Flickr changes

[Sheiky]

Hmm, I just saw the "new and improved" Flickr. It definitely looks nice and I like that. However that's about it. A while back I doubted to use Flickr, because my webhosting offered me unlimited storage for 30€ a year. Well since I already had the Flickr account, it didn't make sense to switch all my photos.
The point is, I only use Flickr to show my photos, mainly just on TDP. I tried to get them more viewed by adding them to groups, but all I get is spam-replies, very little serious replies from others than TDP memebers and friends. So for sharing to the rest of the world, it doesn't really work for me. And on the other side, I rarely update my website because I use Flickr So both of them are 50% useless to me.

I saw the option to cancel out your membership and receive some sort of fee back. Since I have more than a year of membership left, I'm seriously thinking about it and just host all the images from my website.

I would miss out on the comments at others people on Flickr, that's the only thing I'd miss out on in my opinion. I also noticed around here that there are more people just using their own website.

[neuroanatomist]

Thanks, Eric - that's good to know.

Having said that, I've been looking into 500px, and I am strongly considering porting over there from Flickr, regardless. Nice to know I have choices, though!

[ddt0725]

Anyone having problems with the home page on flickr this afternoon? The layout on mine is completely messed up! Errr!!!

[Sean Setters]

I haven't had any problems today.

[ddt0725]

It's back to "normal" now.

[DavidEccleston]

I've seen it get screwed up to the point on un-usability several times since the update. I usually check back a while later and it's fixed. Not sure why they don't test their changes before rolling them out... They're just a bunch of Yahoo!'s I tells ya.

[Steve U]

Yahoos
I'm enjoying the new format, now that I'm kinda used to it. The favourite button is sometimes hard to click on as the text and links seem to go a bit funny there, but I'm sure they will sort it.

[DavidEccleston]

With Steve saying he's liking the new format, it got me thinking if it was growing on me at all... No.

There's three things I tended to do with Flickr:
1. Homepage as an inbox... Events directed at me that I may want to follow up on.
2. Contacts as web surfing... things people posted that I might want to look at.
3. Photostream as usage statistics (and admiring my shots )

1. When I log in, I'm used to seeing a feed of comments/faves to my photos, and comments to photos I've commented on. These are events that have happened that I'm involved in, and may want to follow up on. If there was a lot of activity, there was a 'more' button. This worked great. This is still here, sort of. Except now the homepage is a random mix of homepage and contacts (or inbox and web surfing as I used them), truncated and twisted to the point of being just about useless. Why, Yahoo!? If gmail started putting webpages in between all the emails in my inbox, they'd stop being my provider pretty damn quick! They're try to stuff too many things onto one page... and to me, the things were separate activities. I want them separate. I want to see full comments even if that means I scroll. Scrolling isn't hard... even on mobile. Why try to remove scrolling?!? Angry Birds scrolls (and zooms). Bad Piggies scrolls (and zooms). Cut the Rope scrolls sometimes.

2. Next, I usually click on contacts and see the recent posts that many of you have posted. I really wish I wish it didn't just show the most recent 5 per contact. Yes, you can change it from 5... to 1. I know many of you also view with this 5 recent shots method, as if I upload more than 5 photos, only the first 5 get views or comments unless I specifically post them here. I'm guilty of browsing like this too. This odd limitation was, previously, just about my biggest complaint with Flickr. It's not a *huge* deal, but it's annoying at times (you see, I really liked old Flickr if this is one of my biggest complaints). Naturally, they didn't fix this, as it was an actual genuine usability issue.

3. Occasionally I'll click on my photostream to remind myself of what I've last uploaded, and to see the view counts. *Most* people don't comment (I usually don't either!). Views is the closest thing Flickr has to 'likes'... people liked the thumbnail enough to click through. Naturally, they removed this information from the stream view. The view count info isn't shown, unless you go to each photo individually and scroll down. There's plenty of space left on the hover-over info area, but they chose not to include it. Why?!? It shows favorites, but to me, favorites aren't likes. They're reserved for shots I felt were extra special for one reason or another. I've been on Flickr for 6 years and have 8 favorites. I know others are more open with the favorite button, and that's fine too. The point is I've certainly liked more than 8 photos, but the stat that would show you that? Apparently not important. On the positive side, the new layout of the photosteam is nice.

So they've ruined 2 of my 3 activities, and left the third, partially broken one as is. Yay?

[Bill W]

Dave....I agree w/your view point of the "new" Flickr. I have re-visited the site a number of times since the change and just can't become accustomed to it's format. I just feel like I'm missing info. I haven't posted a photo since the change and don't think I will. I'm currently researching other options for posting my pix.

[rlriii13]

Re: Dave's point #2.
I ran into my first genuine concern yesterday. I follow the photostream of the Library of Congress. They typically dump a few dozen images on at a time. In the past, anytime I saw new posts from the LoC show up on my recent activity, I would open their photostream and scroll back to the photos from the previous upload. To do this, I used the date uploaded as the indicator. When I tried to do this yesterday, I had no clue where to start browsing the photos. Part of that issue can be blamed on my poor memory though.

I haven't had many other practical issues yet.