reminds me of Netflix a while back ...
reminds me of Netflix a while back ...
Arnt
What was wrong with flickr that needed fixing? Where they not making enough money off of it??? Apparently, I am a reoccurring Pro, and as long as it stays at $25/yr, I'll be fine. But if they try to switch me to $50/yr "Ad Free" then I'll consider dropping the account or just going to a regular account.
It's all about the Ad revenue. Something easy to overlook about the 'new' Flickr. If you look at the Help page, you'll notice that the Ad Free account, for $50 per year, includes:
• No ads in your browsing experience
However, the Pro account included:
• Ad-free browsing and sharing
By having a Pro account, people who I directed to my pages were not subjected to ads. That's not going to be the case with the double-the-cost Ad Free account - for your $50/year, you won't see ads, but anyone who follows a link to one of your images will.
I think the $50 price is intentionally too high - they don't intend to make money from Ad Free, they intend to make money from Ad Sales, so they've priced the opt out option high enough to limit subscribers, and thus boost ad revenue.
It will be interesting to see how ad placement evolves, too. Given their plans to 'not screw up' Tumblr, but also to 'monetize' it (those are perilously close to mutually exclusive, IMO), I expect ads to migrate from a sidebar to inline placement (between your images) in the future.
I can imagine ads like pictures mixed in with your other photo's as well as inline, especially on mobile, which is probably where the future of ad revenue is. A lot of us block ads on your PC, but that is harder to do in your phone apps. Look at Facebook on your phone.
Unfortunately, I don't have a ton of time to look into this, so a few basic questions. For those of us that are "reoccuring Pros", when our account renews, do we default into the new "Ad Free" group, or do we keep the same services we now enjoy as Pros? To John's point, will both our invitees and ourselves both continue to be "ad free?"
When we automatically renew, will it be at our previous rate ($25/yr) or at the new $50/yr "ad free" rate?
I originally joined flickr because after TDP transitioned over to the new format, there was the QC issues with the picture uploads. I do not believe that is the case any longer. I do seem to be limited to 183 KB for my jpeg uploads on TDP, is that the new normal?
I can be as much of a stick in the mud as the next person, wanting to stay put with the old ways that I'm used to. Because I know that about myself, when I see changes like this, I give pause and prepare myself to give the changes a chance by taking time to use them. This strategy applies to the new Flickr interface. It does not apply to the accounts and pricing. I'm going to hang around and see where the dust settles, but if in 6 months I still feel like Yahoo is after my cash instead of feeling like I have subscribed to a respectable photo sharing community, I will not hesitate to find something else.
One of the comments I read in the 90+ page help thread where folks were complaining really resonated with me (http://www.flickr.com/help/forum/en-...7633547442506/). I use Flickr on a computer the majority of the time. I use Flickr to share images with family and friends. The focus of the site feels like it has shifted from nuts and bolts to glitz and glam. If a redesign for mobile and Windows 8 users was necessary, I wish it wouldn't have affected my desktop experience. I guess a lot of the same feelings were aroused when the public first got its hands on Windows 8 too.
Maybe I can hack Craigslist to somehow host my images!
Here's what my account options look like right now. The 1-year option is greyed out.
Flickr_Account by rlriii13, on Flickr
I think it greys out your last subscription plan, since this is to switch to a different billing interval. I signed up for a 2-year plan, so if I go into mine, it shows 3month and 1 year available, and 2 year greyed out. I take it yours will auto renew on at the 1-year Pro plan.
I posted my thoughts on the update. :-)
http://www.the-digital-picture.com/N...aspx?News=4912