Flickr has been well overdue for a critical makeover and it's a wonder why they haven't given the photo-oriented sharing site a more photo-oriented design sooner. With the constant shuffling of feet going on within the Yahoo minefield, the number of users have dwindled considerably and it's a shame because many have been waiting for that field of dreams kind of photo community: "If you build it, they will come"..."It" being a decently designed, easy to follow space to share all your favorite images.
The new stream layout
Well the day has come, Marissa Mayer and Co. have officially unveiled a newly designed Flickr that is much more easy on the eyes. Firstly you'll notice a lack of white negative space that originally surrounded your images. Instead you're presented a fairly tidy grid view that screams Pintrest with a hint of Facebook. The new stream does look different (arguably in the wrong direction), but is it anything innovative? Probably not. Along side the update is a new Flickr app for Android which has been long awaited since the last one was painfully slow and cluttered.
Aside from messing with its physical appearance, the biggest whoop around this rebranding is their new storage plan: Everyone gets a Terabyte worth of space to host their images. Yes even free users. Well, that's pretty impressive to free users, but what's the cost? Advertisements. From what I've seen so far there were only small banner ads in the gallery view which isn't too jarring. Pro users of course are spared of this ad assault brought to you by yada yada... but the perks of being a payed member seems to have been neglected. In fact their new paid options seem unnecessary: $50 for ad-free browsing and an extra $500 for an extra TB of space. It is unclear from the back and forth over the internet whether all old Pro members are getting grandfathered into unlimited storage, but it seems that there are cases where Pro members who have used gifted upgrades are not eligible which is pissing off a lot of people. After all, there was a lot of support for a new Flickr from the old community to make it "awesome again." Why would you neglect the ones who were rooting for you?
To make matters a little worse, Mayer made a head-scratching public statement saying "there are no such thing as professional photographers anymore." Kind of seems like a slap in the face. Although smart phones are still the reigning champ in cameras most used these days, it's a bit of a stretch to say the title of professional is all but obsolete. Will a Terabyte of ad-driven free space be enough to boost Flickr usage or will its new design and lack of support towards Pro-veterans drive them to pay for other services?