from June 2, 2016. Accessed July 1, 2016
  10. Flickr app: automatic photo upload is active again in Germany. In: iphone-ticker.de. August 10, 2016, accessed July 6, 2018 .
  11. Together, SmugMug + Flickr. Retrieved April 25, 2018 .
  12. c't photography: Yahoo sells Flickr to SmugMug. Retrieved April 25, 2018 .
  13. Tobias Költzsch on golem.de : Flickr starts deleting photos
  14. ^ Getty "Images Call for Artists," Flickr announcement March 1, 2012
  15. "The new and fast photo editor from Aviary" on the Flickr blog
  16. Wolf-Dieter Roth: "I hardly have any friends, I admit that, but I have a lot of subscribers" , "Telepolis" article from February 28, 2005
  17. "What is SafeSearch?" , Flickr FAQ page on Content Filters
  18. "Press statement on the localized version of Flickr in Germany" ( Memento of the original from April 7, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Yahoo press release dated June 21, 2007 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / yahoo.enpress.de
  19. "Many Flickr users reject new video support" , "Heise News" message from April 10, 2008
  20. Yahoo sells pictures by amateur photographers. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. November 25, 2014, accessed November 25, 2014 .
  21. Flickr charges heavy users $ 50 a year. In: SPIEGEL ONLINE from November 2, 2018