When I heard that Flickr was making announcements this evening, I assumed it was the long awaited integration of video into the service. That isn’t happening (it will soon, though), but they are making significant upgrades soon around geotagging and a new area of the site will launch called “Places Pages.”
GeoTagging Updates
Flickr first launched geotagging for photos a year ago - to date 29 million public photos have been geotagged, with 150,000 new ones coming in each day. They aren’t making any changes to the way photos are geotagged (using Yahoo maps), but they are updating the results pages for searches.
The existing pages don’t show large numbers of geotagged photos effectively; the new pages will do a better job by placing actual tags from photos on a world map. Users can quickly find photos based on tags and geotagged information. Enhancements to navigation are also being introduced.
Overall, the enhancements are good, but the real win here comes when devices auto tag photos via GPS devices. Until then, most users can’t be bothered with taking the time to add the appropriate meta data.
Flickr is giving a preview of the new features at Web 2.0 and will launch them in a few weeks.
Places Pages
Now this is more interesting. Flickr is announcing “Places Pages,” which are dedicated pages that provide users with specific information about places. We’ve uploaded an overview PDF to Scribd, here.
Pages will be built around the Flickr concept of “interestingness,” but based on places and tags. So China/bicycle shows popular photos of bicycles taken in China. Paris/architecture is another example. Any of 70,000 places can be viewed, optionally followed by any tag. Flickr is also adding in additional information on the place, such as weather and local time, as well as relevant Flickr groups.
The product will get better over time, too. Eventually users will be able to adjust pages by time or season, so pictures from New York in the Fall can be viewed, for example. Or pictures from a specific event that happened in a city.
Flickr now has over 1 billion photos and 37.7 million unique monthly visitors. 2.5 million news photos are uploaded daily by 15 million registered users. I wonder if founders Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield ever wish they hadn’t sold out to Yahoo so quickly, for just a rumored $30 million or so in 2005…
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Yahoo! Research Berkeley has has a live demo for almost a year.
http://tagmaps.research.yahoo......plorer.php
I wonder if they have plans to monetise this section…e.g.
“Buy Prints now!”
“Buy Tickets Now!”
“Book This Hotel Now!”
Well whatever the case, looks like another beautifully-designed set of features for Flickr. The map page looks great.
Flickr is one of the most beautifully designed websites I have ever seen. It’s simple, elegant and easy to use, with great features. The purpose of the service is great and with integration of video upload, flickr will be too good!
$30 million…!! way..way to less!!
Probably one of -if not- the best thing going for Yahoo!.
I love flickr so much, it gives me hope for world peace. haha thats the metaphor i get from the site.
it’s just amazingly clean, friendly and addictive. it gives me hope for alot of things!
Just to second the sentiment, we talk about how certain companies with crazy amounts of investment aren’t worth the money etc or we snort with jealousy every time a “company” started by some teenage kid and dreamweaver gets bought out for $XX million, but in Flickr’s case I really see the value. They have a great high-quality product, millions of loyal fans, and a ton of excellent content.
$30 million was certainly a very economical price tag.
Wow I love my $25 unlimited Flickr account.
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$30M buyout? That’s just pityful … this thing is just too amazing!
@6: What’s pitiful is your spelling.
Interface has a lot to do with it, but often times it’s the data (and the quality of the data) that one has to work with that makes it awesome. Flickr users uploading, tagging, commenting and interacting is what makes it. There’s real, passionate, effective community on Flickr.
Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield should’ve keep Flickr. It’s totally sell out.
I remember Google brought dodgeball. Dodgeball founder quits. They should’ve keep the company.
Youtube founder they should’ve keep the company. Google stock jump 600 a share.
I like Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, He refuse to sell it… I think Web 2.0 entrepenurer should do the same. Stop selling yourself!!!
ADVICE FOR STARTUPS:
STOP SELLING YOUR GOOD COMPANY. KEEP YOUR DAMN COMPANY ALIVE. WE DON’T CARE IF YOU MAKE LESS MONEY!!! BIG COMPANIES MAKE LOT MONEY FROM STOCK OWNERSHIP. STOP SELLING YOURSELF LIKE FLICKR. FLICKR APPLICATION LOOKS COOL. THEY CAN’T GET IT BACK!!!
KEEP YOUR WEB 2.0 STARTUPS DOORS CLOSE…
NO MORE GOOGLE, YAHOO, MICROSOFT ACQUISTIONS…
KEEP THE CONTRACTS OUT.
Techcrunch profiled greesy for cross site chat earlier.Stumbled across a stress reliever site using the same! http://www.trystruth.com/ Would this trigger interactive stress relieving sites?
Imagine millions of pictures a day being uploaded with included geotag information, and then being taken by a program like Photosynth and being turned into a constantly updated massive 3d model. One step better, you can travel back in time and look at popular buildings or places in 3d six weeks ago or 6 hours ago.
August you’re a fool. Flickr founders were quoted as saying that when the acquisition was happening Flickr was struggling to break even, they needed the money to keep their heads above water. Try turning down $30 million the next time someone offers it to you. Better yet, turn it down and tell them that you’re holding out for $100 million within a year or so, see what they say.
Startup founders can sell their companies for whatever they want; something is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. Yahoo! was willing to pay $30 million and who are you to say that “it was far too low” or “they should have held out” when you have the benefit of over two years of 20/20 hindsight.
When opportunity knocks you don’t stick your middle finger up, you answer the door. Jason Calacanis learned this lesson when he turned down a buyout for his company before he launched Weblogs, Inc., if it’s a reasonable offer and you’re happy then take the win and do something else with your time.
Yahoo! Mail has free unlimited storage, Flickr doesn’t at this time.
It would be really neat to have those be congruent.
On a side note, I love how Flickr is able to put out an announcement only to announce that they will have an announcement later today. Fascinating.
Cute!
Use terraserver PictPicker - better!
ttp://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
I love Flickr, but man has Yahoo! throttled back the development.
@David: Flickr does have unlimited storage for a Pro user.
I really, really hope you’re wrong about the video.
This looks like a great new feature though.
Flickr is all time my favorite, it will be big plus to get the feature of video into the service.
Awesome!!! I was wondering why Flickr hadn’t bothered to capitalize on the massive resource all the pics represent. Now they’ve done it. This represents imminent genocide for a whole generation of existing travel sites.
Enough with the maps and gadgets, when will video be ready? And what will be the drawbacks? (Resolution, maximum size, etc.)