Author: foxtongue

Required Reading: How Yahoo Killed Flickr and Lost the Internet

How Yahoo Killed Flickr and Lost the Internet

This is the story of a wonderful idea. Something that had never been done before, a moment of change that shaped the Internet we know today. This is the story of Flickr. And how Yahoo bought it and murdered it and screwed itself out of relevance along the way.
Do you remember Flickr’s tag line? It reads “almost certainly the best online photo management and sharing application in the world.” It was an epic humble brag, a momentously tongue in cheek understatement.

Because until three years ago, of course Flickr was the best photo sharing service in the world. Nothing else could touch it. If you cared about digital photography, or wanted to share photos with friends, you were on Flickr.

Yet today, that tagline simply sounds like delusional posturing. The photo service that was once poised to take on the the world has now become an afterthought. Want to share photos on the Web? That’s what Facebook is for. Want to look at the pictures your friends are snapping on the go? Fire up Instagram.

Even the notion of Flickr as an archive—as the place where you store all your photos as a backup—is becoming increasingly quaint as Dropbox, Microsoft, Google, Box.net, Amazon, Apple, and a host of others scramble to serve online gigs to our hungry desktops.

The site that once had the best social tools, the most vibrant userbase, and toppest-notch storage is rapidly passing into the irrelevance of abandonment. Its once bustling community now feels like an exurban neighborhood rocked by a housing crisis. Yards gone to seed. Rusting bikes in the front yard. Tattered flags. At address, after address, after address, no one is home.

It is a case study of what can go wrong when a nimble, innovative startup gets gobbled up by a behemoth that doesn’t share its values. What happened to Flickr? The same thing that happened to so many other nimble, innovative startups who sold out for dollars and bandwidth: Yahoo.

Here’s how it all went bad.

Which is to say, the above is an essay on why Flickr has become a niche market site, best for the sort of people who own DSLR’s, instead of the place where the majority rules. Facebook is now the largest photo sharing site in the world, even though it has some of the most distasteful user-agreement policies, because it’s easy and now everyone is already there. Perhaps, though, Flickr users will trickle back the same way LiveJournal has been recently regaining writers. Short form fast click blogging and photo sharing is great and I love it, but it doesn’t curl into life as deeply, and maybe the Yahoo team will eventually understand how to become widely relevant again someday. I don’t hold out a lot of hope, though. I only wish I did.

our roadtrip inferno

We saw the fire from the freeway, big, bright, smoke like a cloud factory, flames high enough that we thought it was only a fifteen minute drive away. With that in mind, we took the next turn-off, conveniently close, onto a gravel road to investigate, thinking we might get some pictures of a house on fire or a barn, our theories dying one by one as we continued to drive and the fire didn’t seem to get closer. “That’s too big to be a house.” to “Do farmers still burn fields?”

The first turn we took turned out to be incorrect, a south road, yes, but ending in a driveway and too far west. From that vantage, though, it was possible to gauge the true size of the fire, easily a mile wide and with flames so high they were dwarfing five story trees, making them into toy-like silhouettes that didn’t look real but seemed intricately cut from black paper.

By the time we finally found ourselves at right location, it was too late. The massive, incredible flames had burned themselves out with improbable speed while we were driving, as if a knob that controlled the rate of burn had been suddenly turned to “off”. All that was left was a dark field of sparkling coals even bigger than we figured, dotted with bonfires, poisonous smoke like a scarf of thick brambles along the ground, and a few scorched oil wells, blackened with soot but still moving. It was eerie, a certifiable vision of somebody’s hell, but not a tenth so impressive as the reason-defying wall of fire had been.

Our guess is that we happened to witness some sort of industrial accident, an oil well maybe exploding or some kind of pressure failure. It would make sense, too, to explain how quickly the fire vanished – once the oil burned off, there would be nothing else for the fire to feed on except grass.

texts from the road: minneapolis edition

Adventure #1: A picnic in a Walmart parking lot. I have never felt so healthy.

The moon from here is still “super” large and as copper as a bloodied penny. It’s incredible.

Astounding. Red, huge, and bright enough to cast shadows sharp as knives. We briefly flicked off our headlights, just to see what it was like, and we could still see every detail to the horizon, even though there weren’t any artificial lights. Spooky, beautiful, enchanting. A film negative, glowing world.

Oh hooray, my turn to nap. Rock on, roadtrip. Rock on. It’s only, what? 6:30 a.m. my time?

Once again playing the technogypsy, parked in a Mcdonald’s parking lot for free access the intertubes.

Whomever invented Montana should have hired an editor. This place looks badly clone-stamped. Also, plz fix the saturation. Thnx.

Currently stealing delicious, delicious internet from a McDonald’s parking lot somewhere in Idaho.

You know that song about where the buffalo roam? We just found it. It’s a rest stop in North Dakota. One just threatened a truck. Surreal.

Besides the very random, up close and personal surprise encounter with buffalo at a rest stop, my favourite part of Dakota has been the iron oxide dirt roads that twine next to the freeway like some gigantic heavenly brush swept down from the clouds and scored scarlet calligraphy into the earth.

Currently taking a picnic break at a ridonkulously windy rest stop somewhere between Bismarck and Fargo, about six to seven hours from Minneapolis.

Currently passing through Fargo. All I can think of are wood chippers.

Finished the Half Blood Prince. Uncertain. She’s still not a good enough writer, but her craft’s been improving with each book, so maybe? There is something there. I’m starting to understand.

Minneapolis is beautiful. My impression so far is of a comforting mix of Proto Blade Runner and The Beaches in Toronto, with a serious dash of alt culture thrown in.

Arrived and swept immediately to “goth prom”. Trying to hit the ground running, but it seems obvious that I’m not as spooky as the majority. NEED MOAR BLACK.

There’s a Ron Mueck piece here at the gallery. Crouching Boy In Mirror. It’s breath-taking, as in I-expect-it-to-inhale. Incredible, immaculately real. Beyond illusion or the uncanny valley into completely believable down to the pores.

You know you’re inured to art when rather than wondering why there’s a shabby piece of cardboard in the gallery, you wonder what it’s made of. (A: bronze).

There’s a number to call under some of the pieces of art in the exhibit John Waters curated. If you call it, he reads to you about the piece in pig-latin.

Heavy alt-culture here. Currently being awed and confused in a Matthew Barney room, which is what he does best.

I’m going to Minneapolis, but I’m not afraid. I have binoculars and my cape and my fangs.

In an extraordinarily unexpected twist, I’m going to Minneapolis tomorrow as an extra tag-along driver to help facilitate someone else’s trip. I was only asked about it today. We leave in under four hours. I think I’m packed, but I’m not entirely sure. I was at a house party earlier that had a livingroom DJ who wore a pillow on his head. I was there until three in the morning. It kind of tired me out.

I had to look it up to make sure, but Inktea Cole is there, as is David S, and after some restless facebook posting, I now have a place to stay, a borrow bike, and Stranger-Here Karen is going to drive up from Madison to meet me. I can’t even remotely pretend this is a responsible financial decision, but Chris A. decided on a whim to help fund my trip, “shine on your crazy diamond”, enough that I’ll be able to eat along the way if I’m careful, so in spite of my unemployment, in spite of my complete and total lack of any kind of income or next month’s rent, I’m going.

I’ve been coming back to life. Embracing the weird is just part of that equation.

Oh, also.. I sort of accidently dyed my hair green today. By sort of, I mean completely, so much so that I look like a dryad. Um, whoops?

The music of Zoë Keating, tossed on incredible, magical waves of wonder and fascination.

Andrew called me up yesterday during Twin Peaks Tuesday at eleven:thirty at night to ask, “You know how sometimes when you’re unemployed and broke, awesome things happen to you? This is one of those things.” Suddenly ignoring the show, I sat a little straighter. “Do you still have a passport?” He had scored two tickets over twitter to see Zoë Keating at one of Chase Jarvis‘ boutique, nearly private, invitation-only livestream studio sessions in Seattle. Of course I said yes. I said yes before I even knew what was going on, before I properly heard “Seattle” or “concert”.

Which is why my alarm went off at five:fifteen this morning, even though I only went to bed around two a.m., the better to be ready when Andrew dropped by to pick me up at six, and I spent the day in Seattle, exhausted and emotional. Her music is sublime, a densely woven carpet of bitten off bird’s wings, rich with melody, clarity, and grace, and to have her play in such an intimate setting was an amazing experience. The interview, too, was beautiful, a sweetly compelling glimpse into a sparkling, beautiful wit. She speaks with an admirable sincerity, and often, while she was talking, I had to repress an urge to cheer.

So, as a glitchy-future souvenir of my unexpected, fantastic day down south, I welcome you to share that precious hour as I present to you the video of the entire event:


We’re in the front row, stage left.

annual introduction innoculation (come say hello!)

365: 2012/04/20 - bright

IT’S TIME FOR THE ANNUAL SHOUT-OUT!

Please tell me your names, introduce yourself, post a picture! Everyone’s invited – friends, strangers, the lurking anonymous – especially those who are otherwise silent. Like a good house party, it’s always fascinating to see who turns up.

Tell me who you are, why you’re here, how you found me, what inspires you. Even if I know you, introduce yourself to others and tell me what you’ve done lately. I want to see your faces, I want to read what you’d like everyone else to know. Tell us your stimulations, titillations; show us your pretty hidden treasures. Explain a piece of your world with something beautiful, make something new, or dig up the grave of an old favourite. Anecdotes and self-promotion are welcome, as are photos, job descriptions, awesome links, and whatever else.

Journals have been dying lately, I’d like to see who’s chosen to stick around.

-::-

I want to know who’s on the other end of my screen, what fun and fantastic people are out there, waiting to be met. You are artists and scientists, nihilists and dreamers, comic book illustrators, archeologists, hackers, retail managers, photographers, teachers, librarians, hair dressers, and submarine captains. You are novelists, derby girls, musicians, and accountants. Optimists, pragmatists, magicians and politicians, fencers, film addicts, home owners and homeless. You are lighting designers, poets, animators, and lawyers. You are glorious, fabulous, interesting creatures, rich in colour, thick with story – and I want to hear from you all.

For those new, my name’s Jhayne. I’m an unemployed writer and photographer currently trapped in Vancouver, Canada. My website is foxtongue, which is also my on-line name 99% of everywhere. I live on the internet, but share an apartment with two cats, one roommate, and a bunny on the porch. I’m also an amateur taxidermist/cryptozoologist, occasionally play french horn and the saw, and edit other people’s novels. I once started a global initiative to save a local turn-of-last-century theater and turn it into a new multimedia venue called Heart of the World. It fell down, went boom, and buried me in crippling debt, but oh well. Other people have recently managed to save it, at least, so I guess that’s something.

Welcome to my journal, a mixture of wonder, pointlessness, isolation, and community where I talk about life, love, art, technology, and try not to hate the world.

Now it’s your turn. Spill.