JerseyStyle Photography

Wow. It’s been a heckuva week for Marissa Mayer and the folks at Yahoo.

First, they announce the blockbuster deal to aquire Tumblr for more than $1 billion dollars. (That’s billion…with a b.)

David Karp becomes a billionaire without even finishing high school. Guess he can throw a good number of proms now.

(As an aside, fun post here from Philly photographer Chris Crisman about shooting David last year.)

And then Marissa Mayer and the rest of the Yahoo Ya-Hoo’s changed Flickr.

Major.

I don’t know how many of my readers here are on Flickr, but I first joined in 2007. I don’t really remember how or why I joined, but for the past six years, it’s been a pretty good experience.

I’ve made some good online friends via Flickr. I read a lof of the group posts on different topics and learned ALOT about photography.

I’ve gone through different photography phases on Flickr, trying to find my voice as a shooter. (Usuing different layers and textures was a phase I remember dearly, while shuddering sometimes.

From their count, I have over 4,000 images in my Flickr account. Sometimes when I go deep into the archives, it’s like an archological dig, coming upon old photos I’d forgotten about or, again, shuddering at what I chose to post.

And, during the early stages of this blog, there was a constant pull as to “where do I post this photo first.” Lately – maybe the last year or so – the JSP blog has become my first stop, Flickr second. All the more reason why you hardy readers should keep reading!

But Flickr has been good to me. Like I said, learned alot, made some good online friends. I’ve also done more images sales by people finding them on Flickr than anywhere else – no here, not my more “professional” Zenfolio site. I like that email that starts “I saw your photo on Flickr and want to license it….” (It’s also a constant battle to explain that the word “Flickr” doesn’t mean “free” in some odd language.”

So when, my Twitter stream, I started to see trickles of major changes on Flickr, I was interested to see what they were. I didn’t get over to it until early yesterday, though. I was on the mobile version of it, and it was normal. When I first logged in, I let out a “Whoa!”

The main things I’ve found are:

* Less white space, more of a “tiled” design.
* Higher resolution to the photos (I always thought it was pretty good anyway).
* That free terabyte of space
* A new mobile app on iTunes and Google Play. (Blackberry uses, like myself, cue the wah…wahhhh….wahhhh…here)

From my user perspective, it’s a big “Eh.”

Design seems very busy, or maybe I have can orgaznize it differently. I like seeing the photos of my Contacts, but not so in-my-face. I’d rather see my own, and any activity on them.

The whole design is certainly a hybrid of Facebook and Tumblr. I like customizing my header banner, but if you like to shoot verticals, that doesn’t work so well. (The whole fat versus tall design issue.)

It took me a good 10 minutes or so to figure out how to post an image to a group. I really had to dig around to find that function now, whereas with the old version, it was easier to see. Again, just takes some time in the drivers seat to get used to the new design.

Of course, with this many users on a site, and with that many groups with forum, the Flickratti are getting flamed. Some people HATE the new look and design. I think it was time. And having worked on website design, I know two things: 1) This was a massive undertaking. Makes me sweat just thinking about how long this took. 2) You’ll never please everyone.

From my perspective, I’ll still spend the small amount every year and keep my Flickr account. It has it’s place and purpose to me and for where I’m at. First and foremost, though, it’s a form of backup. After having a hard drive crash late last year, and still being unable to access it, I wish I had kept up with posting more to my Flickr, even in “private” mode – meaning no one sees the images but me. So, that’s what I’ve been doing this year – putting a lot of my images up on their, in public or private mode, as a way for backup.

Remember I mentioned about getting requests for images? I’m embarrassed to admit it, but often times, I have to use my Flickr account to remind me when I shot something before I can find it on one of my hard drives. I do a pretty good job at tagging my images on Flickr, so I can get myself into the ballpark (Ah, that carnival shot was in August 2010…ok, let me go find the hi-res, 300 dpi version…)

For me, the jury is still out on the whole Flickr redesign. I need to spend more time with it, see how customizable it is for what I like. In any case, it was a massive undertaking and I give the Flickr team credit.

Are you on Flickr? What are your thoughts? Drop me a link to your page in the comments and let me know.

© Mark V. Krajnak | JerseyStyle Photography | All Rights Reserved 2013