A Flickr user named Garrett Ryan Smith uploaded the 3 billionth photo to the site today. The last big milestone was 2 billion photos, a year ago.
They’re well behind Facebook, with 10 billion. And they’re falling further behind – a year ago Facebook had just 4.1 billion photos.
Still, it’s a staggering number of photos for a site that launched in 2004.
what did he win for such a feat?
If you subtract drunk party pictures, Facebook doesn’t compare. Flickr was great before Yahoo started to monetize it thru subscriptions. How about going the shutterfly route?
Flickr had subscriptions WAY before Yahoo took over. Flickr has been, still is and will remain the best service for photography amateurs.
And … I agree. You can’t compare the quality of the 3 billion photos in Flickr to the stuff in Facebook.
Most of Flick photos are made with passion and love. That makes all the difference IMHO.
Flickr embraced open-ness and Web 2.0 standards…open wins. Congrats to the team who started it and to Yahoo! for scaling Flickr.
It makes no sense to compare Flickr and Facebook photos. I very much hope 99% of the Facebook photos never end up on Flickr…
Congrats to Cal & co. Most people don’t realise the amount of work and skill it takes to achieve something like this.
The reason flickr fare badly compared to facebook – is probable due the the limitation (200 photos for free) where as FB (1gb).
I like flickr but rather unwilling to invest $$ – especially when there are other free options elsewhere – Picasa, FB for example.
If flickr continue to limit upload – it will take another year to reach 4 billion milestone.
comparing Flickr and FaceBook is crazy. Flickr is a genuine Photo-centric Web 2.0 application with a real “class”. FaceBook?? Are you kidding??? 90% of the pics are of people who just want to get laid.
http://www.livbit.com
oh c’mon, flickr is so far the best destination i know on the web for photo sharing and storing, not its not perfect and there are many things i would like to have on flickr, not only the limitations but also functionality, ease of browsing, etc.
but the Facebook, facebook’s photos app is shittiest app ever. its not like facebook, its so limited, its so like a prison, i hate facebook photos.
the only reason it has more photos is because of its larger user base, and because of its sharing feature. people upload photos only because they know their friends will see them and will comment or tag.
While Flickr does have amazing pictures and a thriving community, don’t forget that there is a large amount of porn on Flickr.
Funny thing is the user Garrett Ryan Smith is brand new. At least he’d never posted photos before today. If I was a consipiracy theorist I’d be going nuts with this.
Saying that Flickr photos are “falling behind” Facebook’s is a bit like saying TC comments are “falling behind ” YouTube’s.
Good comment! Mike will have to grab some sleep!
@Jonathan
*Applause*
congrats to flickr! I uploaded over 100 photos today… too bad I didn’t win the 3 billionth contest, lol Also its intersting how photo sites cater to different types of photos: casual snapshots Vs. high quality photos Vs. mobile photos etc. Each has its own niche I suppose.
Sounds like facebook needs to get rid of some of those pics. That will save them some server space, less burn, and get that much closer to profits. I’d rather have your problem of going from 1 million subscribers to 1.25 in 3 short months.
Well, the purpose of photo on flickr and facebook is a bit different. For flickr, you can upload a single jpg for like 6MB (consider having 15M pixel camera), they will save the original file. Facebook will shrink the file for you, and store as a acceptable quality file.
For family, friend, mobile picture, party picture, facebook is good enough, and the photo function to connect to your friends are great. But if you need serious photograph with quality, flickr is a better place for that.
I think 3 billion flickr photo might take bigger storage size than facebook 10 billion photo.
Hmmm… if u add the fact that for ALL photos on Flickr several sizes as individual jpg files are generated, I guess you have to multiply the 3 billion by 4, making it 12 billion
Number doesn’t matter, flickr still my number 1 choice for online photo sharing and management.
The most important thing is you can get what picture you want on these website.
But this is just my personal opinion.
I use photobucket~~
@Ray
Right, two different functions: Facebook attracts photos thanks to privacy: you can show poor quality photos but to a selected group of people, whereas Flickr lets you broadcast worlwide high quality photos but without granular privacy options.
Flickr – the visual version of a gang bang at best. 3 billion. 10 billion. Who cares? There’s a world of difference between quantity & quality.
As for the “passion & love” comment, all I can say is, P-L-E-A-S-E! Give me a break.