Flickr Online Photo Service Reviewed

kschoenwandt writes "I have been an early fan of Flickr and while I am by far not as much of a shutter bug as most users seem to be, I enjoy the features and use it regularly. Taking some time out reading, I noticed that I am not the only one impressed: The Globe and Mail published a piece on it as did The Christian Science Monitor. Cool!"

I dig it

[billstr78]

What I really like about Flickr is the way it brings people together over photographs. They say a picture is worth 1000 words (bring on the picture worth replies) and allowing individuals to comment on photos and discuss topics in the group forums are by far the most often used features for me. The interface is also slick and innovative, tags are of great use in photos (as they are with mail) and the notes feature made possible by thier custom flash rendering scripts are a pretty neat as well.

integration with blogs

[cara]

I use flikr too and the thing I like is the easy integration with various blogs (specifically I use blogger.com, but it works with others). It's easy to create a blog entry from a photo posted to flikr - very convenient.

Re:Andvanced piracy???

[billstr78]

They do use advanced piracy detection techniques. They are big into creative commons liciencing and since I often post photographs found on the web, my account has been marked as "bad", and henseforth my photos don't show up in public searches [flickr.com]

Web 2.0 anyone?

[aardwolf204]

FTA: Flickr (www.flickr.com) is what's known as a web service or web application -- something between a website and a regular software program. Web services have long been seen as the future, but until recently they've been held back by technical limitations. Now the combination of faster computers, better development tools and greater access to broadband is making them a reality. Some have even taken to calling this new trend the Web 2.0.

Emphasis mine

I can only imagine the marketoid this came from. Its bad enough most people (outside /.) think HTTP is the Internet, now we need everyone hyping "Web 2.0", because we all know how much version numbers mean.

Sorry, feeling a bit ranty today.

Re:integration with blogs

[billstr78]

It's also becomming a bit like a blog location itself. I notice a few people [flickr.com] attaching long annotations or "stories" to daily posts. With comments and photos displayed in stream ordering by default, this is becoming much like my second blog.

I like it

[TravisC]

I started using Flickr last month and am very impressed. Granted I don't have a big need to sell my photos, just to manage them easily and quickly.

Two of my favorite features of flickr are the ability to email photos from my phone directly to the site, and the fact that they provide code which enables me to display the last 5 flickr photos on my personal website. In addition to those two features, they allow members to post comments on photos. Plus, you can see how many times each photo has been viewed. Another nice feature is the photographer's ability to make several notes on each photo, which appear when the viewer hovers the mouse pointer over each note's user customizable box.

Yes, there are features I'd like to see incorporated, but the service is still in beta, and considering that I think they've done a great job so far. Check it out. Here's my page:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/travischurch/ [flickr.com]

crappy security

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad Flickr uses plain text HTTP authorization.

Re:Much prefer smugmug.com

[onethumb]

Hey, thanks. :)

I'm the CEO at smugmug.com [smugmug.com], arguably one of flickr's better competitors. (Actually, since we were here before them and have larger share, I suppose they're one our better competitors. Whatever).

Luckily, the flickr gang and I have had a chance to meet and hang out, and to be honest, they're very smart, talented people. There are a lot of other companies playing in this space, and most of them don't have a clue.

I think it would help all of us who are clueful if someone (the media, geeks who have family that hang on their every word, etc) would sit up and notice that sites like ofoto and shutterfly provide *really poor* sharing. They're sorta like the AOL of photo sharing. Thank goodness sites like smugmug and flickr exist once people discover how not-useful their sites are.

Kudos to the flickr guys for the great reviews! They deserve them.

Don

My 2c worth

[Moderatbastard]

The search isn't acessible from the front page. When I pointed this error out, tech support gave me a rude response. YMMV.

SDK's Available

[oravecz]

Do any of the online photo services (ofoto, snapfish, etc.) provide an SDK that would let developers bundle professional photo printing capabilities into custom software or web sites? I would like to host photos on my website using some custom software I wrote (or any of the hundreds of PHP-based alternatives), but I want family and friends to be able to order printed copies of the photos.

I realize that I can upload the photos to one of these services, but I would prefer to upload the photo to the service on-demand.

Adobe Photoshop Album provides this service in their software package using a wizard, but they probably deal with different business development people than Joe Schmo sharing photos with his friends.