{"id":1108,"date":"2013-05-21T09:33:02","date_gmt":"2013-05-21T01:33:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nargalzius.com\/blog\/?p=1108"},"modified":"2013-05-21T09:33:02","modified_gmt":"2013-05-21T01:33:02","slug":"on-flickrs-service-overhaul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/archives\/2013\/05\/21\/on-flickrs-service-overhaul","title":{"rendered":"On Flickr&#8217;s Service Overhaul"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Flickr just rolled out their <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/help\/limits\/\">new service structure<\/a> which basically gives 1 Terabyte of space to the free accounts, and will sunset the Pro account option soon after &#8211; in favor of an ad-sponsored system.<\/p>\n<p>And despite being a Pro subscriber for years I think this is a very good move &#8211; as it gives enough incentive to bring regular users (back) to the service. Because let&#8217;s be honest, <strong>to this day<\/strong> Flickr <em>is<\/em> a superior photo service. The only problem it had was that the free accounts were severely limited; last time I checked <span class=\"footnote_referrer\"><a role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" onclick=\"footnote_moveToReference_1108_1('footnote_plugin_reference_1108_1_1');\" onkeypress=\"footnote_moveToReference_1108_1('footnote_plugin_reference_1108_1_1');\" ><sup id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_1108_1_1\" class=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text\">1 <\/sup><\/a><span id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1108_1_1\" class=\"footnote_tooltip\">And I may be off, since it was years ago since I last was on a free account<\/span><\/span><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1108_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1108_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top right', relative: true, offset: [10, 10], });<\/script> free users were allowed 200 photos displayed; you didn&#8217;t actually have any limits on how many photos you could upload &#8211; but it would only display the most recent 200. That, and you were only allowed a certain number of sets.<\/p>\n<p>Even non-professional photographers can find these limitations debilitating to the overall user experience. Enough to compel us to upgrade to their Pro service which cost about $20 a year &#8211; which I did and which I never regretted doing.<!--more--><!-- more --><\/p>\n<p>Still, given the multitude of alternative image hosting services out there that are <strong>free<\/strong> &#8211; we all know the majority will be willing to settle for a substandard service as long as they just get to upload and show <strong>all<\/strong> their photos\/sets &#8211; limitations which were exactly the deal-breakers for free Flickr accounts.<\/p>\n<h1>Lowdown<\/h1>\n<p>So in case it wasn&#8217;t clear in the announcement, the fact that they&#8217;re sunsetting the Pro accounts eventually means that all the features of the Pro that don&#8217;t have anything to do with storage space will now be available for everyone.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a shame though that the new &#8220;Pro&#8221; counterpart, which is basically an ad-free (and unlimited storage) &#8211; is twice as expensive as the old Pro. While $50 dollars a year isn&#8217;t much, I personally am willing to put up with advertisements instead of paying an extra $30 just for being ad-free.<\/p>\n<p>Because the &#8220;unlimited&#8221; storage space of the Pro accounts isn&#8217;t really that big of a deal. 1TB is a lot of space. It&#8217;s very difficult to fill 1TB online unless you&#8217;re some kind of freak &#8211; or professional photographer who relies <strong>solely<\/strong> on Flickr for archiving their work (which is very unprofessional, IMHO). I don&#8217;t think I even filled 1TB worth of photos on my Drobo (yet) &#8211; and that&#8217;s <em>way<\/em> more photos than what I upload on Flickr.<\/p>\n<h1>Perspective<\/h1>\n<p>Having trouble grasping how &#8220;enough&#8221; it is? Let me repost a comment I had on Facebook discussing this subject:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The trick is to just upload web-friendly resolution pictures. Most people just use image hosting services to show people pictures &#8211; not necessarily to print them straight from the web. If you want to print something, it&#8217;s best you actually have the original copy of it on your hard drive.<\/p>\n<p>Anyways, as per Flickr&#8217;s &#8220;promo&#8221; it says 1TB can host roughly 530 THOUSAND photos @ 6.5MP each &#8211; which is what they consider to be the typical size of a &#8220;full res&#8221; photo that prints decently.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been in flickr since 2005 &#8211; and for 8 YEARS my TOTAL photos uploaded to this day is&#8230; <strong>a whopping 9,713<\/strong> LOL. Even if I was uploading at full res, it clearly shows that 8 years with a fairly decent pace of uploads <span class=\"footnote_referrer\"><a role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" onclick=\"footnote_moveToReference_1108_1('footnote_plugin_reference_1108_1_2');\" onkeypress=\"footnote_moveToReference_1108_1('footnote_plugin_reference_1108_1_2');\" ><sup id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_1108_1_2\" class=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text\">2 <\/sup><\/a><span id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1108_1_2\" class=\"footnote_tooltip\">and I&#8217;d like to consider myself one of the more photo-posting type of people<\/span><\/span><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1108_1_2').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1108_1_2', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top right', relative: true, offset: [10, 10], });<\/script> &#8211; and it seems impossible for me to hit that ceiling. Compounded with the fact that I actually <strong>do not<\/strong> upload at full resolution precisely to conserve the space I use. I usually limit my resolution to like 900 pixels max on the longest dimension. So even if we bumped that [up] considerably (say 1,200px) you&#8217;re <em>still<\/em> not even going to go anywhere near 1MB per picture. <\/p>\n<p>Do the math (I suggest Wolfram Alpha) and factor in that the 1TB limit will likely increase over time as other services start getting competitive <span class=\"footnote_referrer\"><a role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" onclick=\"footnote_moveToReference_1108_1('footnote_plugin_reference_1108_1_3');\" onkeypress=\"footnote_moveToReference_1108_1('footnote_plugin_reference_1108_1_3');\" ><sup id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_1108_1_3\" class=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text\">3 <\/sup><\/a><span id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1108_1_3\" class=\"footnote_tooltip\">That&#8217;s exactly how Google mail does it<\/span><\/span><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1108_1_3').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1108_1_3', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top right', relative: true, offset: [10, 10], });<\/script> and you just know that it&#8217;ll be adequate &#8211; and definitely more than enough for the average joe.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h1>API<\/h1>\n<p>Another reason why I&#8217;m not (yet) concerned with ads is because I actually <strong>use<\/strong> their API to display all my photos\/sets <a href=\"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/gallery\">in my gallery<\/a> which means I essentially skin my account &#8211; which bypasses the ads altogether.<\/p>\n<p>I say <em>&#8220;not yet&#8221;<\/em> because this obviously seems like an oversight on Flickr&#8217;s part. But from an API standpoint, whatever breadth of access you&#8217;re able to make to an Pro account should [eventually] be applicable to the free accounts as well.<\/p>\n<p>The only change that can be done there is to restrict API access to paying subscribers &#8211; but that would put them in trouble with <strong>a lot<\/strong> of developers that make apps that access their API.<\/p>\n<p>So overall, I don&#8217;t know what&#8217;s going to happen, but for as long as I can get all the data I need from a Free account to display in my page, I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;ll be subscribing to an ad-free service. If they brought it down to what an original Pro account would cost, then maybe I would consider &#8211; and only if they start making their API accessible only to paying subscribers. Time will tell how this will turn out.<\/p>\n<h1>Conclusion<\/h1>\n<p>Overall, I still think this is a good move. I don&#8217;t see any reason why people wouldn&#8217;t want to get in on some Flickr goodness. Flickr has always been at the forefront in UI. I remember they&#8217;re one of the very first implementors of AJAX style interfaces &#8211; which was incredible at the time because it was exactly what you needed for this type of photo management. <\/p>\n<p>But for the first time users, and potential customers &#8211; try it out, you&#8217;ll see what I&#8217;m talking about and it&#8217;s very difficult to go back to any other image-hosting service once you&#8217;ve gotten used to the Flickr workflow.<\/p><div class=\"speaker-mute footnotes_reference_container\"> <div class=\"footnote_container_prepare\"><p><span role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" class=\"footnote_reference_container_label pointer\" onclick=\"footnote_expand_collapse_reference_container_1108_1();\">Notes<\/span><span role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" class=\"footnote_reference_container_collapse_button\" style=\"display: none;\" onclick=\"footnote_expand_collapse_reference_container_1108_1();\">[<a id=\"footnote_reference_container_collapse_button_1108_1\">+<\/a>]<\/span><\/p><\/div> <div id=\"footnote_references_container_1108_1\" style=\"\"><table class=\"footnotes_table footnote-reference-container\"><caption class=\"accessibility\">Notes<\/caption> <tbody> \r\n\r\n<tr class=\"footnotes_plugin_reference_row\"> <th scope=\"row\" class=\"footnote_plugin_index_combi pointer\"  onclick=\"footnote_moveToAnchor_1108_1('footnote_plugin_tooltip_1108_1_1');\"><a id=\"footnote_plugin_reference_1108_1_1\" class=\"footnote_backlink\"><span class=\"footnote_index_arrow\">&#8673;<\/span>1<\/a><\/th> <td class=\"footnote_plugin_text\">And I may be off, since it was years ago since I last was on a free account<\/td><\/tr>\r\n\r\n<tr class=\"footnotes_plugin_reference_row\"> <th scope=\"row\" class=\"footnote_plugin_index_combi pointer\"  onclick=\"footnote_moveToAnchor_1108_1('footnote_plugin_tooltip_1108_1_2');\"><a id=\"footnote_plugin_reference_1108_1_2\" class=\"footnote_backlink\"><span class=\"footnote_index_arrow\">&#8673;<\/span>2<\/a><\/th> <td class=\"footnote_plugin_text\">and I&#8217;d like to consider myself one of the more photo-posting type of people<\/td><\/tr>\r\n\r\n<tr class=\"footnotes_plugin_reference_row\"> <th scope=\"row\" class=\"footnote_plugin_index_combi pointer\"  onclick=\"footnote_moveToAnchor_1108_1('footnote_plugin_tooltip_1108_1_3');\"><a id=\"footnote_plugin_reference_1108_1_3\" class=\"footnote_backlink\"><span class=\"footnote_index_arrow\">&#8673;<\/span>3<\/a><\/th> <td class=\"footnote_plugin_text\">That&#8217;s exactly how Google mail does it<\/td><\/tr>\r\n\r\n <\/tbody> <\/table> <\/div><\/div><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> function footnote_expand_reference_container_1108_1() { jQuery('#footnote_references_container_1108_1').show(); jQuery('#footnote_reference_container_collapse_button_1108_1').text('\u2212'); } function footnote_collapse_reference_container_1108_1() { jQuery('#footnote_references_container_1108_1').hide(); jQuery('#footnote_reference_container_collapse_button_1108_1').text('+'); } function footnote_expand_collapse_reference_container_1108_1() { if (jQuery('#footnote_references_container_1108_1').is(':hidden')) { footnote_expand_reference_container_1108_1(); } else { footnote_collapse_reference_container_1108_1(); } } function footnote_moveToReference_1108_1(p_str_TargetID) { footnote_expand_reference_container_1108_1(); var l_obj_Target = jQuery('#' + p_str_TargetID); if (l_obj_Target.length) { jQuery( 'html, body' ).delay( 0 ); jQuery('html, body').animate({ scrollTop: l_obj_Target.offset().top - window.innerHeight * 0.2 }, 380); } } function footnote_moveToAnchor_1108_1(p_str_TargetID) { footnote_expand_reference_container_1108_1(); var l_obj_Target = jQuery('#' + p_str_TargetID); if (l_obj_Target.length) { jQuery( 'html, body' ).delay( 0 ); jQuery('html, body').animate({ scrollTop: l_obj_Target.offset().top - window.innerHeight * 0.2 }, 380); } }<\/script>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Flickr just rolled out their new service structure which basically gives 1 Terabyte of space to the free accounts, and will sunset the Pro account option soon after &#8211; in favor of an ad-sponsored system. And despite being a Pro subscriber for years I think this is a very good move &#8211; as it gives &hellip; <p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/archives\/2013\/05\/21\/on-flickrs-service-overhaul\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;On Flickr&#8217;s Service Overhaul&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[595],"class_list":["post-1108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-internet","tag-internet"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1108\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}