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Taking the risk of shamelessly promoting a commercial site, I stand tall (1.98cm) while I say it loud: I LOVE Flickr!   
I’ve been a proud Flickr member since 2005, when my kid was born and my good friend and Yahoo! Research Berkley member Mor introduced me to it for the first time.

  

Technology and Experience

Flickr is the one of the ultimate examples of a successful coupling between experience and technology. The technology used in Flickr! is not unique or a break-through. But a brilliant user experience design leverages excellent existing technology to provide a wonderful, easy-to-use, fast and neat looking product, which is driving forward new technologies (examples: TagMaps, Zurfer) that will enable better experience, etc. etc. It’s an ongoing cycle, and it’s what makes Flickr! kick ass.

Susan Wee’s experience and technology coupling diagram

  

The Social Media Cycle

Another cycle worth mentioning is what Mor Naaman calls “The Social Media Cycle“. In a lecture he previously gave in RADVISION (among numerous places), he claimed that more and better data (meaning, photos) leads to better applications that make valuable use of that data, which drive user participation (sharing of photos, tagging photos), which leads back to more and better data. This cycle, with the useful and powerful tools that Flickr (and later Yahoo) offer users, is what probably differs Flickr from its rivals.

The social media cycle according to Dr. Mor Naaman

  

Flickr Today

I guess I mainly like Flickr for “personal” reasons – the fact that (as a Pro member) I can upload as many photos as I want and privately share them with whomever I want. Not that Flickr is not used for more “public” usages (for instance, by artists), but I think Flickr puts a strong emphasis on being your “confidant” and helping you share your pride and joy with the people you love.

Flickr was originally developed by a Canadian company called Ludicorp, and was launched in February 2004. In March 2005 (just before I joined…) Yahoo! acquired Ludicorp. On May 16, 2006 Flickr came out of Beta status. By the end of 2006, Flickr hosted more then 300 million photos, with numbers growing rapidly, And just last week Flickr turned 4.

Flickr turns 4 party (cc)

  

Flickr Video

You may ask, with all due respect to Flickr and images, what does all this has to do with video, that is moving images? Well, just the other day Yahoo Video GM Mike Folgner confirmed that “Yahoo’s Flickr photo-sharing site will also be adding video”.
Now video sharing is not new. Many websites offer you the ability to upload and share videos (did anyone say YouTube?), and even to edit and watch in sync. So unlike the photos case, Flickr joins the market late, and would have to come up with a strong product to attract the crowds.

But, as I am a Flickr fan, that is what makes it exciting, in two totally different levels:

On a personal level, I have long struggled to find a way to share my videos (mostly of my soon-to-be-three-year-old, mostly with my family and friends) with the same ease I share my photos. Strangely enough, in a time where video is everywhere, I can’t seem to find a good solution (and PLEASE don’t mention YouTube). The thought of sharing videos “the Flickr way” is a very fun thing to look forward to. Not to mention that it makes perfect sense to combine photos with videos, just like they are stored on my hard drive, just like they are captured.

On a professional level, the Yahoo/Flickr move is interesting, as it shows that video is indeed everywhere, and that any service, sooner or later, will find itself using video, adding video, enabling video or all of the above. Video can help the experience, video can be the technology, or video can do both. Coupling video with the creative minds of the Yahoo/Flickr people can definitely bring new technologies and new experiences that would drive the video market forward.

  

What do I expect to find in Flickr video?

I guess the same user experience I get with photos:

• Uploading should be easy (as copying from camera to a local folder)
• Tagging should be easy and worth-while
• Watching should be easy, quick to setup, should run smoothly and be available in different resolutions and bitrates automatically
• Sharing should be easy, with different privacy levels and the ability to share private videos using “public passes”
• And most important: my video storage should be as accessible and as manageable as my photo storage.

Is that too much to ask?!

  

Yahoo’s Mike Folgner said that one of Yahoo’s strategies is

“to put video everywhere you are on the Internet”.

I personally believe that soon video will be just everywhere you are. And the Yahoo/Flickr statement just helps us take another step in that direction. It’s a big step for technology fans, and might be a huge step for video-taking fathers world-wide.

Which brings me back to the beginning, to the bottom line – did I say already that I LOVE Flickr?!