I was a Pro member, though a light user. My concerns with Flickr are my concerns with all photo sharing sites, online storage, etc: We don’t control our content and I don’t trust that the providers will always have my best interests as top priority.
As far as replacements, I’ve dabbled with Google’s Picasa-web but the same issue exists. I may just install my own thing on this web server and perform regular local archiving… Since my last ISP (1&1) turned off FTP on me after Digg brought down their server. Fortunately, I figured out I could ssh in and ftp out to another location to salvage and relocate my site (to Media Temple).
Yeah, I tried out Picasa-web and I like it for the simplicity of the UI. You can point an Internet “newbie” at it and they can pretty easily figure out how to flip through your photos. Point the same person at a Flickr photostream and it takes them a bit longer to figure things out. However, I like the community aspect of Flickr which is what’s keeping me on there for now.
With regards to trusting them with my content, I always keep local backups of my photos (as well as online backups with another company, Mozy), so I’m not concerned about losing data if they suddenly shut down tomorrow (which is unlikely with a company the size of Flickr/Yahoo).
I agree in keeping local backups. But I still hate to invest the time organizing, tagging, labeling photos and establishing myself in the community to only see it blown away at some point. I’d rather build my own photo gallery off davezatz.com and send friends/family there.
Yah, I’ve been following along. It’s good to see Flickr take responsibility and look at ways to operate better going forward. However, how many folks have had (or will have) their photos or posts removed without Thomas Hawk and all of Digg rallying? When I get some free time (ha!), I’m still going to invest time in my own gallery.
7 Responses for "Picture of the Day: A Matter Of Trust"
That’s a pretty drastic move, assuming you were still using your Flickr account. May I ask what service you’re using now?
BTW, about 30 seconds after posting that comment I noticed that Flickr has responded with an apology over the incident. http://blog.flickr.com/flickrblog/2007/05/sometimes_we_ma.html
I was a Pro member, though a light user. My concerns with Flickr are my concerns with all photo sharing sites, online storage, etc: We don’t control our content and I don’t trust that the providers will always have my best interests as top priority.
As far as replacements, I’ve dabbled with Google’s Picasa-web but the same issue exists. I may just install my own thing on this web server and perform regular local archiving… Since my last ISP (1&1) turned off FTP on me after Digg brought down their server. Fortunately, I figured out I could ssh in and ftp out to another location to salvage and relocate my site (to Media Temple).
Yeah, I tried out Picasa-web and I like it for the simplicity of the UI. You can point an Internet “newbie” at it and they can pretty easily figure out how to flip through your photos. Point the same person at a Flickr photostream and it takes them a bit longer to figure things out. However, I like the community aspect of Flickr which is what’s keeping me on there for now.
With regards to trusting them with my content, I always keep local backups of my photos (as well as online backups with another company, Mozy), so I’m not concerned about losing data if they suddenly shut down tomorrow (which is unlikely with a company the size of Flickr/Yahoo).
I agree in keeping local backups. But I still hate to invest the time organizing, tagging, labeling photos and establishing myself in the community to only see it blown away at some point. I’d rather build my own photo gallery off davezatz.com and send friends/family there.
Re-read that Tomas Hawk blog post @ http://thomashawk.com/2007/05/flickr-censorship.html — it’s been updated to note that “Flickr has formally responded on this matter.”
Don Macaskill of SmugMug (the photo-sharing site that I use and love) also blogged about this today @ http://blogs.smugmug.com/don/2007/05/16/flickr-still-has-a-human-face/
Yah, I’ve been following along. It’s good to see Flickr take responsibility and look at ways to operate better going forward. However, how many folks have had (or will have) their photos or posts removed without Thomas Hawk and all of Digg rallying? When I get some free time (ha!), I’m still going to invest time in my own gallery.
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