So a lot has changed in the photography world but one noticeable change has been Flickr’s severly limit free accounts. In reality it was inevitable and I’m not surprised it happen, although the way they handled it was surprising.
Despite the fact that my father and I had paid for Pro accounts for a long time, we had long ago relished back to free accounts. To put it mildly we saw a significant drop in views from our posts and the photography community that had grown around Flickr had long moved to facebook.
Yahoo (who owned Flickr) has not be a big mover and shaker in the marketplace of online images, and Flickr really hasn’t changed over the years and became scattered when other social media competition rose up, like 500px.com and Twitter/Facebook and now Instagram. In addition we had our own site (MegaPixelTravel.com and the now defunct HayPhoto.ca) to show our portfolios and images along with more in-depth content.
So with Instagram taking off, Flickr became another Social Media Zero (before “Social Media” term was coined) to fall. Its still around, but all the free accounts, including our own have been limited to 2000 images (or whatever the limit was…). I’m sure this move reduce Flickr’s costs significantly, and perhaps even boosted review as photographers scrabbled to save their online portfolios and upgrade to paying packages. But the majority I suspect having long moved off the platform let it lapse.
So moving onward and upwards with the trends I’ve opened a Instagram account etc. I thought about the handle for a while (that hashtag name) and given I’m working on a new more multi-media company (film, photography, astrophotography, art, and maybe even some music) in addition to occasional updates to this site when I board an aeroplane more immediate updates will be Ember Sky Media #emberskymedia on Instagram / Twitter / Facebook / Youtube etc. as much as I can manage them.
Because Flickr is dead and Social Media 3.0 is just around the corner…
