Yahoo! dismemberment! begins! as! Oath! offloads! Flickr! Yahoo!’s photo-sharing service Flickr has been acquired by SmugMug. Neither Yahoo!, Flickr, the pair’s parent company Oath, or SmugMug, have been crass enough to explain how much currency changed hands to make this happen. But all concerned are at pains to point out that nothing will change: there’s no plan for close Flickr, …
"[...] the one remaining yahoo! user is going to get a bit lonely."
Yahoo! Groups are still useful and apparently far less intrusive than FaceBoook.
One group was deserted by some influential members who started a closed FaceBook group instead. Recently they have been popping up in the Yahoo! Group complaining bitterly about FaceBook policies - and that was before FaceBook's email that said "accept our new privacy T&Cs or you're out".
Yahoo! Groups are still useful and apparently far less intrusive than FaceBoook.
Useful only if you don't want to search past messages. A group that's been on YahooGroups ever since the Yahoos took over OneList has 74K messages in it's archive, but if you try searching for a past message, it will ONLY search throughj 300-message batches at a time. The particular batch you're looking through may not have any matches, but the next 300-message subset *might*, or might not. That means you will have to click through a search *160 times* to find everything. And Google doesn't seem able to index them either.
"Come on, be a bit realistic, it's worth a piece a string with a bit of packing tape at each end, at most."
The old analogy is of the rag and bone man*** offering you a goldfish OR a balloon - but not both.
***A horse and cart collector of household recyclable salvage - originally literally rags and bones - see "Steptoe and Son".
Normally all mergers say "no plans to change", but then after a discreet delay most do in fact change the acquired or original product. For example see Friday's BOFH.
In this case they might mean it though because one of the FAQs says that anyone who has both paid SmugMug and Flickr Pro accounts will continue to get charged for both, so they would presumably lose revenue if they immediately merged the products into one.
Also, the sharing/privacy mechanisms do not work the same way :(
Maybe for Flickr. SmugMug has always charged more money, and is more about customizable websites and higher priced tiers where photographers can set pricelists for photos. If the lens-person's SmugMug site contains password-protected galleries only visible to paying customers then "everyone" won't be able to look for free-to-use images, for example.
Also Flickr Pro was $24.99 per year (plus the free tier) but even the cheapest SmugMug plan is $48/year, with others at $72/year, $180, or $360/year, and no free options. Perhaps this is why SmugMug is the one buying Flickr and not vice versa?
"Also Flickr Pro was $24.99 per year (plus the free tier) but even the cheapest SmugMug plan is $48/year, with others at $72/year, $180, or $360/year, and no free options. Perhaps this is why SmugMug is the one buying Flickr and not vice versa?"
That's probably also why everyone has heard of Flickr while far fewer have heard of SmugMug. I'd not heard of it before today.
Yet.
There is always a grace period after a purchase during which the buyer pretends to not want to touch anything, to reassure the paying customers - and give themselves time to find out how everything actually works.
Then, one day, out of the blue (once they have properly mapped the existing functionality) they will suddenly have a blinding flash of a brainstorm, and changes will be announced.
Always for good, obviously.
So now the new terms state they can and will drop flickr pro without notice...
Bang go some of our legacy rights as early adopters then inc unlimited storage...
“Interruptions or Discontinuation of Flickr Pro Services; Changes to Flickr Pro Services and Terms of Use
Flickr reserves the right at any time, at its sole discretion and without notice, to suspend, modify, discontinue or permanently cancel the Flickr Pro Services or any portions thereof, including the Subscription Plans and any policies, features and terms applicable thereto. If the Flickr Pro Services, or any part thereof, to which you subscribe are permanently discontinued or canceled by Flickr, your Subscription will terminate, and we will have no further liability to you. You acknowledge that the Flickr Pro Services may be interrupted from time to time, with or without notice, for maintenance, upgrades, system updates or in the event of equipment failure or for any other foreseeable or non-foreseeable cause.
SMUGMUG WILL HAVE NO LIABILITY TO YOU FOR ANY INTERRUPTION, SUSPENSION, DISCONTINUANCE OR UNAVAILABILITY OF THE FLICKR PRO SERVICES FOR ANY REASON, OR FOR ANY LOSS OR INABILITY TO ACCESS ANY MEDIA OR MATERIALS ON THE SERVICES.
”
Re: "Uh, that does not make any sense. Why discontinue the only part of Flickr that produces some income?"
Probably not right now, especially for anyone who has both a Flickr Pro and SmugMug account who they will be happy to continue to bill for both.
As mentioned though, even the cheapest SmugMug plan is $48/year compared to $25/year for Flickr Pro. Do not be surprised if they try to migrate the Flickr Pro subscribers to the higher SmugMug price.
Anytime I end up on the associated estate I now get a blank screen until I temporarily allow things via No-Script and then Oath asks me what I want to do about their ShitVertising partners. Last I checked they are all switched off by default so 'kool'.
Goes off to Yahoo Images to view catalogue pictures of hunky blokes with six packs in Y-Fronts....
Every fucking time I go back I have to go through that shit again. I do not have 4TB of storage for all of your and your ShitVertising partners fucking cookies so I will just Bookmark the relevant sections of Marks & Spencers and Debenhams.
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