Flickr Cracking Down On Free Accounts

[Cristiano]

There have been a lot of rumblings lately in the SL Flickr community that Flickr has started aggressively enforcing not allowing advertising, or even links to advertising, on posts from free accounts. It has no such restrictions on Pro accounts.

Predictably, this is not going over well. While I think if you are using Flickr to promote your business, it is not unreasonable to expect you to have a Pro account to do so. While the value of a Pro account can be argued, as far as image hosting goes, it is pretty reasonable. While I am sure some will fracture off to Facebook or Instagram or elsewhere, no other site has the cohesive feed and group features that Flickr has - and other sites do not allow nudity generally, which Flickr does.

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

Apparently, the bigger issue is for bloggers who list who made what they are wearing - so, they don't make any money, but still need a pro account? I don't know, I have one, so...

 

[Clara D.]

Apparently, the bigger issue is for bloggers who list who made what they are wearing - so, they don't make any money, but still need a pro account? I don't know, I have one, so...

Redacted my earlier comment. It's over-the-top, and how far down the chain are they going to follow links?

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Mark my words: as long as it belongs to Smugmug Flickr is dead.

 

[Ailsa Muliaina]

I'm amazed anyone is still using Flickr for SL, especially to blog on. If you're blogging with images hosted on another site, you usually want some certainty those images will be there the following week With Smugmug in charge I'm always mildly surprised Flickr.com still loads a page!

If Flickr does go pop, bloggers that host on Flickr will end up arsing around re-uploading files elsewhere and fixing broken links. The more often you blog the more hellish that job is. Which is why I'd never use Flickr for blogging of any kind, regardless of their commercial links terms Sometimes it's just better to pay for proper website hosting, even if the site is just for fun or as a hobby. Optimise your images and you can host a fair sized blog for less than the price of Flickr Pro and with much more freedom around what you can post there.

I think some commercial link policies are fair enough, but posting a SL landmark is the equivalent of posting the street address for a RL shop. There's a point where you're just being silly and pissing off users unnecessarily. But I suspect Smugmug is more than happy to get rid of free accounts that post SL stuff. If it's any consolation, really enforcing this policy is going to annoy plenty of non-SL users too.

 

[Shiloh Lyric]

I haven't encountered a lot of SLers who actually use Flickr to blog, but what I do see are photos of outfits with links to the blog, which then has the links to the store. But maybe I'm just missing the other type.

 

[Free]

>> Flickr Cracking Down On Free Accounts

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

I quit using Flickr after Yahoo took over. I had no idea it had been sold again.

 

[Clara D.]

I quit using Flickr after Yahoo took over. I had no idea it had been sold again.

As with most things that Yahoo sucks up then drops, I think we're now watching it circle the drain.

On a side note, Yahoo! Groups is getting chopped down to a mailing list system:

Still Use Yahoo Groups? Content Will Be Deleted on Dec. 14

On Oct. 28, users will no longer be able to upload new content. All posted content will then be deleted on Dec. 14, though Yahoo Groups will still function as an email listing service.

www.pcmag.com

 

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

It's a non issue.

SL fashion bloggers have Flickr Pro, it is axiomatic. If a SL fashion blogger doesn't have Pro, they aren't all that serious about it. Some of us have had Flickr Pro accounts for over a decade. I don't even blog anymore but I keep that Pro, because I still take pics for Flickr. It was a steal at the old price, and even with the increase I consider it a fair price.

 

[Clara D.]

It's a non issue.

SL fashion bloggers have Flickr Pro, it is axiomatic. If a SL fashion blogger doesn't have Pro, they aren't all that serious about it. Some of us have had Flickr Pro accounts for over a decade. I don't even blog anymore but I keep that Pro, because I still take pics for Flickr. It was a steal at the old price, and even with the increase I consider it a fair price.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you have WordPress, don't you just host the images with WordPress?

 

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you have WordPress, don't you just host the images with WordPress?

You are absolutely right, you most certainly can, that's how the old Linden Lifestyles worked. And the big league blogs with their own domains are probably using WordPress or another content system on their backend. Since I was never in the big leagues as a lone blogger I just used blogspot (google) and uploaded edit pics to it. The originals went to flickr, which served as additional promotion. There's a LOT of commenting/favoriting/posting to group albums on Flickr. If another photo hosting/sharing platform wants to take Flickr's SL Fashionistas from them, they'd almost have to become a new Flickr and offer the same features. Flickr's origins as a set of phototools created for Ludicorp's "Game Neverending" mmo-thingy, make it almost perfect for sharing SL photos (and game photos).

Oldbie SL fashionistas were evangelizing flickr in 2006/2007. It was Alaska Metropolitan (currently does Alaskametro makeup) who clued me into Flickr, I had been using Picasa which was at the time sort-of integrated with blogspot in an annoying way. IIRC she gave me a referral link which gave BOTH of us an extra 3 months of Pro in 2007.

 

[Ailsa Muliaina]

You are absolutely right, you most certainly can, that's how the old Linden Lifestyles worked. And the big league blogs with their own domains are probably using WordPress or another content system on their backend. Since I was never in the big leagues as a lone blogger I just used blogspot (google) and uploaded edit pics to it. The originals went to flickr, which served as additional promotion. There's a LOT of commenting/favoriting/posting to group albums on Flickr. If another photo hosting/sharing platform wants to take Flickr's SL Fashionistas from them, they'd almost have to become a new Flickr and offer the same features. Flickr's origins as a set of phototools created for Ludicorp's "Game Neverending" mmo-thingy, make it almost perfect for sharing SL photos (and game photos).

Oldbie SL fashionistas were evangelizing flickr in 2006/2007. It was Alaska Metropolitan (currently does Alaskametro makeup) who clued me into Flickr, I had been using Picasa which was at the time sort-of integrated with blogspot in an annoying way. IIRC she gave me a referral link which gave BOTH of us an extra 3 months of Pro in 2007.

The one thing I would suggest now is please make sure you at least have a good backup of all those Flickr pics in case Flickr does go pop, because you might not get enough warning to download files. I know when Smugmug were about to delete free user's photos down to the 1k limit, they had pretty limited options in how they downloaded their files to back them up and it was slow. You ideally want to avoid being in that rush of users trying to get your files at the same time If you don't have a copy of the pics on your hard drive and you'd miss them, I'd back them up now. I think you request your data and they send you files in folders.

The one really annoying big job you'll have if Flickr dies is replacing broken image links through all your blog posts. You can import a Blogger site into Wordpress and then use some plugins to grab the Flickr images and hopefully slot them in correctly. Like this, but that's going to be quite a job if you're new to Wordpress and don't have website hosting space to use. It's maybe possible to import Flickr pics into Google photos and update the image links manually, but I'd suggest figuring out what you'll need to do so you aren't caught out.

 

[Maitimo]

I'm not convinced that this will have a massively detrimental effect, tbh. The majority of serious bloggers are already Pro (they pretty much need to be with the image cap on free accounts dropped to 1000). The rest, if they are popular enough, I reckon they would rather pay for Pro than lose their audience by migrating to another platform.

It's also my understanding that only links are prohibited. So you could still, for instance, credit the items and creators in your pic without falling foul of the rule, as long as your credits are just text and no links. And yeah, most people who are regular shoppers know how to search in-world or in the MP for a creator.

I do think that Flickr itself is dying though. They are making yet another plea for people to go Pro, at 50% off now until the end of February. That's a desperate move. I'm tempted by the low price but on the other hand I'm not really confident that Flickr will still be around/usable in a year from now.