Flickr bought by Smugmug

[BrentC]

Flickr has been bought by Smugmug. On May 28th all your content will be transferred to Smugmug. If you don't want your content transferred you need to download all your photos and delete your flickr account before May 28th.

I have never used or seen Smugmug. Has anybody any experience with it?

This sucks big time but I guess it was inevitable. I just wish whoever bought it would just keep Flickr running but improve it.

So whats your experience with Smugmug?

 

[smoke665]

Probably to early to say for sure what Flickr will be after the merger, but I found this statement from Smugmug's CEO in USA Today promising "SmugMug, an independent, family-run company, will maintain Flickr as a standalone community of amateur and professional photographers and give the long neglected service the focus and resources it deserves"

 

[ZombiesniperJr]

From what i've heard flickr is staying. just being run by smugmug.

 

[Gary A.]

I’ve been using Smugmug for more than a decade. Smugmug has always been a solid platform to display and sell your photos. If there is any concerns, Smugmug actually and humanly answers the phone.

 

[BrentC]

From what i've heard flickr is staying. just being run by smugmug.

Yeah, I think I read their email wrong and thought content was being moved to their platform. But looks like they will keep the Flickr name and platform.

 

[pixmedic]

Loved Smugmug pro when we used it. I imagine Flickr will be better for the merger

Sent from my LG-H872 using Tapatalk

 

[rexbobcat]

I wonder if they're hoping to get more Smugmug users by integrating Flickr with the Smugmug platform. EG: Being able to create albums on Smugmug from photos in your Flickr.

 

[Jeff15]

It's probably a case of wait and see in this case..........

 

[Overread]

This is great news!
Nice to see flickr getting some photography focused owners who should be able to give it a new lease of life! It's been languishing in a kind of odd limbo where its worked well for ages but hasn't really gained anything (besides a connection killing rolling photo display as default).

I'd expect to see them provide some form of integration service in time with smugmug as that would help them boost their smugmug users without any effort from the user.

 

[SquarePeg]

From what i've heard flickr is staying. just being run by smugmug.

Yeah, I think I read their email wrong and thought content was being moved to their platform. But looks like they will keep the Flickr name and platform.

I read it the same only it’s the 25th not 28th.

“If you do not delete your account by May 25, 2018, your Flickr account and data will transfer to SmugMug and will be governed by SmugMug’s Terms and Privacy Policy.”

I believe smugmug charges to host? I wonder if free Flickr will soon be gone.

 

[Overread]

FAQ
Together, SmugMug + Flickr | Frequently Asked Questions

Basically your photos will migrate onto Smugmug servers, but flickr and smugmug will remain operating as totally separate entities. Flickr will remain free to use; the migration and TC is basically the legal and technical side of things, but it shouldn't have any effect on the user of flickr in the short term.

Smugmug comes with fees, but then again its also designed to be a shop-front system so that users can generate income from it. Flickr however is totally different and under its TC you're not even supposed to host any photos which are then displayed on retail websites (you can, of course, sell those photos so long as any display on a sale site isn't hosted on flickr's servers)

 

[astroNikon]

Until they decide to change all that ....
normally during mergers/acquisition the bosses always says nothing will change and things will stay the norm (this to prevent talent flight). They never say what they are going to do 6 minutes later.

 

[KmH]

Yep.
It seems the writing is on the wall - free online image storage is going away because even with advertising income it's not economically feasible to do online storage for free.

There is not much point storing images online if it isn't EZ to share those stored images elsewhere on the Internet.
I wonder what % of world wide server storage space is being used to store all the trillions of digital images that have been uploaded to the Internet over the years.

 

[Overread]

Honestly so long as SmugMug approaches it with a sane viewpoint it should work. Photobucket was kind of nuts with their policy (esp considering that their service had dropped down to the point where it was more like using spamwear than anything else).

Lets not forget that when Flickr was last sold the new owners actually made it more economical to use for free rather than paying. I'd also wager tht the nature of flickr means that even if a nominal annual charge were brought in there's a greater chance of it being accepted instead of rejected.

Give users some decent stat tracking; a few other perks and features and put a cost on that's in line with other online host providers. Sure some will jump ship but done right they shouldn't. It's only when you've got a bad service already and then go "Ok we want £300 a year for hosting your photos" that you get backlash.

 

[smoke665]

Maybe I'm not using Flickr the right way. I don't really store anything of value online anywhere. I upload low resolution copies of things I want to share on Flickr. If it goes away then so will my images that I've linked to other sites, but in the big scheme of things that might not be so bad either. Kind of a forced purge.