Flickr ( ; ) is an American
image hosting
{{internet hosting, right
An image hosting service allows individuals to upload images to an Internet website. The image host will then store the image onto its server, and show the individual different types of code to allow others to view that i ...
and
video hosting
An online video platform (OVP), provided by a video hosting service, enables users to upload, convert, store and play back video content on the Internet, often via a structured, large-scale system that may generate revenue. Users will generally u ...
service, as well as an
online community
An online community, also called an internet community or web community, is a community whose members interact with each other primarily via the Internet. Members of the community usually share common interests. For many, online communities may fe ...
, founded in
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
and headquartered in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
. It was created by
Ludicorp
Ludicorp was a company, based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, that created Flickr and Game Neverending. It was founded in 2002 by Stewart Butterfield, Caterina Fake and Jason Classon and was bought by Yahoo! on March 20, 2005.
Ludicorp' ...
in 2004 and was a popular way for amateur and professional
photographer
A photographer (the Greek language, Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who makes photographs.
Duties and types of photographe ...
s to host high-resolution photos. It has changed ownership several times and has been owned by
SmugMug
SmugMug is a paid image sharing, image hosting service, and online video platform on which users can upload photos and videos. The company also facilitates the sale of digital and print media for amateur and professional photographers. On Apri ...
since April 20, 2018.
Flickr had a total of 112 million registered members and more than 3.5 million new images uploaded daily. On August 5, 2011, the site reported that it was hosting more than 6 billion images. Photos and videos can be accessed from Flickr without the need to register an account, but an account must be made to upload content to the site. Registering an account also allows users to create a profile page containing photos and videos that the user has uploaded and also grants the ability to add another Flickr user as a contact. For mobile users, Flickr has official
mobile app
A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on d ...
s for
iOS
iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...
,
Android, and an optimized mobile site.
History
Flickr was launched on February 10, 2004 by
Ludicorp
Ludicorp was a company, based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, that created Flickr and Game Neverending. It was founded in 2002 by Stewart Butterfield, Caterina Fake and Jason Classon and was bought by Yahoo! on March 20, 2005.
Ludicorp' ...
, a
Vancouver
Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...
-based company founded by
Stewart Butterfield
Daniel Stewart Butterfield (born Dharma Jeremy Butterfield; March 21, 1973) is a Canadian billionaire businessman, best known for co-founding the photo-sharing website Flickr and the team-messaging application Slack.
Early life and education
In ...
and
Caterina Fake
Caterina Fake is an American entrepreneur and businesswoman. She co-founded the websites Flickr in 2004 and Hunch in 2007. Fake has been a trustee for nonprofit organizations and was the chairwoman of Etsy. For her role in creating Flickr, Fak ...
. The service emerged from tools originally created for Ludicorp's ''Game Neverending'', a web-based
massively multiplayer online game
A massively multiplayer online game (MMOG or more commonly MMO) is an online video game with a large number of players, often hundreds or thousands, on the same server. MMOs usually feature a huge, persistent world, persistent open world, alt ...
. Flickr proved a more feasible project, and ultimately ''Game Neverending'' was shelved, Butterfield later launched a similar online game,
Glitch
A glitch is a short-lived fault in a system, such as a transient fault that corrects itself, making it difficult to troubleshoot. The term is particularly common in the computing and electronics industries, in circuit bending, as well as among ...
, which was shut down on November 14, 2012.
Early versions of Flickr focused on a
chat room
The term chat room, or chatroom (and sometimes group chat; abbreviated as GC), is primarily used to describe any form of synchronous conferencing, occasionally even asynchronous conferencing. The term can thus mean any technology, ranging from ...
called FlickrLive, with real-time photo exchange capabilities. The successive evolutions focused more on the uploading and filing back-end for individual users and the chat room was buried in the site map. It was eventually dropped as Flickr's back-end systems evolved away from ''Game Neverending''s codebase. Key features of Flickr not initially present are
tags, marking photos as favorites, group photo pools and interestingness, for which a patent was granted.
In addition to being a popular website for users to share and embed personal photographs and an
online community
An online community, also called an internet community or web community, is a community whose members interact with each other primarily via the Internet. Members of the community usually share common interests. For many, online communities may fe ...
, in 2004, the service was widely used by photo researchers and by bloggers to host images that they embed in blogs and
social media
Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...
.
Yahoo!
Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Man ...
acquired Ludicorp and Flickr on March 20, 2005. The acquisition reportedly cost $22 million to $25 million. During the week of June 26, 2005 to July 2, 2005, all content was migrated from servers in Canada to servers in the United States, and all resulting data became subject to
United States federal law
The law of the United States comprises many levels of codified and uncodified forms of law, of which the most important is the nation's Constitution, which prescribes the foundation of the federal government of the United States, as well as va ...
. On May 3, 2007, Yahoo! announced that
Yahoo! Photos
Yahoo! Photos was a photo sharing service launched on March 28, 2000 and owned by Yahoo!, designed specifically for Yahoo! users. Users created individual photo albums, categorized their photos and placed them in the corresponding albums. Users ...
would close down on September 20, 2007, after which all photos would be deleted; users were encouraged to migrate to Flickr. On January 31, 2007, Flickr announced that "Old Skool" members (those who had joined before the Yahoo! acquisition) would be required to associate their account with a Yahoo! identity by March 15, 2007 to continue using the service. This move was criticized by some users.
Flickr upgraded its services from "
beta
Beta (, ; uppercase , lowercase , or cursive ; grc, βῆτα, bē̂ta or ell, βήτα, víta) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 2. In Modern Greek, it represents the voiced labiod ...
" to "
gamma
Gamma (uppercase , lowercase ; ''gámma'') is the third letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 3. In Ancient Greek, the letter gamma represented a voiced velar stop . In Modern Greek, this letter re ...
" status on May 16, 2006, the changes attracted positive attention from
Lifehacker
''Lifehacker'' is a weblog about life hacks and software that launched on January 31, 2005. The site was originally launched by Gawker Media and is currently owned by G/O Media. The blog posts cover a wide range of topics including: Microsoft W ...
. On December 13, 2006, upload limits on free accounts were increased to 100 MB a month (from 20 MB) and were removed from Flickr Pro accounts, which originally had a 2 GB per month limit. On April 9, 2008, Flickr began allowing paid subscribers to upload videos, limited to 90 seconds in length and 150 MB in size. On March 2, 2009, Flickr added the facility to upload and view
HD videos, and began allowing free users to upload normal-resolution video. At the same time, the set limit for free accounts was lifted. In 2009, Flickr announced a partnership with
Getty Images
Getty Images Holdings, Inc. is an American visual media company and is a supplier of stock images, editorial photography, video and music for business and consumers, with a library of over 477 million assets. It targets three markets— creative ...
in which selected users could submit photographs for
stock photography
Stock photography is the supply of photographs which are often licensed for specific uses. The stock photo industry, which began to gain hold in the 1920s, has established models including traditional macrostock photography, midstock photography, ...
usage and receive payment. On June 16, 2010, this was changed so that users could label images as suitable for stock use themselves.
On May 20, 2013, Flickr launched the first stage of a major site redesign, introducing a "Justified View" close-spaced photo layout browsed via "infinite scrolling" and adding new features, including one
terabyte
The byte is a units of information, unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character (computing), character of text in a computer and for this ...
of free storage for all users, a scrolling home page (mainly of contacts photos and comments) and updated
Android app.
The Justified View is paginated between 72 and 360 photos per page but unpaginated in search result presentation. ''Tech Radar'' described the new style Flickr as representing a "sea change" in its purpose. Many users criticized the changes, and the site's help forum received thousands of negative comments. On March 25, 2014, Flickr's New Photo Experience, a user interface redesign, left beta.
On May 7, 2015,
Yahoo!
Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Man ...
overhauled the site, adding a revamped Camera Roll, a new way to upload photos and upgraded the site's apps. The new Uploadr application was made available for Macs, Windows and mobile devices.
In early May 2019, SmugMug announced the migration of Flickr data - 100+ million accounts and billions of photos and videos - from former owner Yahoo's servers to
Amazon Web Services
Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) is a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Amazon that provides Software as a service, on-demand cloud computing computing platform, platforms and Application programming interface, APIs to individuals, companies, and gover ...
(AWS) in a planned 12-hour transition on May 22, 2019.
Corporate changes
On June 13, 2008, Flickr co-founder
Stewart Butterfield
Daniel Stewart Butterfield (born Dharma Jeremy Butterfield; March 21, 1973) is a Canadian billionaire businessman, best known for co-founding the photo-sharing website Flickr and the team-messaging application Slack.
Early life and education
In ...
announced his resignation on July 12, 2008, which followed that of his wife and co-founder
Caterina Fake
Caterina Fake is an American entrepreneur and businesswoman. She co-founded the websites Flickr in 2004 and Hunch in 2007. Fake has been a trustee for nonprofit organizations and was the chairwoman of Etsy. For her role in creating Flickr, Fak ...
, who left the company on the same day. Butterfield wrote a humorous resignation letter to
Brad Garlinghouse
Bradley Kent Garlinghouse (born February 4, 1971) is the CEO of financial technology company Ripple Labs. He previously was the CEO and chairman of Hightail (formerly YouSendIt). Before Hightail, he worked at AOL and Yahoo!
He was born February ...
.
On December 14, 2008, ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' reported that three employees had been laid off as Yahoo! continued to reduce its workforce, and on November 30, 2010, ''
CNET
''CNET'' (short for "Computer Network") is an American media website that publishes reviews, news, articles, blogs, podcasts, and videos on technology and consumer electronics globally. ''CNET'' originally produced content for radio and televi ...
'' reported Yahoo! was on the verge of a major layoff affecting 10% to 20% of its workforce. Flickr was specifically named as a target for these layoffs.
On June 13, 2017,
Verizon Communications
Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas i ...
acquired Yahoo!, including Flickr. Verizon reorganized Yahoo!, along with AOL, into a new umbrella company, Oath, which was renamed as
Verizon Media
Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas in ...
on January 8, 2019.
On April 20, 2018,
SmugMug
SmugMug is a paid image sharing, image hosting service, and online video platform on which users can upload photos and videos. The company also facilitates the sale of digital and print media for amateur and professional photographers. On Apri ...
acquired Flickr from Verizon's Oath and put an end to Flickr 1 TB storage plan for free users, these users had until February 5, 2019 to convert to 'Pro' accounts or their photo streams would be reduced to a maximum of 1,000 pictures.
The deadline was later extended to March 12, 2019. The reasons cited were that the existing model was unsustainable by a medium-sized company which could not get revenues by selling profiles of the users. The sentiment was generally agreed on among the professionals.
This policy, however, was never implemented and was abandoned in March, 2022 in favor of a policy that restricted content unless the user upgraded and paid for a Pro account.
Features
Accounts
Flickr has always offered two types of accounts: Free and Pro. Until January 7, 2019, free accounts had up to 1 TB of storage. On January 8, 2019, the account offerings changed. The free option is limited to 1,000 photos or videos stored, with videos limited to 3 minutes. After January 8, 2019, members over the limit could no longer upload new photos to Flickr. On February 5, 2019, a free account's older content would be deleted automatically if it contains more than 1,000 photos and they do not subscribe to Pro, with the exception of content that was already uploaded with a Creative Commons license before November 1, 2018.
The Pro option features "unlimited" storage, advanced statistics, advertising-free browsing, videos up to 10 minutes in length, "premier" customer service, and promotional offers with other partners.
In May 2011, Flickr added an option to easily reverse an account termination, motivated by the accidental deletion of a Flickr user's account, and public reporting of its protracted restoration. Flickr may delete accounts without giving any reason or warning to the account's owner.
As a result of the
SmugMug
SmugMug is a paid image sharing, image hosting service, and online video platform on which users can upload photos and videos. The company also facilitates the sale of digital and print media for amateur and professional photographers. On Apri ...
buyout, Flickr added the ability for users to download all of their account data, such as photo albums, contacts, and comments.
Organization
The images a photographer uploads to Flickr go into their sequential "photostream", the basis of a Flickr account. All photostreams can be displayed as a justified view, a
slide show
A slide show (slideshow) is a presentation of a series of still images (Presentation slide, slides) on a projection screen or electronic display device, typically in a prearranged sequence. The changes may be automatic and at regular intervals o ...
, a "detail" view or a datestamped archive. Clicking on a photostream image opens it in the interactive "photopage" alongside data, comments and facilities for embedding images on external sites.
Users may label their uploaded images with titles and descriptions, and images may be
tagged Tagged may refer to:
* Tagged (website), a social discovery website
* Tagged (web series), an American teen psychological thriller web series
{{disambiguation ...
, either by the uploader or by other users, if the uploader permits it. These text components enable computer searching of Flickr. Flickr was an early website to implement
tag cloud
A tag cloud (also known as a word cloud, wordle or weighted list in visual design) is a visual representation of text data, which is often used to depict keyword metadata on websites, or to visualize free form text. Tags are usually single word ...
s, which were used until 2013, providing access to images tagged with the most popular keywords. Tagging was further revised in the photopage redesign of March 2014. Flickr has been cited as a prime example of effective use of
folksonomy
Folksonomy is a classification system in which end users apply public tags to online items, typically to make those items easier for themselves or others to find later. Over time, this can give rise to a classification system based on those tags ...
.
Users can organize their Flickr photos into "albums" (formerly "sets") which are more flexible than the traditional folder-based method of organizing files, as one photo can belong to one album, many albums, or none at all. Flickr provides code to embed albums into blogs, websites and forums. Flickr albums represent a form of categorical
metadata
Metadata is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including:
* Descriptive metadata – the descriptive ...
rather than a physical hierarchy.
Geotagging
Geotagging, or GeoTagging, is the process of adding geographical identification metadata to various media such as a geotagged photograph or video, websites, SMS messages, QR Codes or RSS feeds and is a form of geospatial metadata. This data u ...
can be applied to photos in albums, and any albums with geotagging can be related to a map using imapflickr. The resulting map can be embedded in a website. Flickr albums may be organized into "collections", which can themselves be further organized into higher-order collections.
Organizr is a
Web application
A web application (or web app) is application software that is accessed using a web browser. Web applications are delivered on the World Wide Web to users with an active network connection.
History
In earlier computing models like client-serve ...
for organizing photos within a Flickr account that can be accessed through the Flickr interface. It allows users to modify tags, descriptions and set groupings, and to place photos on a world map (a feature provided in conjunction with
Yahoo! Maps
Yahoo! Maps was a free online mapping portal provided by Yahoo! Functionality included local weather powered by The Weather Channel, printing maps, and local reviews powered by Yelp. It shut down on June 30, 2015. For a time in 2019, Yahoo! Maps ...
). It uses
Ajax
Ajax may refer to:
Greek mythology and tragedy
* Ajax the Great, a Greek mythological hero, son of King Telamon and Periboea
* Ajax the Lesser, a Greek mythological hero, son of Oileus, the king of Locris
* ''Ajax'' (play), by the ancient Greek ...
to emulate the look, feel and quick functionality of desktop-based photo-management applications, such as Google's
Picasa
Picasa was a cross-platform image organizer and image viewer for organizing and editing digital photos, integrated with a now defunct photo-sharing website, originally created by a company named Lifescape (which at that time was incubated by ...
and
F-Spot
F-Spot is a slowly maintained image organizer, designed to provide personal photo management for the GNOME desktop environment. The name is a play on the word F-Stop.
History
The F-Spot project was started by Ettore Perazzoli and is maintained ...
. Users can select and apply changes to multiple photos at a time, as an alternative to the standard Flickr interface for editing.
Access control
Flickr provides both private and public image storage. A user uploading an image can set privacy controls that determine who can view the image. A photo can be flagged as either public or private. Private images are visible by default only to the uploader, but they can also be marked as viewable by friends and/or family. Privacy settings also can be decided by adding photographs from a user's photostream to a "group pool". If a group is private all the members of that group can see the photo. If a group is public the photo becomes public as well. Flickr also provides a "contact list" which can be used to control image access for a specific set of users in a way similar to that of
LiveJournal
LiveJournal (russian: Живой Журнал), stylised as LiVEJOURNAL, is a Russian-owned social networking service where users can keep a blog, journal, or diary.
American programmer Brad Fitzpatrick started LiveJournal on April 15, 1999, as ...
. In November 2006, Flickr created a "guest pass" system that allows private photos to be shared with non-Flickr members. This setting allows sets or all photos under a certain privacy category (friends or family) to be shared. Many members allow their photos to be viewed by anyone, forming a large collaborative database of categorized photos. By default, other members can leave comments about any image they have permission to view and, in many cases, can add to the list of tags associated with an image.
Interaction and compatibility
The core functionality of the site relies on standard
HTML
The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScri ...
and
HTTP
The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web, ...
features, allowing for wide compatibility among
platforms and
browsers
Browse, browser or browsing may refer to:
Programs
* Web browser, a program used to access the World Wide Web
*Code browser, a program for navigating source code
* File browser or file manager, a program used to manage files and related objects
* ...
; Flickr's functionality includes
RSS
RSS ( RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format. Subscribing to RSS feeds can allow a user to keep track of many di ...
and
Atom
Every atom is composed of a nucleus and one or more electrons bound to the nucleus. The nucleus is made of one or more protons and a number of neutrons. Only the most common variety of hydrogen has no neutrons.
Every solid, liquid, gas, and ...
feeds and an
API
An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how ...
that enables independent programmers to expand its services. This includes a large number of third-party
Greasemonkey
Greasemonkey is a userscript manager made available as a Mozilla Firefox extension. It enables users to install scripts that make on-the-fly changes to web page content after or before the page is loaded in the browser (also known as augmen ...
scripts that enhance and extend the functionality of Flickr. In 2006, Flickr was the second most extended site on userscripts.org. Organizr and most of Flickr's other text-editing and tagging interfaces use
Ajax
Ajax may refer to:
Greek mythology and tragedy
* Ajax the Great, a Greek mythological hero, son of King Telamon and Periboea
* Ajax the Lesser, a Greek mythological hero, son of Oileus, the king of Locris
* ''Ajax'' (play), by the ancient Greek ...
, with which most modern browsers are compliant. Images can be posted to the user's photostream via email attachments, which enables direct uploads from many cameraphones and applications. Flickr uses the
Geo microformat on over 3 million
geotagged
Geotagging, or GeoTagging, is the process of adding geographical identification metadata to various media such as a geotagged photograph or video, websites, SMS messages, QR Codes or RSS feeds and is a form of geospatial metadata. This data ...
images.
According to the company, Flickr is hosted on 62 databases across 124 servers, with about 800,000 user accounts per pair of servers. Based on information compiled by highscalability.com, the
MySQL
MySQL () is an open-source relational database management system (RDBMS). Its name is a combination of "My", the name of co-founder Michael Widenius's daughter My, and "SQL", the acronym for Structured Query Language. A relational database o ...
databases are hosted on servers that are
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...
-based (from
Red Hat
Red Hat, Inc. is an American software company that provides open source software products to enterprises. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina, with other offices worldwide.
Red Hat has become ass ...
), with a software platform that includes
Apache
The Apache () are a group of culturally related Native American tribes in the Southwestern United States, which include the Chiricahua, Jicarilla, Lipan, Mescalero, Mimbreño, Ndendahe (Bedonkohe or Mogollon and Nednhi or Carrizaleño an ...
,
PHP
PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared toward web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementation is now produced by The PHP Group ...
(with PEAR and
Smarty
SMARTY is a mobile telephone flanker brand operated by Hutchison 3G UK Limited using its Three UK branded mobile network. It aims to attract customers primarily looking for cheaper deals than those available direct from Three, by offering a mo ...
),
shards,
Memcached
Memcached (pronounced variously ''mem-cash-dee'' or ''mem-cashed'') is a general-purpose distributed memory-caching system. It is often used to speed up dynamic database-driven websites by caching data and objects in RAM to reduce the number of t ...
,
Squid
True squid are molluscs with an elongated soft body, large eyes, eight arms, and two tentacles in the superorder Decapodiformes, though many other molluscs within the broader Neocoleoidea are also called squid despite not strictly fitting t ...
,
Perl
Perl is a family of two high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming languages. "Perl" refers to Perl 5, but from 2000 to 2019 it also referred to its redesigned "sister language", Perl 6, before the latter's name was offici ...
,
ImageMagick
ImageMagick, invoked from the command line as magick, is a free and open-source cross-platform software suite for displaying, creating, converting, modifying, and editing raster images. Created in 1987 by John Cristy, it can read and write ove ...
and
Java
Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...
; the system administration tools include
Ganglia
A ganglion is a group of neuron cell bodies in the peripheral nervous system. In the somatic nervous system this includes dorsal root ganglia and trigeminal ganglia among a few others. In the autonomic nervous system there are both sympatheti ...
,
SystemImager, Subcon and
CVSup.
Signed-in Flickr users can "Follow" the Photostreams of other Flickr photographers. Reciprocating this process is optional. A user's homepage contains a stream of their Contacts' photos at 2/3 screensize.
Groups are another major means of interaction with fellow members of Flickr around common photography interests. A Flickr Group can be started by any Flickr user, who becomes its administrator and can appoint moderators. Groups may either be open access or invitation-only, and most have an associated pool of photos. The administrator of the Flickr group can monitor and set restrictions for the group, assign awards to members, and may curate and organize the photo content. Recent uploads to a group will sometimes appear on its members' homepages. Group photo pools may be displayed in the "Justified View" or as a slideshow.
"Galleries" of photos from other photostreams may be curated by any signed-up Flickr user, provided the feature is not disabled by the photo's uploader, these are then publicly viewable.
Any Flickr user can post comments to a Flickr photo on its photopage, unless this has been disabled by the uploader, and users can "favorite" a photo. A user's favorites can be viewed in a justified or slideshow display.
Users of
Windows Photo Gallery
Windows Photo Gallery (formerly known as Windows Live Photo Gallery) is a discontinued image organizer, photo editor and photo sharing program. It is a part of Microsoft's Windows Essentials software suite. The product has been unavailable fo ...
, Apple's
iPhoto
iPhoto is a discontinued digital photograph manipulation software application developed by Apple Inc. It was included with every Macintosh personal computer from 2002 to 2015, when it was replaced with Apple's Photos application. Originally so ...
(version 8), Adobe's Lightroom 3.2, Apple's
Aperture
In optics, an aperture is a hole or an opening through which light travels. More specifically, the aperture and focal length of an optical system determine the cone angle of a bundle of rays that come to a focus in the image plane.
An opt ...
(version 3.0),
darktable
Darktable (stylized as darktable) is a free and open-source photography application program and raw developer. Rather than being a raster graphics editor like Adobe Photoshop or GIMP, it comprises a subset of image editing operations specifical ...
, and
digiKam have the ability to upload their photos directly to Flickr. They can also automatically update their status on other
social networking services
A social networking service or SNS (sometimes called a social networking site) is an online platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interests, act ...
when they upload their images to Flickr. Flickr provides a desktop client for
Mac OS X
macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. Within the market of ...
and Windows that allows users to upload photos without using the web interface. Uploadr allows drag-and-drop batch uploading of photos, the setting of tags and descriptions for each batch, and the editing of privacy settings.
Flickr has entered into partnerships with many third parties. Flickr had a partnership with the
Picnik
Picnik was an online photo editing service which was acquired by Google in 2010. It was headquartered in Downtown Seattle, Washington, United States.
The site allowed users to edit images, add styles to imported images and use basic editing ...
online photo-editing application that included a reduced-feature version of Picnik built into Flickr as a default photo editor. On April 5, 2012, Flickr replaced Picnik with
Aviary
An aviary is a large enclosure for confining birds, although bats may also be considered for display. Unlike birdcages, aviaries allow birds a larger living space where they can fly; hence, aviaries are also sometimes known as flight cages. Av ...
as its default photo editor. In addition to using commercial mapping data, Flickr now uses
OpenStreetMap
OpenStreetMap (OSM) is a free, open geographic database updated and maintained by a community of volunteers via open collaboration. Contributors collect data from surveys, trace from aerial imagery and also import from other freely licensed g ...
mapping for various cities; this began with Beijing during the run-up to the 2008 Olympic games. , this is used for Baghdad, Beijing, Kabul, Sydney and Tokyo. OpenStreetMap data is collected by volunteers and is available under the
Open Database License
The Open Database License (ODbL) is a copyleft license agreement intended to allow users to freely share, modify, and use a database while maintaining this same freedom for others.
ODbL is published by Open Data Commons, which is part of Open Kn ...
. Flickr offers printing of various forms of merchandise, including business cards, photo books, stationery, personalized credit cards and large-size prints from companies such as
Moo
A MOO ("MUD, object-oriented") is a text-based online virtual reality system to which multiple users (players) are connected at the same time.
The term MOO is used in two distinct, but related, senses. One is to refer to those programs descend ...
,
Blurb
A blurb is a short promotional piece accompanying a piece of creative work. It may be written by the author or publisher or quote praise from others. Blurbs were originally printed on the back or rear dust jacket of a book, and are now also fou ...
,
Tiny Prints,
Capital One
Capital One Financial Corporation is an American bank holding company specializing in credit cards, auto loans, banking, and savings accounts, headquartered in McLean, Virginia with operations primarily in the United States. It is on the list o ...
,
Imagekind
Imagekind is a commercial website that prints and sells images created by participating artists on-demand. It also includes a social networking and marketing site for artists and their customers. It was founded in Seattle, Washington in 2006 by A ...
, and
QOOP
QOOP was a web services company founded in Mill Valley, California in 2005. They ran the website QOOP.com, which was presented as a 'social commerce network' for authors, artists, media archives and publishers.
QOOP.com
The company and website ...
. The Flickr partnership with
Getty Images
Getty Images Holdings, Inc. is an American visual media company and is a supplier of stock images, editorial photography, video and music for business and consumers, with a library of over 477 million assets. It targets three markets— creative ...
to sell stock photos from users is under review as of early 2014.
Filtering
In March 2007, Flickr added new content filtering controls that let members specify by default what types of images they generally upload (photo, art/illustration, or
screenshot
screenshot (also known as screen capture or screen grab) is a digital image that shows the contents of a computer display. A screenshot is created by the operating system or software running on the device powering the display.
Additionally, s ...
) and how "safe" (i.e., unlikely to offend others) their images are, as well as specify that information for specific images individually. Individual images are assigned to one of three categories: "safe", "moderate" and "restricted".
Users can specify the same criteria when searching for images. There are some restrictions on searches for certain types of users: non-members must always use SafeSearch, which omits images noted as potentially offensive, while members whose Yahoo! accounts indicate that they are underage may use SafeSearch or moderate SafeSearch, but cannot turn SafeSearch off completely. The system achieves a fairly good separation of family-friendly photos and adult content; generic image searches normally produce no pornographic results, with the visibility of adult content restricted to users and dedicated Flickr communities who have opted into viewing it.
Flickr has used this filtering system to change the level of accessibility to "unsafe" content for entire nations, including
South Korea
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...
, Hong Kong and Germany. In summer 2007, German users staged a "revolt" over being assigned the user rights of a
minor
Minor may refer to:
* Minor (law), a person under the age of certain legal activities.
** A person who has not reached the age of majority
* Academic minor, a secondary field of study in undergraduate education
Music theory
*Minor chord
** Barb ...
. See
Censorship
Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments ...
below.
Licensing
![Flickr Licenses edit](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Flickr_Licenses_edit.svg)
Flickr offers users the ability to either release their images under certain common usage
license
A license (or licence) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit).
A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...
s or label them as "
all rights reserved
"All rights reserved" is a copyright formality indicating that the copyright holder ''reserves'', or holds for its own use, all the rights provided by copyright law. Originating in the Buenos Aires Convention of 1910, it is unclear if it has any ...
". The licensing options primarily include the
Creative Commons
Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...
2.0 attribution-based and minor content-control licenses – although jurisdiction and version-specific licenses cannot be selected. As with "
tags", the site allows easy searching of only those images that fall under a specific license.
On January 16, 2008, Flickr launched a program called "The Commons on Flickr." Several international cultural institutions share images using a "no known copyright restrictions" through the program. According to Flickr, the goal of the program is to "firstly show you hidden treasures in the world's public photography archives, and secondly to show how your input and knowledge can help make these collections even richer." Participants include the
National Museum of Denmark
The National Museum of Denmark (Nationalmuseet) in Copenhagen is Denmark's largest museum of cultural history, comprising the histories of Danish and foreign cultures, alike. The museum's main building is located a short distance from Strøget ...
,
Powerhouse Museum
The Powerhouse Museum is the major branch of the Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences (MAAS) in Sydney, the others being the historic Sydney Observatory at Observatory Park, Sydney, Observatory Hill, and the newer Museums Discovery Centre at Castle ...
,
George Eastman Museum
The George Eastman Museum, also referred to as ''George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film'', the world's oldest museum dedicated to photography and one of the world's oldest film archives, opened to the public in 1949 in ...
,
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...
,
Nationaal Archief
The Nationaal Archief (NA) is the national archives of the Netherlands, located in The Hague. It houses collections for the central government, the province of South Holland, and the former County of Holland. There is also material from private i ...
,
National Archives and Records Administration
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an " independent federal agency of the United States government within the executive branch", charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records. It i ...
,
National Library of Scotland
The National Library of Scotland (NLS) ( gd, Leabharlann Nàiseanta na h-Alba, sco, Naitional Leebrar o Scotland) is the legal deposit library of Scotland and is one of the country's National Collections. As one of the largest libraries in the ...
,
State Library of New South Wales
The State Library of New South Wales, part of which is known as the Mitchell Library, is a large heritage-listed special collections, reference and research library open to the public and is one of the oldest libraries in Australia. Establish ...
, and
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...
.
In May 2009,
White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...
official photographer
Pete Souza
Peter Joseph Souza (born December 31, 1954) is an American photojournalist, the former Chief Official White House Photographer for Presidents of the United States Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama and the former director of the White House Photog ...
began using Flickr as a conduit for releasing White House photos. The photos were initially posted with a
Creative Commons Attribution
A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work".A "work" is any creative material made by a person. A painting, a graphic, a book, a song/lyrics ...
license requiring that the original photographers be credited. Flickr later created a new license which identified them as "
United States Government Work", which does not carry any copyright restrictions.
In March 2015, Flickr added the
Creative Commons Public Domain Mark and
Creative Commons Zero
A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work".A "work" is any creative material made by a person. A painting, a graphic, a book, a song/lyrics ...
(CC0) to its licensing options. The Public Domain Mark is meant for images that are no longer protected by copyright. CC0 is used for works that are still protected by copyright or neighbouring rights, but where the rightsholders choose to waive all those rights.
Reception
Flickr became an immediate success and is seen as a successful example of "
Web 2.0
Web 2.0 (also known as participative (or participatory) web and social web) refers to websites that emphasize user-generated content, ease of use, participatory culture and interoperability (i.e., compatibility with other products, systems, and ...
", and a year later was purchased by
Yahoo!
Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Man ...
. Initially the site was most popular with professional photographers and graphic designers as well as
bloggers
A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...
who used it as an image repository. In 2007, Flickr was the 19th most popular website on the
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
according to its
Alexa Rank
Alexa Internet, Inc. was an American web traffic analysis company based in San Francisco. It was a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amazon.
Alexa was founded as an independent company in 1996 and acquired by Amazon in 1999 for $250 million in stock. ...
. However, since then, its popularity has declined relative to social media platforms with photo sharing capabilities (such as
Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
and
Instagram
Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...
), as well as cloud file storage services (such as
Dropbox
Dropbox is a file hosting service operated by the American company Dropbox, Inc., headquartered in San Francisco, California, U.S. that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, personal cloud, and Client (computing), client software. Dropb ...
). By 2021, Flickr's Alexa Rank declined significantly, yet indicated that the website was still among the top 500 most popular websites globally.
Controversies
Censorship
On June 12, 2007, in the wake of the rollout of localized language versions of the site, Flickr implemented a user-side rating system for filtering out potentially controversial photos. Simultaneously, users with accounts registered with Yahoo! subsidiaries in Germany, Singapore, Hong Kong and Korea were prevented from viewing photos rated "moderate" or "restricted" on the three-part scale used. Many Flickr users, particularly in Germany, protested against the new restrictions, claiming unwanted censorship from Flickr and Yahoo.
Flickr management, unwilling to go into legal details, implied that the reason for the stringent filtering was some unusually strict age-verification laws in Germany. The issue received attention in the German national media, especially in online publications. Initial reports indicated that Flickr's action was a sensible, if unattractive, precaution against prosecution, although later coverage implied that Flickr's action may have been unnecessarily strict. On June 20, 2007, Flickr reacted by granting German users access to "moderate" (but not "restricted") images, and hinted at a future solution for Germany, involving advanced age-verification procedures.
Since June 1, 2009, Flickr has been blocked in China in advance of the 20th anniversary of the
Tiananmen Square protests of 1989
The Tiananmen Square protests, known in Chinese as the June Fourth Incident (), were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing during 1989. In what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, or in Chinese the June Fourth ...
.
Copyright enforcement
Michael Arrington
J. Michael Arrington (born March 13, 1970) is the American founder and former co-editor of TechCrunch, a blog covering the Silicon Valley technology start-up communities and the wider technology field in America and elsewhere. Magazines such as ...
of
TechCrunch
TechCrunch is an American online newspaper focusing on high tech and startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare.
In 2010, AOL acquired the company for approximately ...
and the
Electronic Frontier Foundation
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. The foundation was formed on 10 July 1990 by John Gilmore, John Perry Barlow and Mitch Kapor to promote Internet ci ...
have criticised Flickr for its heavy-handed implementation of the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a 1998 United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or s ...
(DMCA) and
Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act
The Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act (OCILLA) is United States federal law that creates a conditional 'safe harbor' for online service providers (OSP) (a group which includes internet service providers (ISP) and other Inter ...
(OCILLA). Under OCILLA, a service provider such as Flickr is obliged to delete or disable access to content as soon as they receive an official notice of infringement, to maintain protection from liability. After having one of his own pictures taken down following an incorrect DMCA claim, British comedian
Dave Gorman researched the issue and concluded that if the Flickr user was not based in the United States or they were, but the person filing the notice of infringement was not, Flickr deleted the disputed content immediately. Even if the user could successfully demonstrate that the content did not infringe upon any copyright, Flickr did not, according to Gorman, replace the deleted content. He argued that this was contrary to its obligations in responding to a
counter-notice. Shortly afterward, Flickr changed its policy.
In 2019, Flickr added new theft detection tool options to certain users. Some subscribers will be provided "copy-protection tools that can detect if their images have been used without permission," the BBC reported in 2019, noting "Flickr Pro subscribers will be able to monitor up to 1,000 images and send automated copyright claims to people or companies that use their photos."
Sale of Creative Commons-licensed photos
In November 2014, Flickr announced that it would sell wall-sized prints of photos from the service that are licensed under Creative Commons licenses allowing commercial use. Although its use of the photos in this manner is legal and allowed under the licenses, Flickr was criticized by users for what they perceived to be unfair exploitation of artists' works, as all the profits from these offerings go to Yahoo! and are not shared with their respective photographers, and users were not given a means of opting-out from the program without placing their photos under a more restrictive non-commercial license. By contrast, a similar opt-in program for "licensed" photos does give photographers a 51% share of sales. On December 19, 2014, Flickr General Manager Bernardo Hernandez announced they would pull all Creative Commons-licensed images from the program and issue refunds, stating that "Subsequently, we'll work closely with Creative Commons to come back with programs that align better with our community values."
Deletion of files of non-paying users
On November 1, 2018, Flickr announced new restrictions for its users.
*On January 8, 2019, non-paying users would only able to upload up to 1000 files free of charge.
*Deletion of the oldest files, determined by the upload date, was scheduled to begin on March 12, 2019, until the limit of 1000 files was met. The size of the individual files would not be relevant. Alternatively, users could upgrade to Pro subscription for US$60 per year.
On March 17, 2022, Flickr revealed that it had not in fact deleted any photos for exceeding storage limits. However, it announced that it would soon implement a policy limiting the sharing of "moderate" or "restricted" content to Pro users, and limiting free users to 50 "non-public" images. Images beyond these limits would be at risk for deletion.
See also
*
Image hosting service
{{internet hosting, right
An image hosting service allows individuals to upload images to an Internet website. The image host will then store the image onto its server, and show the individual different types of code to allow others to view that i ...
*
Image sharing
Image sharing, or photo sharing, is the publishing or transfer of digital photos online. Image sharing websites offer services such as uploading, hosting, managing and sharing of photos (publicly or privately). This function is provided through ...
*
List of online image archives
This is an incomplete list of notable online image archives, including both image hosting websites like Flickr and archives hosted by libraries and other academic or historical institutions.
List of archives
See also
* Commons:Free ...
*
List of image-sharing websites
This article presents a non-exhaustive list of notable image-sharing websites.
Active image-sharing websites
Defunct photo-sharing websites
:''These also include sites that may still operate, but do not accept new users. Listed in chronolo ...
*
List of social networking websites
A social networking service is an online platform that people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career interests, activities, backgrounds or real-life connections.
This is a li ...
*
User-generated content
User-generated content (UGC), alternatively known as user-created content (UCC), is any form of content, such as images, videos, text, testimonials, and audio, that has been posted by users on online platforms such as social media, discussion f ...
*
Tumblr
Tumblr (stylized as tumblr; pronounced "tumbler") is an American microblogging and social networking website founded by David Karp in 2007 and currently owned by Automattic. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content to a sho ...
References
External links
*
{{Oath Inc.
Internet properties established in 2004
Computer-related introductions in 2004
2004 establishments in British Columbia
2005 mergers and acquisitions
2018 mergers and acquisitions
Multilingual websites
Image-sharing websites
American photography websites
Social information processing
Social networking services
Video hosting
Canadian websites
IOS software
Android (operating system) software
Yahoo! acquisitions