Flickr, SmugMug and Yahoo
Yahoo
So, SmuMug bought Flickr from Verizon a few months back (news always reaches me a little later...). Will that be the end of my Yahoo account? I only have a Yahoo account for two reasons (in that order):
- Flickr
- Yahoo Mail
So far I have kept using Yahoo Mail because I needed my Yahoo account to get into Flickr. If SmugMug separate out the Flickr accounts from Yahoo (as they said they will and surely must from a purely legal perspective) then why hang on to my Yahoo Mail account? I more or less use Microsoft for all my other online services (OneDrive, Office and Outlook). But I never got round to truly migrating to Outlook since Yahoo Mail has been my email address since 1998. Never too late to finally migrate I guess. I wonder how many others are in a situation similar to mine...
SmugMug
I never paid much attention to SmugMug, as I am not really their target audience. I knew they've been around for years. In fact they've been around for two years longer than Flickr. And that fills me with some hope for the future of Flickr. They are finally owned by a company who's business is photography. End Of. No more are they owned by a massive telecoms company as an accidental afterthought.
Flickr
My hopes for Flickr. If SmugMug just maintain it as it is, I will be happy. If they improve it, great! But, please, don't try to turn into a social media service. The community is great, no need to try to target the Instagram or SnapChat users. That's anyway a battle you will lose. As Yahoo found out.