Friday, July 16, 2004

MIT Technology Review Article on Flickr

MIT Technology Review Article on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Ok, so online photo sharing is hot. I was impressed with Picasa/Hello (just acquired by Google), this is another angle on the same story. Flickr is trying to merge photos with social networks. Not sure how they expect to make money. They do have ads.

I get the feeling not all the photos are wholesome and pure. One can mark photos as "likely to shock".

They do have private groups, so I can host the family pictures there. They may be too private however, I don't want to bother Grandma with a password. I'm ok with the feeble security of a privately held URL.

Somewhat like Picasa's Hello they support hosting a photo and simultaneously creating a blog entry with a lower res thumbnail. So you can use their blog, or you can use another blog (I have an unpublished blogger photoblog brewing). Somewhat like Picasa, but it's all web client so no platform issues. On the other hand one can't stage fifty photos for posting, the easiest interface is to mail one photo at a time (suited to phone based photoblogging). Maybe they'll extend their offering.

I'll read this MIT tech review and see what it says.

Hot area, but noone is yet following the grandma-friendly plans I posted on newsgroups and emailed to photo vendors a year ago ...

Update: I read the MIT article. It's really an iChat, text messaging, party animal, social networking kind of schtick. I can't see where they expect to make money (higher featured version costs money?) but I can't judge this market demo -- I'm way too old!

Not quite what I need ... but we'll see where it goes ...

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