Linknote — — 61 words

Technology

The Commons: The past is 100% part of our future

A reassuring update from Flickr, following the announcement that free accounts will have their photos deleted. They have now confirmed that photos uploaded under Creative Commons licenses will not be deleted.

Since (I think) I uploaded everything under Creative Commons, this means my photos are safe on Flickr. So this is something.

Linknote — — 71 words

Society — Technology

It’s not just you, everything looks the same on Instagram

If it seems when you scroll through your feed that everything looks similar, that’s probably because it is. That artfully constructed shot of your latté and avocado toast brunch? The shot of your feet dangling over the edge of a waterfall? You in the back of a canoe?

It’s been done before. To death.

I’m still not missing Instagram.

Linknote — — 191 words

Technology

Flashback: How Yahoo killed Flickr and lost the internet

This page was published in 2013 as a flashback to an article seemingly written in 2012. It underlines just how slow and painful a death Flickr had. Reading this six years on is a fascinating reminder of just what could have been.

By 2012, Flickr was already on its knees, having suffered years of mismanagement under Yahoo. That mismanagement is picked apart in excruciating detail here. The article ends by asking, is it too late to save Flickr?

Flickr’s last best hope is that Yahoo realizes its value and decides to spin it off for a few bucks before both drop down into a final death spiral. But even if that happens, Flickr has a long road ahead of it to relevance. People don’t tend to come back to homes they’ve already abandoned.

Six years on, Yahoo has lurched from laughing stock to irrelevance, while Flickr has finally been sold off to SmugMug. It’s a good time to reflect on this early days of Flickr and wonder if it could ever return. But as I already noted this year, it is probably far too late.