Tag Archives: new Flickr

A Vivified Flickr

So I logged in to my Flickr account (http://flickr.com/photos/uzidon) after quite some time and a (pleasant) surprise welcomed me on the homepage. Apparently Flickr has recently joined the club of the websites which are making major changes to their user interface and functionality, and offering more features to the users than ever before.

WHAT’S DIFFERENT?

Some of the major changes (which I noticed) include:

  • One Terabyte (1000 Gigabytes) of FREE storage for storing full-resolution, high-quality images. Now this is much, much more than what any other file sharing/storage services are offering right now.
  • Upload images of upto 200 Megabytes in size (per image).
  • Download full-resolution images (this used to be offered only with a Pro account previously).
  • A completely new user-interface (UI). The Flickr homepage now presents latest photos from your contacts in a grid style on the left and a narrower, sticky column on right contains your groups, a bunch of “Explored” photos, latest posts from Flickr Blog, and contacts suggestions. Flickr explains it as “everything you care about”. It updates and more photos are loaded as you scroll down, just like Facebook’s posts.
Flickr Homepage preview

Flickr Homepage preview

  • Cover photo on the top of personal profile page.
  • A compact, grid-style layout for user’s photostream. This too kinda works like Facebook albums: the title shows up when you hover your mouse pointer over a photo.
Flickr Photostream preview

Flickr Photostream preview

  • A larger, high-resolution buddy-icon.
  • A new slideshow feature with random transition effects.
  • A photo, when viewed individually, takes up whole width of the screen with a black background and details are pushed down on the right. Comments section appears on the left and hasn’t changed much.
Flickr Individual photo preview

Flickr Individual photo preview

  • New Ad-free and double capacity (2 Terabytes of storage) premium accounts which cost $49.99 and $499.99 per year, respectively; and previous Pro accounts have been dropped.

COMMUNITY REACTION

Most of the users are happy. Yes, of course they are. I will not go in to the details, as the reaction is all over the internet:

However, it appears that not all of the aforementioned changes have received a positive feedback. The new interface may offer flexibility but it has a massive impact on the loading-time of site pages and slows it down. It is evident from the comments of many users that they do not approve of this change over the classic look-and-feel which they were comfortable with.

CONCLUSION

In my humble opinion, this is a positive change. Flickr had kept its traditional look for too long, and it was about time it changed. I appreciate other significant changes too, like extended storage capacity (which, I am sure, is more than enough for most of the regular users), cover photos, etc. But it does not mean it’s perfect. I sincerely hope that Flickr is focusing on the shortcomings of this overhaul, like slow loading and others. If the Flickr team can do this in right time, I believe they will surely win the hearts of critics and regular users.

MORE INFORMATION

For more information on the topic, one can visit the following links: