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February 8, 2006

Yahoo Photos Overview, Exclusive Screenshots

Michael Arrington

116 comments »

It isn’t entirely fair to compare the new Yahoo Photos with all of the early stage companies showing their stuff at Demo. But its a very impressive product and it’s good that they came here to demo it. The new Yahoo Photos will be launching this spring.

Everyone knows that Yahoo owns Flickr, the wildly popular photo tagging and sharing service that they bought in late 2004. But what most people don’t know (I didn’t) is that around 30 million unique monthly visitors come to Yahoo Photos (the other Yahoo photo service) v. about 8 million on Flickr. Flickr has mind share; Yahoo Photos is driving real (unique) traffic.

An all new Yahoo Photos is being released in March. It combines many of the most-loved features of Flickr (like tagging and sets) with some entirely new stuff that is pretty compelling. Exclusive screen shots of the new service are below.

Yahoo Photos will be entirely free, and will allow uploading and archiving of an unlimited number of original high resolution pictures. Revenue will be generated from advertising on the site, along with premium printing and other services (books, calendars, prints, etc.). Like Flickr, Yahoo will also be allowing users to pick up prints at their local Target store.

Features

Yahoo Photos will integrate popular Flickr features, like tagging and sets, as well as popular printing options mentioned above. The screen shots below show some of these features.

They are also doing new stuff. They have two types of “sets”, or albums. The standard sets work very much like Flickr. But “Smart albums” allow dynamic creation of albums based on rules (ratings, tags, date, etc.), and also allow inclusion of photos from friends. With smart albums, users can create albums like “highly rated” or “new” that will always be created on the fly.

The all photos view is much better than Flickr. Many more photos can be viewed at once, and an Ajax interface allows for mass dragging and dropping into a tray at the top of the screen for inclusion in albums, sharing (via email and instant messaging), etc.

They have not integrated RSS feeds for photos and albums yet, but this is coming.

The Yahoo photos team includes Darryl Eaton, Will Aldrich, and Scott Schiller, who were all here at Demo this week.

Screen shots:

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 8th, 2006 at 1:48 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Comments

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  1. Parag

    February 8th, 2006 at 2:15 pm

    Wow! Yahoo indeed is coming with impressive array of tools to target the PhotoMarket.
    Once they incorporate RSS,ATOM,use face recognition technology of Riya (if acquired) and Searchfox.
    Its going to best time for consumers and investors, since currently only 2-10% of PhotoMarket is being explored and the potential is huge. Daily 10 million pictures are uploaded and only around 1-2 million are tagged.

  2. Ross M Karchner

    February 8th, 2006 at 2:29 pm

    I think you might have the Target relationship backwards– I seem to remember Yahoo Photo having that feature first.

  3. ToddZ

    February 8th, 2006 at 2:31 pm

    Hoo boy. I’m still waiting for them to combine the best aspects of Del.icio.us and MyWeb so that I need only one. Now I’m to deal with two competing photo services under the same roof?

    Maybe it won’t be that hard to decide, since Flickr still has a unique and clean interface, while the new Yahoo Photos seems to sport the typical cluttered Yahoo look.

  4. Dave Ritter

    February 8th, 2006 at 3:27 pm

    Very very cool. I definitely didn’t know about the Flickr/Yahoo traffic relationship. Very interesting.

    I guess it’s still sort of a little community we have here, if our big superstar is still a little guy compared to a more established photo sharing service.

    Excellent little bit of perspective.

  5. RBA

    February 8th, 2006 at 3:28 pm

    Mike, are you sure “Everyone knows that Yahoo owns Flickr”? Did you ask any of those 30 million people that go by Yahoo Photos? :-)

  6. Stacy

    February 8th, 2006 at 3:59 pm

    Dave, that’s a great point about the little community we have here.
    I was reminded of that last night when one of my friends (who I consider pretty tech savvy) didn’t even know about Flickr.

  7. Rob

    February 8th, 2006 at 4:26 pm

    So it’s safe to say Flickr will be gone soon and moved over to Yahoo! Photos.

  8. Kaz

    February 8th, 2006 at 4:55 pm

    Rob - I don’t think Flickr will ever be “gone soon”…Obviously there are some key overlaps but also some major differences - the interactivity and community aspects of Flickr being one of them.

    I think in the future it won’t matter to the user where the photo is stored, rather - what do they want to do with the picture - get it printed, have friends critique it, etc…and Yahoo will have all types of activities covered.

  9. Russell Limprecht

    February 8th, 2006 at 5:20 pm

    Once they incorporate RSS,ATOM,use face recognition technology of Riya (if acquired) and Searchfox.

    I sure hope Searchfox comes back soon.

  10. Max Kalehoff

    February 8th, 2006 at 5:37 pm

    OK…great. I’ve invested a little money and a helluva lot of time, efforts and photos into Flickr. So what’s next of Flickr?

  11. Pancho Villa

    February 8th, 2006 at 5:57 pm

    ToddZ — what in gods name about those screenshots do you consider cluttered? That’s as streamlined as you can get (maybe even more so than Flickr at this point). I think it’s pretty impressive, and as others suggested really leaves it up to what you want to do with your photos, rather than which is competent.

  12. Jonathan Grubb

    February 8th, 2006 at 6:42 pm

    It’s worth noting that Flickr was purchased by Yahoo Search, not by Yahoo Photos. I believe the Flickr people sit with the search team in the search building, and probably have more contact with My Web than they do with Photos.

    The Photos team passed on Flickr for very legitimate reasons — the whole sharing/community/tagging thing is really a niche in the greater Photos market.

  13. PaulPr1

    February 9th, 2006 at 7:45 am

    I’d like to see one of these big players implement something like imgSeek does (http://our.imgseek.net/). It’s a kind of social photo bookmarking service: you tag images, rate them, get recommendations, search for similar images, etc. Something like reddit meets delicious meet Flickr.

  14. ToddZ

    February 9th, 2006 at 8:55 am

    Pancho - maybe “cluttered” wasn’t the right word, though it certainly doesn’t lead my eye and draw me in the way the Flickr layout does. It’s just such a typical Yahoo-service look. If the speed and cool functionality are really there, I might warm up to it. I use Yahoo stuff extensively — but I just hoped that a photo app might have a little different flavor than mail, calendar, addressbook, MyWeb, 360, etc.

  15. doh

    February 9th, 2006 at 10:18 am

    looks just like aol pictures (pictures.aol.com)

  16. Brian Benzinger

    February 9th, 2006 at 12:10 pm

    Yeah. Photos looks excellent. If anyone wants to see it in action, you can view the DEMO video…

    http://www.demo.com/demonstrat.....63052.html

    Definitely big improvements and great to see them bringing the tagging to more mainstream traffic.

  17. Bradley Twohig

    February 9th, 2006 at 12:29 pm

    As a former Yahoo employee and actively connected with Yahoo search, I can say its only going to get cooler!

  18. Seth Rubenstein

    February 9th, 2006 at 12:54 pm

    Why would Yahoo not just take Flickr off the line I mean this new Yahoo Photos looks like it basically rivals Flickr feature by feature with some new features to boot, why should I pay 50 more bucks in march when my pro account is up for renewal when this thing is going to be free.

  19. ToddZ

    February 9th, 2006 at 1:40 pm

    Seth - gawd I hope they don’t take away Flickr or merge the two services and their very different user bases.

    Compare the quality of participation at a relatively small, paid subscription forum like Ask Metafilter vs. the global, free, and completely worthless Ask Yahoo. As I mentioned, I like Yahoo, but the Ask service is doomed to utter uselessness without massive twitfiltering. I certainly don’t need all those same people viewing and commenting on my photos.

  20. BobI

    February 9th, 2006 at 1:51 pm

    It would be great if the site made it possible to easily convert from one to the other. So Flickr users could move everything to Yahoo Photos and vice versa.

  21. steve mcfarland

    February 9th, 2006 at 4:09 pm

    As a long-time and dedicated flickr-ite, this makes me uncomfortable. And what’s wrong with simply adding some shiny features to flickr (smart albums, the much-needed ability to view more photos at once and to drag and drop) and send people that way?

    I don’t think that flickr is going anywhere, either, but I question why Yahoo! feels the need to have two products so similar.

  22. Jim M > Calgary Web Developer

    February 9th, 2006 at 7:52 pm

    That Schiller is a pimp developer. I miss him.

  23. mynewsbot

    February 9th, 2006 at 8:15 pm

    Cant wait for that .. guys at google are so innovative

  24. Jeff

    February 10th, 2006 at 2:16 am

    http://feedjeff.com/2006/02/10.....msn-looks/

    Looks like Yahoo’s homepage is starting to align with Yahoo Photo looks too.

  25. Joe Anderson

    February 10th, 2006 at 2:39 am

    Are these people insane?

  26. Patrick Whittingham

    February 10th, 2006 at 6:02 am

    Nice looking. Is this DHTML/AJAX or Flex/Flash. It’s drop-drop seems to be Flex.

  27. CarLBanks

    February 10th, 2006 at 8:17 am

    Is it me or does Yahoo Photos seem more branded than Flickr? It looks more bland. Why does Yahoo have to compete with it’s own product?

  28. J. Alberto

    February 12th, 2006 at 4:09 pm

    Excellent. And what about more image formats PNG,RAW,etc ?

  29. Andrew

    March 25th, 2006 at 11:42 am

    Just wondering where you got the usage statistics from. I’m writing up a journal article on Flickr and would love some corroborating statistics. Thanks!

  30. John

    April 2nd, 2006 at 8:07 am

    I hope to see more Flickr-like on Yahoo!

  31. Jim G

    April 7th, 2006 at 8:09 am

    The reason I don’t use this site is due to my personal protest over the way that Yahoo tricks so many people into installing their toolbar. IMHO there should be NO software that gets installed by default when installing another unrelated piece of software. Ever install Adobe ACrobat Reader? Unless you tell it otherwise you’re going to get the Yahoo toolbar.

    So - I boycott all Yahoo services - at least those that are branded as Yahoo. DOn’t konw what I’ll do if Flickr ever installs the Yahoo toolbar by default somehow.

  32. Jeremy

    April 7th, 2006 at 3:35 pm

    Jim G, why do you use internet explorer?

  33. Adam

    April 7th, 2006 at 5:50 pm

    Now all they need to do is grab RIYA.com and it’d be the best photo sharing tool avaliable.

  34. vijay

    April 7th, 2006 at 7:14 pm

    Hi Mike A.,

    Its true more people use Yahoo Photos than flickr. Reason being, Yahooo Photos has been there from long time and people who have got all albums uploaded there, will not like to switch.

    However, I am more eager to know that will Yahoo Photo’s new version will be able to show my old photos too at high resoltuion again ? which they have archived by reducing the resolution. This resolution loosing is the only reason which forced me to switch to Riya.com .

    I would be most happy person if I get original resolution of the photos uploaded already at yahoo. Since, I have now lost the original copies of those photos and only things I am having is the yahoo’s stripped down version of photos.

    Thanks

  35. Bill

    April 9th, 2006 at 7:33 am

    Let’s not forget too, that yahoo photos is already on tivo (http://www.tivo.com/4.9.11.asp) by default. No special knowledge required, as with getting Flickr on Tivo.

  36. betsyej

    May 31st, 2006 at 6:43 pm

    my yahoo will not receive pictures at times it will not download only a star that will not down load or open

  37. jigar

    June 10th, 2006 at 12:54 pm

    can’t enlarge these screenshot. ??

  38. aboo

    June 15th, 2006 at 2:05 pm

    mmm

  39. aboo

    June 15th, 2006 at 2:05 pm

    mmm

  40. aboo

    June 15th, 2006 at 2:05 pm

    mmm

  41. aboo

    June 15th, 2006 at 2:07 pm

    ahmed

  42. edan

    June 15th, 2006 at 7:32 pm

    hallo….friends,kenali gue di http://www.arela.ce.ro

  43. rich

    June 15th, 2006 at 9:23 pm

    did you see msns new photo space thing it beats this ….it look nice

  44. 花生仁

    June 16th, 2006 at 4:18 pm

    I have been using Yahoo Photos for years. I don’t like the fixed photo size. I would like to see a larger size.

    I like Yahoo because they gave me unlimited space. I have over 10K photos. I hope the new photo site allows me to direct link to the photo for blogging.

    Can’t wait to try the new beta site.

    I like Google’s Picasa web album. However, they are limited to 250MB for about 1000 pictures. Or you have to pay $25/year for 6GB.

  45. bolaji

    June 21st, 2006 at 3:31 am

    isee plenty something in this pes that is where i click i need some like peasce in my area

  46. Tellor

    June 22nd, 2006 at 6:47 pm

    I need someone understand me very well as a girl friend who wants to share a thing……………….

  47. butros

    June 23rd, 2006 at 3:29 pm

    this my all poster

  48. shiva

    June 28th, 2006 at 7:04 pm

    Yahoo! photos beta seemed impressive. The min i aceepted to migrate iam not able to see my albums ! It says “ERROR CHECK_MIGRATION” I guess it takes them 10 days to set me up there. Just hoping i dont lose my albums.
    Still I Love Yahoo! and everything abt them.

  49. sohail

    July 1st, 2006 at 3:25 am

    please upgrede my photos beta thnxxxx to you alwas

  50. ahmed

    July 7th, 2006 at 5:00 am

    i need to mail beta

  51. lisa jones

    July 9th, 2006 at 1:17 am

    if we move to beta, will our old albums be moved for us, or will we have to re- upload everything? i have 75 albums with about 15,000 pics, and can and willl not start over again…

  52. Chris Wood

    July 11th, 2006 at 7:46 am

    I spent two days uploading all my photos to Yahoo! photos. After about 9GB, it tells me I have only 1MB of space left. I can’t upload any more. See one of my warnings here: http://www.lostinthewoods.net/yahoophoto.gif

  53. VS

    July 11th, 2006 at 10:11 pm

    hi

  54. dev

    July 12th, 2006 at 12:05 am

    fewer23 45

  55. ali

    July 13th, 2006 at 2:17 am

    salam

  56. Sunil Tanwani

    July 13th, 2006 at 4:16 am

    The Yahoo Beta Is Very Wonder In Looking The New Function In Yahoo Beta This Is Very Amazing This Is Very Good To Use Any People Like Drag & Drop option

  57. lisa jones

    July 13th, 2006 at 11:05 pm

    are wasting our time posting here, or arfe our questions and concerns actually going to be addressed by someone who know something?

  58. lisa jones

    July 13th, 2006 at 11:05 pm

    are*

  59. sohail

    July 14th, 2006 at 6:29 am

    please sir i want photos yahoo beta please upgreade my yahoophotos

  60. gina

    July 19th, 2006 at 5:23 pm

    great

  61. munir

    July 22nd, 2006 at 7:07 am

    barjokhana

  62. javed

    July 25th, 2006 at 6:34 am

    i need yahoo beta photo beta and breaf case beta also plz give me

  63. Darren

    July 26th, 2006 at 11:49 pm

    THe new beta version of photos does not have the option of sharing folders and pictures by friends…only public and private or w/ an email invitation that expires after 90 days.. Does anyone know if the permenant friends option like in the older version will be incorporated into the beta?

  64. mamun

    July 28th, 2006 at 3:56 am

    life is beautiful when u think beautiful

  65. mamun

    July 28th, 2006 at 4:14 am

    7- rules to be happy

    1.never hate
    2.dont worry
    3.live simpale
    4.expect a little
    5.always smile
    6.give a lot
    7.keep in touch with your partner

  66. ali

    July 28th, 2006 at 7:56 am

    i need yahoo beta photo beta and breaf case beta also plz give me

  67. jax7x5

    August 3rd, 2006 at 4:43 am

    will we be able to download groups of pictures from the albums to our hard drives without having to click each pic to get a full view then click save to move it to our hard drive.
    We used to have the ability to do that as an click on option on one of the buttons at the top of the screen…then that went away unless you were an subscriber to SBCYAHOO DSL ( which I have asked about thru support… and got no answer by the way) wanting to know if that option was still available…
    Its simple ….. click on each picture you want to tag…one, two, three … ALL then click download and wala….there they are on your harddrive…and then if you want click delete to remove them from your album, or leave them there it would be our choice..
    Anyone know if the capability is there in the new photos?
    thanks
    jax7×5@yahoo.com

  68. vaneza

    August 3rd, 2006 at 8:26 am

    hi all!

    i would just like to know if this yahoo photos beta will let me print my pictures and add some pixels on it.. co’z some of my yahoo photos which i downloaded in yahoo, it crops off the pixels of my photos (e.g. my 3.67 megabytes photo was converted into only 36 kb) which of course when i printed it, it turned the bad because it has only small pixels.. and i ended up throwing it all in the garbage can.. i don’t have any files of my originals photos co’z i downloaded it all in my yahoo photo album.. i really like to print my photos in yahoo album. Please let me know if you can add up more pixels on my yahoo photos co’z i like to print it badly..

    please reply me to yahoo address.. thanks..

    v_consad@yahoo.com

  69. narasimha

    August 9th, 2006 at 12:12 am

    I spent two days uploading all my photos to Yahoo! photos. After about 9GB, it tells me I have only 1MB of space left. I can’t upload any more. See one of my warnings here:

    would just like to know if this yahoo photos beta will let me print my pictures and add some pixels on it.. co’z some of my yahoo photos which i downloaded in yahoo, it crops off the pixels of my photos (e.g. my 3.67 megabytes photo was converted into only 36 kb) which of course when i printed it, it turned the bad because it has only small pixels.. and i ended up throwing it all in the garbage can.. i don’t have any files of my originals photos co’z i downloaded it all in my yahoo photo album.. i really like to print my photos in yahoo album. Please let me know if you can add up more pixels on my yahoo photos co’z i like to print it badly..

  70. Tonny

    August 9th, 2006 at 11:41 pm

    first of all, Beta migration really SUXX! in the description was stated that it takes up to 10 days to migrate you. But it was NOT stated that during all that period you old version won’t be accessable. I just came from vocation and now - i have to wait 10 days and see Error “CHECK_MIGRATION” when i enter my Yahoo!Photos. Help really suxx and don;t give any answers about it. No feedback of course..

    to narasimha: u can’t make it. just imagine, all people who take photow with SLR-cameras will begin to upload RAW images to print them out in a good quality. Sure they will get out of space really fast. So all you can do is:
    1) accept this crappy reducing in size/quality
    2) find another sharing photos page
    3) go to a shop and print photos there. and use Yahoo!Photos to show photos to your friends.

    The only thing that i can’t understand is what’s in a hell i have to upload 5MB photo to Yahoo!Photos and then they will automatically reduce it to 300KB!? can’t they make this reduction in their Easy Upload tool!? kinda waste of trafic…

  71. brandy

    August 11th, 2006 at 6:52 pm

    hey im new to this but hey i just like to go out and enjoy life and have fun

  72. taneisha blake

    August 15th, 2006 at 9:30 am

    hello i have one baby name marqis

  73. Nathan

    August 18th, 2006 at 12:47 am

    It looks like they still haven’t stepped up to the level of http://www.Famipix.com, which I would consider a pioneer in the realm of private photo sharing.

  74. jennifer

    August 20th, 2006 at 8:50 pm

    hello i have three kids and i love photos. I minored in photography and always looking for new ideas

  75. ALIDAD

    August 22nd, 2006 at 8:57 am

    ALIDAD

  76. Parth

    August 23rd, 2006 at 5:40 am

    hi guies !!

    how long it takes to get beta agter signing for it?

  77. BigDaddy

    August 25th, 2006 at 1:29 am

    Always up to meet new people

  78. Arun Man Shrestha

    August 26th, 2006 at 12:03 pm

    Hay Budies!
    What’s new in Yahoo.

  79. mashooq

    August 30th, 2006 at 12:49 am

    i love you my jan mashooq jan sindhi

  80. ghulam

    September 11th, 2006 at 2:59 pm

    i hope i get u

  81. kareem

    September 12th, 2006 at 7:35 am

    I hope to get a good chance at this service.

  82. Dharmendrasinh Raol

    September 14th, 2006 at 9:33 pm

    I want to join yahoo photos beta. Can you please accept my request.

  83. esrar

    September 19th, 2006 at 1:14 am

    bhcvnfndhfdnbdfb bh f vn c hnc nfnmj

  84. sandra cristina

    September 20th, 2006 at 8:49 am

    hey how are you peolple so i like to say thanks your suport and see ya

  85. Mark

    September 20th, 2006 at 9:31 pm

    Looks like I’m still on the waiting list…

    http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg......rhs_03.gif

  86. Mummy

    October 2nd, 2006 at 9:35 am

    Good photos, nice work by yahoo.

  87. Bjorn

    November 9th, 2006 at 1:21 am

    Found a new addon to Yahoo Photos - photo backup. You get an attractive CD/DVD with your hires photos. http://yahoo.backupr.com. Now it is in beta and free. I’ve got it, looks nice.

  88. Elefm

    February 8th, 2007 at 4:03 pm

    Hello world

  89. provig

    February 12th, 2007 at 5:42 am

    Why ProVIGRAX? Because that look she gives is only meant for you. Because an empty nest is the chance to fall in love all over again. erection workout

  90. Luis

    March 5th, 2007 at 9:33 am

    solo para enviar fotos

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