Author Topic: Flickr acquired by . . . . SmugMug !?!?!??!???  (Read 1978 times)

elagache

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Flickr acquired by . . . . SmugMug !?!?!??!???
« on: April 22, 2018, 10:04:54 PM »
Dear WeatherCat Shutterbugs,

If you really enjoy sharing photos, some sort of online hosting service is a must.  Longtime WeatherCatter, Steve Morris got me hooked up with SmugMug.  It is an independent, family owned service that has always been fee based and commercial free.  So it came as no small shock when it was announced that SmugMug has acquired the former Yahoo service Flickr.  Flickr started off as quite a success in its own right.  Alas, Yahoo basically neglected it to death after purchasing it.  The woeful tale is part of this USA Today story about the acquisition:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2018/04/20/smugmug-buys-flickr-verizon-oath/537377002/

The story also makes clear how different the two services are.  SmugMug was more for professional and serious amateur photographers.  It also has always had a strong infrastructure support for privacy.  It had to because people were paying for that service.  Flickr in contrast has always been mostly supported by advertising.  How this sort of marriage is supposed to work is at best unclear.

There was this message on the SmugMug website:

https://www.smugmug.com/together/

The video portion of the SmugMug announcement can be found on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/T4B_qlaN8C4

It suggests that perhaps the motivation was to collect the hardcore Flickr faithful under the SmugMug umbrella.  After all the Yahoo squandering, many of the purely social types have abandoned Flickr.  After all, Facebook has its own rebust photo hosting capabilities.  The lonely souls still using Flickr are doing so because they want something more dedicated to photography.  It is this appeal that you'll find in the SmugMug announcement and video.

I'm all in favor of rescuing some orphaned budding photographers; however, with one extremely important caveat - that SmugMug continue to provide the services I've been paying for all these years and continuing to do that well!

Sign me as "one irked and concerned photographer" . . . . .   :o

Edouard

xairbusdriver

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Re: Flickr acquired by . . . . SmugMug !?!?!??!???
« Reply #1 on: April 23, 2018, 12:04:48 AM »
I had forgot I ever used Flickr. Best I can tell I uploaded exactly one image. I'm still waiting on a message from Flickr that will re-allow me to see what else I may have there. Following the link in their email I reach a point where I get a dialog stating that there has been "some unusual activity" in my account. Since it was part of Yahoo!, I just yawned and thought, "Of course! What else is not new?" [rolleyes2] [lol] As I always asked, "What would you expect from a bunch of yahoos?!" That has to be one of the worst brand names in history... One of the best I've seen was for a brake and muffler shop called "Be Quiet and Stop Quickly". I also like the lawyers who handled things for the "Car Guys": Dewey, Cheatum & Howe. [lol]
THERE ARE TWO TYPES OF COUNTRIES
Those that use metric = #1 Measurement system
And the United States = The Banana system


elagache

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Looks like a fire sale. (Re: Flickr acquired by . . . . SmugMug)
« Reply #2 on: April 23, 2018, 10:15:27 PM »
Dear X-Air and WeatherCat users of "all kinds" of services on the Internet,

I had forgot I ever used Flickr.

I haven't forgotten completely that I also had a Flickr account, but I did remember it was a very frustrating experience and I gave up in a hurry.

Best I can tell I uploaded exactly one image. I'm still waiting on a message from Flickr that will re-allow me to see what else I may have there.

Well, you might have by now gotten an email as a Flickr user that basically explains everything.  The key sentence is:

"If you do not delete your account by May 25, 2018, your Flickr account and data will transfer to SmugMug and will be governed by SmugMug?s Terms and Privacy Policy."

Basically that implies that Flickr is being shuttered and the users and data are simply being moved over to the SmugMug platform.  SmugMug has bought the old Flickr users but hasn't bought into the messy software platform that Yahoo had so badly screwed up.  That's certainly good news for SmugMug users, at least money won't be spend on that lost cause.  What remains to be seen is how SmugMug hopes to continue to provide a free service for those who don't pay.  I certainly don't want my annual fee subsidizing former Flickr users.


I also like the lawyers who handled things for the "Car Guys": Dewey, Cheatum & Howe. [lol]

 [wink] . . . . Too bad that law firm closed down.  Instead they all ran for political office and of course were elected!! . . . .  lol(1)

Cheers, Edouard  [cheers1]

P.S. I did delete my Flickr account.  There was essentially nothing there and I don't want two SmugMug accounts.

xairbusdriver

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Re: Flickr acquired by . . . . SmugMug !?!?!??!???
« Reply #3 on: April 23, 2018, 10:49:08 PM »
I could not delete anything because Yahoo! kept giving me a warning about "unusual activity in my account" and saying they'd send me something to verify everything. Of course, I didn't think to look in my SPAM folder until just now... Sure enough, there are two messages with a secret code I need to use if/when I ever try to log in to Yahoo!/Flickr. [banghead] I'm bettin' even the newer of the two codes won't work after 48 hours... [rolleyes2]

"Mission completed" he hopes...
THERE ARE TWO TYPES OF COUNTRIES
Those that use metric = #1 Measurement system
And the United States = The Banana system