History
Flickr was launched on February 10, 2004, by Ludicorp, a Vancouver-based company founded by Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake. The service emerged from tools originally created for Ludicorp's Game Neverending, a web-based massively multiplayer online game. Flickr proved a more feasible project, and ultimately Game Neverending was shelved.[14] Butterfield later launched a similar online game, Glitch, which was shut down on November 14, 2012.[15][16]
Early versions of Flickr focused on a chat room called FlickrLive, with real-time photo exchange capabilities.[17] The successive evolutions focused more on the uploading and filing back-end for individual users and the chat room was buried in the site map. It was eventually dropped as Flickr's back-end systems evolved away from Game Neverending's codebase.[18] Key features of Flickr not initially present are tags, marking photos as favorites, group photo pools and interestingness, for which a patent was granted.[19]
In addition to being a popular website for users to share and embed personal photographs and an online community, in 2004, the service was widely used by photo researchers and by bloggers to host images that they embed in blogs and social media.[20]
Yahoo! acquired Ludicorp and Flickr on March 20, 2005.[21] The acquisition reportedly cost between $22 million and $25 million.[22] During the week of June 26, 2005 to July 2, 2005, all content was migrated from servers in Canada to servers in the United States, and all resulting data became subject to United States federal law.[23] On May 3, 2007, Yahoo! announced that Yahoo! Photos would close down on September 20, 2007, after which all photos would be deleted; users were encouraged to migrate to Flickr.[24] On January 31, 2007, Flickr announced that, to continue using the service, "Old Skool" members (those who had joined before the Yahoo! acquisition) would be required to associate their account with a Yahoo! identity by March 15, 2007.[25] This move was criticized by some users.[26]
Flickr upgraded its services from "beta" to "gamma" status on May 16, 2006, the changes attracted positive attention from Lifehacker.[27] On December 13, 2006, upload limits on free accounts were increased to 100 MB a month (from 20 MB) and were removed from Flickr Pro accounts, which originally had a 2 GB per month limit.[28] On April 9, 2008, Flickr began allowing paid subscribers to upload videos, limited to 90 seconds in length and 150 MB in size. On March 2, 2009, Flickr added the facility to upload and view HD videos, and began allowing free users to upload normal-resolution video. At the same time, the set limit for free accounts was lifted.[29] In 2009, Flickr announced a partnership with Getty Images in which selected users could submit photographs for stock photography usage and receive payment. On June 16, 2010, this was changed so that users could label images as suitable for stock use themselves.[30]
On May 20, 2013, Flickr launched the first stage of a major site redesign, introducing a "Justified View" close-spaced photo layout[31] browsed via "infinite scrolling" and adding new features, including one terabyte of free storage for all users, a scrolling home page (mainly of contacts photos and comments) and updated Android app.[32][33] The Justified View is paginated between 72 and 360 photos per page but unpaginated in search result presentation. Tech Radar described the new style Flickr as representing a "sea change" in its purpose.[34] Many users criticized the changes, and the site's help forum received thousands of negative comments.[35] On March 25, 2014, Flickr's New Photo Experience, a user interface redesign, left beta.[36]
On May 7, 2015, Yahoo! overhauled the site, adding a revamped Camera Roll, a new way to upload photos, and upgraded the site's apps. The new Uploadr application was made available for Macs, Windows and mobile devices.[37]
In 2018, Yahoo! (owned by Verizon at that point) sold Flickr to SmugMug.[38]
In early May 2019, SmugMug announced the migration of Flickr data, involving 100+ million accounts and billions of photos and videos, from the servers of former owner Yahoo! to Amazon Web Services (AWS), in a planned 12-hour transition to occur on May 22, 2019.[39]
SmugMug launched the non-profit Flickr Foundation in December 2022 with the goal of preserving free photos on Flickr for 100 years in the public domain.[40][41]
In May 2023, Flickr announced the development of the Print Shop feature that was being tested with a list of approved sellers. The Print shop feature allows photographers to sell prints via a storefront, and allows purchases from consumers. The feature was to allow only approved members access to it, but the criteria for that were yet to be announced.[42]
Corporate changes
On June 13, 2008, Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield announced his resignation on July 12, 2008, which followed that of his wife and co-founder Caterina Fake, who left the company on the same day.[43] Butterfield wrote a humorous resignation letter to Brad Garlinghouse.[44]
On December 14, 2008, The Guardian reported that three employees had been laid off as Yahoo! continued to reduce its workforce[45] and, on November 30, 2010, CNET reported Yahoo! was on the verge of a major layoff, affecting 10% to 20% of its workforce. Flickr was specifically named as a target for these layoffs.[46]
On June 13, 2017, Verizon Communications acquired Yahoo!, including Flickr.
