Last Updated on 07/23/2019 by Chris Gampat
I find it a bit surreal that it is 2018 and we’re even still talking about Flickr; they’re still around.
One would think that Flickr would have gone the way of MySpace and Xanga years ago when it was cool, but there is still a community that apparently cares about it despite its lack of serious relevance in the major photography world these days. But today, the company announced a number of new changes including the fact that they’re removing that pesky required Yahoo! sign-in. That’s at least one step in the right direction as it’s personally kept me off of the platform for a long time now. This news comes after SmugMug bought Flickr.
In an email to the Phoblographer, some of the biggest changes are the following:
- No More Yahoo! sign-in:Â Starting in January 2019, users will no longer require a Yahoo! account to access Flickr.
- Significant Enhancements to Flickr Pro, which include:
- Unlimited Storage â upload an infinite amount of photos and videos at full resolution
- Ad–Free Browsing â a clean, ad-free Flickr experience for users and their visitors
- Advanced Stats â users are able to see which of their photos are trending and which have performed the best. The Flickr mobile app will now give Pros all the stats they know and love in-app.
- Premier Customer Service â Pros receive priority assistance from a brand new, world-class support team
- 5K Photo Display â for any screen, from smartphone to jumbotron.
- Increased video playback â increasing video playback time from three minutes to ten minutes
- More partner discounts â including Adobe Creative Cloud, custom portfolio sites on SmugMug, gear from Peak Design, and more
- New OG Pro badges â meant to recognize long-time Flickr community members.
- 1,000 Photos and Videos for Free account users:Â Free Flickr accounts can now display 1,000 photos and videos, regardless of size.
More about those free accounts, you’re losing your one terabyte of free storage. And from a business standpoint I completely agree with them. The other alternative would be to put a ton of ads in there, which I’d also be okay with.
According to their press release, “Free members will still be able to participate fully in our community…After January 8, members over the limit will no longer be able to upload new photos to Flickr.”
So will you be going back? I’m still not sure personally.