1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
|
As I mentioned in the reboot, Flickr sent out some emails last night to users who haven't yet switched over to a Yahoo ID encouraging them to do so. The official deadline to do so isn't until MArch 15th, but clearly Flickr would like to expedite the transition.
The change applies only to those of us who signed up with Flickr prior to the Yahoo acquisition last year. As one who falls in that group I decided the go ahead and migrate my account last night. My experience was seamless, but here's two caveats, one, my username is a made up word so there's isn't going to be a name conflict when changing to Yahoo and two, I don't have more than 3,000 contacts nor do I have any photos with more than 75 tags.
If you do end up with a different username you will have to update any outside tools that store your Flickr username or password.
Some users reported losing contacts and tags when they swtiched, but as it turns out this isn't limited to old school Flickr users. If you do have more than 3,000 contacts or have photos with more than 75 tags, you're going to lose some data in the transition, but even if you're a recent member those limits still apply to you.
Because you must be logged in to read the official Flickr announcement, I'll reprint it in its entirety:
>A pair of items for your attention:
In our ongoing efforts to Make Flickr Better<sup>TM</sup>, we're introducing two additional limits: the new maximum number of contacts is 3,000 contacts (good luck with that), and each photo on Flickr can have a maximum of 75 tags.
We love your freedom, but, in this particular case, limiting these things will actually improve the system performance, making pages load faster across the site for everyone and cut out some unwelcome spammy behaviors. Both of these new limits apply equally to free and pro account members.
If you have questions or comments about these changes, we've opened a <a href="http://www.Flickr.com/forums/help/32686/">topic in Flickr Help</a>.
On March 15th, 2007 we'll be discontinuing the old email-based Flickr sign in system. From that point on, everyone will have to use a Yahoo! ID to sign in to Flickr.
We're making this change now to simplify the sign in process in advance of several large projects launching this year, but some Flickr features and tools already require Yahoo! IDs for sign in -- like the mobile site at m.Flickr.com or the new Yahoo! Go program for mobiles, available at <a href="http://go.yahoo.com">http://go.yahoo.com</a>.
If you still sign in using the email-based Flickr system (<a href="/signin/Flickr/">here</a>), you can make the switch at any time in the next few months, from today till the 15th. (After that day, you'll be required to merge before you continue using your account.) To switch, start at this page: <a href="http://Flickr.com/account/associate/">http://Flickr.com/account/associate/</a>
This isn't the first time a company has tried to pass off an artificial limitation as a "feature," but it's the first time Flickr has and it's drawing fire from users. I sympathize with those that say, "who cares, those limits are plenty high enough," but the change is still a bad move on Flickr's part.
The logic that restrictions will make "pages load faster across the site for everyone," doesn't wash for me. If your site is having performance issues it's time to look at your code base, not penalize users. If Flickr is in fact being honest with this logic, it doesn't bode well for the future.
Obviously I don't know anything about Flickr's code base, but generally speaking if one user with 500 tags on a photo slows a system down, 500 users with one tag are also going to slow the same system down. In other words the problem is the system, not the user and passing the problem along to the user is just plain wrong.
Consider this offer: I have an incredibly fast photo sharing site on my laptop here at home, it smokes anything Flickr has got, but to get this incredibly blazing fast site and make it work for everyone, you're limited to one photo. Obviously no one would join my site, but the truth is Flickr's new restrictions differ only in terms of scale, not concept.
So perhaps the limits aren't so bad since they're fairly high, but the logic behind them doesn't make sense. Bad Flickr, no donut.
|
