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My 2005 prediction: Keep an eye on Flickr (or companies providing Flickr-like services) …

Posted : December 29, 2004 at 4:31 pm [America/Los_Angeles]

What is Flickr?

Flickr is the best way to store, sort, search and share your photos online. There is a huge mass of photos in the world, and Flickr provides a way to organize yours, and for you and your friends and family to tell your stories about them.

more…

Flickr’s architecture:

Cal Henderson of Ludicorp gave a presentation to the Vancouver PHP Association on 09/09/2004 about Flickr’s Architecture. A zip of the PowerPoint presentation is available on Flickr’s site. Thanks to Niall for a PDF version of the presentation.

Things I like about Flickr:

• It seems like a 21st century online gallery solution built from scratch for the “Blogger Generation”. It has RSS feeds, Moblogging capabilities, Most viewed, Most Popular, Most Commented type features that one is used to seeing on a blog. In that sense, it’s ready from get go to be integrated into your own blog(s).
• It has exceptional desktop tools which make it super easy for even my dad (a non-techy guy) to upload pictures.
• I like the whole Flash (and Javascript) driven rich interface of Flickr. Makes things really trivial and slick at the same time.
• For advanced users, it provides a rich services API to do just about everything under the sun with your pictures
• It seems like a company that’s working hard to deliver “services” as fast as users are dreaming them up. Well, almost

Flickr’s BIG problem:

They need to figure out a way to attract and keep new users. They’ve the infrastructure and they sure as hell have the right tools for even the most non-techy amongst us. However, their current “free” service is pretty limiting for users who do “see” the light. And their 60-odd bucks (40 for now) price tag for their “Pro” account is far too steep for many. Rumor has it that they’re working on this.

My $0.02 cents:

Flickr seems to be well-positioned to do for “online photos” what Blogs have already done for “online publishing”. Infact, I actually think it’s impact may very well be much bigger than all commerial or free blogging services combined. Why? Well, for every one user that you find who is excited about sitting on his/her behind and writing their thoughts/ideas as an entry on their “Blog”, I will find atleast ten equally (if not more) excited users willing to upload their latest “photo” to Flickr or someone providing similar services.

I repeat: Flickr has the right interface, the right tools to attract people. And they already are. Also, they seem to have entered the market at a perfect time when more and more homes are jumping on to the “broadband” bandwagon. This has to be music to the ears of folks working at Flickr. However, as I said earlier in this entry, they MUST come up with innovative ways (like first 6 months “Pro” access for all users) to make it easy for anyone, especially those who are not willing to shell out money rightaway, to get “hooked”. Once they do that, I think Flickr will be a H-U-G-E H-I-T!

Ok, now if only I could invest in this company..

- Anand

Category: IT and Business Trends |