Flickr has gone all pretty

I've got nearly 6000 photographs on FLickr, and right now they are presented to everyone else in the world in a jumbled stream of large and small on a black background that constantly reloads and scrolls

I've edited all my photographs so that they look right on a static white background and the same size ...

Let's face it, Flickr has lost their way and forgotten their roots. It is no longer a community for photographers. I'm not sure who it's for, but it may no longer be for me. I discover great art there every day and my fear is that those who make those contributions will stop doing so.

The "wall of photos" is atrocious. The notion of curated content is out the window.

I understand that products must evolve and that requires redesigns, but the Flickr redesign seems to me like it was not well thought out at all, and that it was rushed out full of bugs. It is the first time that I've ever commented about a redesign to the product owner.
 
I don't hate it - I didn't think it was anything to write home about before. I'm sure there are some changes I'll like and some I won't. For now, the primary thing that really bugs me is how slow it is. Maybe that's just because everyone's curious about it and overloading the site?

-Ray
 
Nic has a very good point and perhaps flickr shoould check it out. They've always made their website open to 3rd party developers and judging from my own stats, people are brought to my stream far more often through a 3rd party app than from anywhere else. Why not flickriver (or some other 3rd party app) be the way we view our stuff. Better yet, if everything is coded right, why can't we just load up our content and then choose from 3 -10 layouts (or more!) that are kind of tested already and work well.

The whole thing just strikes me as a bunch of people who have no idea what they have. Goggle + may have some adherents, but flickr is easily the most established photo sharing service that has a built-in community. I really cringe when photography websites are being designed around cel phones users. I think I have a little puke in the back of my throat...please excuse me. Maybe I need to find a new place. I'm certainly not a photographer, but I'm not interested in hanging out with a ton of Instagrammers,.
 
and that super thin stripe of a photo as a header is ridiculous. I want something that respresents me......and that aspect ratio is so freaking skinny (and I do a lot of widescreen adaptations) that it is virtually useless. I give a resounding "boooooooo" to Flickr. Go try again. I'm not a facebook guy, but is this who they are trying to be?
 
I like the look a lot, but I still think "view all sizes" is cumbersome, and where's the metadata? (unless I'm just viewing pics that have been stripped of metadata)
 
This is a huge change by Flickr. They did need to make some big changes, and that was never going to suite many people. I quite liked the old photostream, and would have been happy for them to make it over. I also like Fliudr's way of doing it.

Having said that I think it is a step in the right direction, albeit they now seem to have a lot of tidy up and smaller changes to make. I would love to see a customisable photostream at one of their priorities.

I'll reserve ultimate judgement until my pro account comes up for renewal, and I will probably re-evaluate what's available and how Flickr is at that point. I won't be looking forward to moving photo's, but that may end up a positive thing as well.
 
I like the look a lot, but I still think "view all sizes" is cumbersome, and where's the metadata? (unless I'm just viewing pics that have been stripped of metadata)

Not that long ago flickr added a small strip to each image page that included all the basic metadata, but now it requires you to click on those three little dots and go to another page to view it just like in the bad old days. They giveth with one hand, and then taketh away with the other.
 
Nic, I like how the fluidr stream looks. All the useful information on one side, good photo on the other.

I was surprised, then intrigued, and finally disappointed with how flickr has gone this morning. They now have about 3500 posts in the feedback thread, most of them complaints.

Visually, it is nice to be able to see a stream or group as a number of large images. But it lacks the very important informational aspect of number of views, titles, descriptions etc at a glance. Flickr was just about photos, it was the interaction between people and telling the stories behind the photos. Now that has become much more cumbersome.
 
Not that long ago flickr added a small strip to each image page that included all the basic metadata, but now it requires you to click on those three little dots and go to another page to view it just like in the bad old days. They giveth with one hand, and then taketh away with the other.

I've been on the inside of major redesigns, leading strategy, design, development, and business teams. I know quite well that a redesign is a delicate balancing act and that there's no way to make everyone happy. If you give everyone what they want you end up with a dense, busy, unusable website.

I would hope that Flickr looked at the data when making some of these design decisions. The importance of the EXIF data to users, for example, could have been determined through surveys, focus groups, eye tracking studies, etc. They may very well have determined that EXIF data, although important to you, is lower in importance to the general population than all the other stuff that they've placed below the photo. I'm just guessing about their process of course, but maybe start a petition to bring it back. Websites, after all, are living breathing things, and I can't see any technical reason for not putting EXIF back if people really shout about it.

Regarding site performance, the infrastructure of a site like Flickr is probably massive, with huge amounts of redundancies, caches, proxies, load balancing, etc... I imagine that the performance of the site will probably improve as the infrastructure caches and load balances the new site.
 
Flickr is MySpace.

Not keen on the redesign, but I (so far) just don't care that much. For me, it's a repository for images... I've limited interest in it as a social networking experience.
 
John, I'm sure that you're right about the exif data. If the most popular cameras on Flickr are now phone cameras, exif data is fairly irrelevant. The only thing though is that while the exif data was being displayed, it was only a small strip displayed under the tags.
 
I'm reading far more negative than positive comments. Might just be the usual chatter after any major redesign, but in this case people seem to have very specific gripes, and many discuss that Flickr now allows so little control (none really) over how their work is displayed. Flickr has changed, and a few will leave, but what does Yahoo/Flickr hope to happen next? A sudden influx of new users? Or just hope that people opt in for the free version and therefore allow for more ad displays. It may just be about the ads. What are their goals for the redesign?

Many people state their intention to leave, but at the same time they don't know where to go. Flickr built the original and richest photographic community (as opposed to gear) and there's nothing else like it. But I hope another creative community arrives someday, without the market pressures that Yahoo faces.
 
I do not like the black header! Groups is now called Communities, but not consistently. And oddly, they seemed to be trying to get me to downgrade from my Pro account to a free account. My guess is so that they can then display ads to me!

Also, I could never get to the footer on the home page since it kept loading more photos! I was trying to get to the Flickr blog.

Adblock PLus is your friend.

Footer: I got there eventually, wanting to work out what would happen... I wont be paying for the ad free version... its not much at $50 a year but I think too steep for all that.
Flickr: Help

Flickr Blog: Flickr Blog

No doubt someone else has already posted these links but I dont care, just started reading the thread :p
 
I love the fact that they are doing 1TB free without resolution limits. Somebody tell Herman!

They'll work out the bugs.

I like the 1TB space too, but bugs? I'm sure they dont think there are any


If flickr wants to learn how to display a photostream nicely as a continuous stream, they should have a look at the presentation of some of the third party websites that they have spawned such as fluidr.com

I don't understand why I can't see my photostream something like this from within flickr:

Fluidr / Nic (Luckypenguin)'s photos and videos
Thanks for this link, Nic, I had never heard of Fluidr, and this is EXACTLY what flickr should be doing. If they are going to be mobile phone pic-centric then maybe some other mob can do what fluidr is doing but with storage.

In the meantime I am looking at Zenfolio again. at least if I pay them, I get some choices about what and how to display.
 
I've only looked at it on my iPad so I'll try to reserve judgement for now. My first impression is that it's very "in your face". I opened up my page this morning expecting my usual calm perusal only to be met with some kind of all singing all dancing circus ! It's all rather disconcerting, I want to sip my tea and browse quietly in the morning :rolleyes:
 
just looked at mine, it's

"fetching more photos"

who wrote that phrase

what do I do, "switch to free" - I NEVER link flckr to anything - I always use my web site for linking images
I use flckr for contacts and looking at other peoples (mainly bird) images

Do not like it as christilou says it really is "in your face"

what with LR4.4 and the bigger images from the D7100 and now this, my machine is grinding to a halt
 
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