Flickr responds to 'Dear Marissa Mayer' appeal with an appeal of its own

I've been with Flickr a long time now, and have almost stopped twice. Once because I couldn't get the look and structure I wanted and the second time because I felt obbligated to comment on everything.
I've got smugmug now to because i like how you can customize almost everything, but thats me (http://rhermans.smugmug.com) but I still use flickr because it's imho still the best community.
Looking at all the other systems available they might look slicker but there isn't so much difference

I find it odd that so many people are complaining about the interface looking "old". Every interface "upgrade" that I've seen in the last ~10 years - Google, Facebook, just about any web page, Adobe programs, Windows, MS Office, MacOS since early versions of OS X - has made them look worse. I'm just glad they haven't screwed it up!

This is a really tone-deaf response to a sincere plea from their users. I've been a flickr user for a long time. The site has stagnated and no longer does anything particularly well. Causal users moved to Facebook. Professionals drifted over to SmugMug. Semi-professionals set up accounts at 500px. Mobile photographers moved to Instagram, tumblr, or similar alternatives. Uploading my pics to flickr and sharing them with the contacts and groups I participated in was exciting and fun; now it feels more like an obligation.

There's no better example of the problem than the official flickr mobile app. It was an embarrassment when it was released and has never become more than barely adequate. I've read that this is the result of interoffice politics within Yahoo. That's unfortunate, but if flickr's internal management can't be bothered to champion their own product and figure out a solution for their customers, then I can't be bothered to make excuses for them.

flickr sucks!

Of the photo sharing sites I've seen, Flickr offers the best overall experience for my purposes. I actually like that they haven't done much to change the format, as it means I don't have to keep "retraining" my parents and other relatives on how to view photos of their grandkids. Uploading through Lightroom is a breeze, and being able to reupload after changing a photo gives me huge flexibility. I can upload a draft for quick sharing, then fix elements later (especially handy for scanning negatives with dust or scratches). If the photo's EXIF info is done correctly, Flickr will display the three main data points that I want to see -- when, who, and where -- without having to dig into pop-ups or other pages. It also makes assigning photos to multiple albums ("sets," in the lingo) terrifically easy. I could go on...

I'm sure Flickr isn't "cool" anymore, but for me it's pretty close to perfect.

Flickr will NEVER be as good as Iphoto or Picassa!!

Some features I would like to see (some maybe only for PRO accounts):

-native RAW/DNG Support and storage/backup
-at least a white and a black skin, better would be an additional 1 or 2 gray skins, too
-better integration (sync) in Lightroom/Aperture,etc. or alternatively a real desktop app to manage my files, not just an uploader
-a complete overhaul of the user interface, making use of web 2.0 technologies like AJAX, etc.
-custom resizing (option to add 1 or 2 user defined sizes to the ones defined by Flickr)
-more liberal linking options
-a more flexible API regarding EXIF, descriptions, etc.
-a market place to sell photos,prints,etc.

This reply by Flickr/Yahoo shows clearly what is typical for most things coming from Yahoo after the original web directory - a total lack of visions and understanding of usability. Interstingly enough, they are only looking for engineers and programmers. As if the problems of Flickr had anything to do with a lack of programming or engineering talent. Actually their superb resizing engine prooves that their programmers are top notch. What they really need is a product manager with a clear vision of the future and a background from the photographic industry. I would hate to see Flickr become just another social picture sharing site - leave all the handy shooters to Facebook & Co. Instead they should focus on the serious photographer (professional or amateur) who is interested in presenting photographs, not snapshots.

I never found Flikr attractive, period. I do not care about it. The looks of our photography are ugly with it, lacks camera/lens database. In other words, it lacks a photographers orientation. Yahoo photos were also bad, and as they deleted these, I never looked back and for the most part I am happy with pBase. That is though a complicated issue, and I looked several times for alternatives. Flickr was always on the very bottom of the list.

Others have mentioned Lightroom/Aperture support, etc. Personally I say no, no interest at all. I want the operating system support to be the intermediary. No senseless bloat with more and more "intelligent" features, which offer no additional function but more learning, dependency and more maintenance.

Leave it alone. Let the whiners go elsewhere.

I find Flickr's response amusing...do they think that it's a lack of employees that has made the site lose its appeal? Don't hire new programmers. Hire new bosses.

flickr changed or improved little since as long as I know it. they don't apparently know where they should go so it doesn't matter to them anyway.

That response suggests that they are either not taking the criticism seriously, or worse, that someone in management there believes some kind of nonsense about the design of core products emerging spontaneously from all of the employees collectively. Either way they are doomed.

Flickr has a great community and probably the most comprehensive collection of images on the net. Its downfall is that the site looks like something out of 1999. I'd love to see a 500px-like user interface. That, plus the unparalleled user base of Flickr, would be a great combination.

Don't get me wrong, 500px is great as is, especially if you love landscapes and nudes, but Flickr's catalog contains a more than fair representation (to my mind's expanses) of every style of photography known to man - something most museums can't even boast. So, if Flickr (and "the Internet," I suppose) answer the call, I think their future is very bright.

Their community aspects were good but I have never liked the interface and the general approach to displaying images.

I've had a flickr account for years but my main hosting site is pbase.com which makes it much easier to actually assemble nice galleries of your work in the format you want.

500px is awesome.

Better support for integration with the likes of Aperture and Lightroom. Their developers say Flickr makes this hard.

Default to a black background (or at least a border).

Moved to 500px and haven't looked back.

It's not flickr, but the flickr users and their pictures that are awesome!
The depth of some threads goes very deep.

Who is Sean Bonner anyhow?!

Flickr resizing engine is the best out there. So it IS awesome.

I never got why Flickr ended up so popular. Did people use Yahoo Photos already and it was popular and i just didnt know about it?

EDIT:
oops, i didnt know Filickr was acquired by Yahoo in 2005. SOrry. :D

Flicker has UGLY interface and is in need of a big-time overhaul ... till then it will be just old NEVER awesome Flicker.

Flickr was NEVER awesome. Always behind in terms of code, file linking, site design, and general usefulness. The best favor they could do for it is shut it down and start over. Tons of fake praise, compact camera shots, and meme's on that terrible site as well.

When was Flickr ever awesome?

"Awesome..." Says it all, really. I remember Yahoo; they should have sold it whilst the offer was on the table. Dead in the water.

For a single person to make 71 million (Marissa Mayer)... you would think she would be the only one the company needed to hire to make flickr awesome again.

I'm not "unhappy" with Flickr--for the pittance that I pay for a Pro account, it does everything that I think it could be expected to do. The interface & usability experience could stand a bit of sprucing-up, is all, and perhaps a few more interesting "social" features. The way groups/tags are managed could use some re-thinking, too.
On the other hand, though, if Flickr wanted to charge more for various "premium" services, there are some interesting things they could do. The biggest example I could think of would be to offer a true cloud-based storage/backup service for entire archives, and make that service seamlessly integrate with Lightroom, Aperture, iPhoto, etc. Perhaps even go all the way and offer a bona-fide asset management system accessed directly through the site. That would be cool.

Is anybody trying Picasaweb...?
Had 2k res, 1GB free/account, unlimited accounts (for greedy cheapskates such as I), Google-class of Bw (high!), original file support, Geolocation etc. since years ago... when Flickr and the rest were crawling at low-res, yet were popular.

Sample this in F11 Slideshow mode (i limited it to 1600x1200, over-compressed jPGs, but you'll get the taste of it)
https://picasaweb.google.com/107634715157732050217/SpringFlowersAbstractMacro

The improvement I would most like to see in Flickr is a filter that would catch multiple postings of the same photo, or of photos that are virtually identical. One of the chief pleasures of the site is the ability to seeing what other people are shooting. It's a pleasure severely diminished by people who take forty-seven virtually indistinguishable shots of the same thing and post every last one of them. It would be nice if Flickr had an algorithm that could tell when anyone does that, and if those peopler could then be required to select no more than three or four of images to keep on the site. It's called editing.

Very happy with flickr pro especially their views on copyright

Dear flickr,

None of the open positions are product management positions. A developer at a large company doesn't get to make the decisions. Only implement them.

Fix flickr performance, please. It's slow on response..

Moved to 500px. When I post photos I want them to look good.. (and preferably reasonably big, not too big, but.. "enough"). Plus overall quality of work posted on Flickr is pretty low..

Still have and like Flickr but the integration of the groups needs a LOT of work. Most are dead zones where people dump loads of images looking for public approval. Most groups are dead zones with little to no discussion, except for a few like Strobist. Smugmug is still where I post galleries as Flickr has never been able to supplant their focused presentation capabilities. I have zero interest in services such as Tumblr which makes you agree to allow them to use your images even if you delete your account. Flickr still has an opportunity to be something original that both protects photographers while enabling them to come together in a compelling way.

I used to use flickr, but like the Yahoo sites themselves, it desperately needs a facelift and interface update. Everything Yahoo does still looks like it's designed for the late 1990s. And while I'm ranting, other Yahoo sites/products like "groups" were promised updates that never happened. I hope this flickr movement will convince Yahoo to get out of the past with ALL of their products.

Me not care

I don't really use my flickr pro account for social networking. For me it's a very good place to host full res images for use in other flickr supported services like Magcloud. For what you get, unlimited storage on a very stable system with support from other services for the $29 annual fee is a good value.

As a Flickr user for seven years I would say that some improvement is in order. I think the social aspect of Flickr is important and as it is right now perfectly adequate. I would NOT want Flickr to compete with, or become another Facebook.

Most of my complaints are with the presentation of photos. That white background MUST go! Check out SmugMug for an example of what Flickr should be in that regard.

I have also noticed that Flickr has become slower....I'm not sure why. Also, Flickr has some odd rules on linking to external sites. I'm a musician as well as a photographer and tried to link to one of my songs on Soundclick which I have done in the past. Apparently, Flickr has added Soundclick to a banned list of sites....no explanation and the HELP section is worthless.

It also appears to me that Flickr doesn't listen or take seriously what users have to say about any aspect of the site. That will spell doom.