The new Flickr home page that you see everytime you log into your Flickr account has seen some major changes, most of which I like. The new layout is very clean, and pretty nice looking overall, but I did notice when I get a lot of favourites, comments, or any other activity on my photos, it creates a very long list of stuff on the homepage, which makes it look very cluttered, which isn't so great. The rest of the homepage actually looks pretty decent, such as the way recent photos from whoever you follow on Flickr appear. So, they've done a decent job on the homepage. But some of the other pages aren't the same story.
When you go to search for photos, the options for where you want to search, such as your photostream, or just everything are no longer out in plain sight, instead they are hidden under the advanced search section, which is a little stupid since its a pain to get to when you go to search for something. I think the way they had it before made much more sense, it was there if you needed it, and if you didn't, it wasn't that intrusive. But now, the simple search feature that I liked is now hidden, sure it makes for a simple look, but its a pain when you do need it. Sometimes I need to search through my own photos, and currently I have over 1000, so just looking through of all of them is just a painful waste of time, so I'll just search for the photo I'm looking for, and its there. Its easy to do so when the option to change the search range is right up front, not hidden behind a few buttons. This is an example of where the old Flickr was actually better than what they have now. I've also found that the new Flickr search looks a lot like Pinterest to some degree. If this is really the case, and not just me, then maybe Yahoo needs to think outside of the box, but it doesn't look too bad. Its just the functionality aspect of things that isn't that great.
The photostream isn't the best, but at it did add something kind of cool to photostream, and thats the ability to add cover photos to it now. I think that's kind of cool, but it almost seems like they're trying to go for a social network look, like Facebook or Google Plus. Flickr is a social network, but not in the way that Facebook is a social network, and most certainly not in the way that Google Plus is a social network. Another issue with the photostream, which is also apparent in the search is almost never ending scrolling. In the photostream, it eventually ends and gives you the usual options to go to the next page, but the search option doesn't seem to do that, which seems a little odd if you ask me, but the majority of the new Flickr seems odd to me. It looks really good, but it still lacks that functionality portion that I'd much rather have. Sure, we all like things that look good, but I really enjoy things that work well.
Oh, and when you go to view photos, that layout has changed a fair bit as well, its nice, but the old look was more functional, and I'm a huge fan of functionality.
Another thing I noticed, is during the first few days of the change, the site was experiencing a lot of issues, it just wasn't working properly. This issue was probably related to the transition from the old look to the new, since it hasn't occurred again, to my knowledge.
Overall, the look of the new Flickr is great, but it seems to really lack on the functionality, which isn't so great, and really makes the service looks and feel like total crap. When you do a simple search for "new Flickr"on Flickr, you're bombarded with a bunch of photos that really all tell the same story, a lot of people hate the new Flickr. Twitter tells a similar story, with tweets like the one below.
Putting the new @flickr through its paces. Kind of slow, but it looks really nice.This tweet says pretty much what I've been saying. "kind of slow..." really impacts functionality in my opinion. The looks really nice part I do agree with, but I think Yahoo needs to do more under the hood work now.
— Theo Markou (@mediacapitalist) May 30, 2013
On Flickr's Facebook page, on one comment thread, the following was said by a user:
"Just liked your face book page to feed back how absolutely awful the new flickr I can not tell you how much I hate it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
That comment alone says a fair bit, but the 569 likes on this comment, and 108 replies tell a story, a lot of people agree with this statement, with replies like "It's dreadful . Change it back .." and "because it's slow, fussy, devalues comments, is in your face, is a scrolling nightmare on a real computer and has turned a professional and efficient application into a silly plastic toy! - enough words for you?" this reply seemed to be in response to another reply made by another user, which said "Use your words people, what don't you like?" People are not pleased with this look at all.
Here's another Flickr user who isn't impressed, and said this in the same comment thread "It's SUCH a shame. I've been a pro account member since 2006. Loved the community (you guys) and now it feels like I have to jump ship and lose the time investment of the last 7 years - both in terms of metadata, stats, location data, but also commitment to their online software, and the forums / social side of flickr. I've praised them. Now, it feels like a stab in the back (the security of my images are compromised - b/c hi-res shots showing, the new pricing is ridiculous, the ad feature is obnoxious, the UI/UX makes no sense and it loses branding/descriptions). Sigh. I'm really disappointed in this," does this not say something yet? A large amount of people hate this new look, and granted, some really like it, but a lot of people, including myself fall in the category of people that hate the new Flickr. This comment also leads me into my next point, Pro accounts, or the lack of.
Ah, Pro Flickr accounts, the 25 dollar a year service that gets you access to stats, unlimited uploads and more is no more. Oh, how great. No warning, no nothing, just here you go, thats the end of pro accounts here at Flickr. I'm lucky I still have a pro account, since existing pro users can continue to renew their accounts if they wish, which is a nice move, but I'd much rather see Flickr continue to offer the Pro service. The Pro service gave users a fair bit of useful stuff that I really do enjoy, and that's why I'm not switching back to free, I spent 25 dollars, I better get my money's worth, and maybe renew next year, that is if I even want to continue using Flickr at that point in time. 500px is looking very compelling... Pro accounts really weren't that expensive, and are priced competitively with services like 500px, which offers a pro account at about the same price. So, if you're a current pro user, yay, your pro subscription isn't going away. If you wanted to go pro, well that's not an option for you, sorry, Flickr says no. So, what replaces the old 25 dollar pro accounts? A doublr plan, which doubles the free terabyte you get. Sounds pretty cool right, well there's a catch...its $499.99 to purchase You could buy an iPad with that kind of money, or a cheap laptop or something. This is not even close to being affordable at all. To be quite honest, this is just stupid pricing, what do they want to do? Drive their pro users away in droves? Sure, its for pro users, but not every pro just has an extra 500 dollars to spend on Flickr. They claim pro subscriptions weren't that popular, but a 1900% price increase makes that much more sense? Gee, its 25 dollars right now, lets just jack the price up 1900%, and people will come in droves and buy our Doublr service, right? Yeah, no Flickr, not going to happen unless you have a lot of money to waste.
Yahoo! has made some odd decisions here. The current CEO may not direct the company in the right direction, and instead sink a ship that's already been sinking for a few years. Flickr was one of the good Yahoo services, and eventually I'll get used to the new look, and the changes, but they just seem a little out there to me. This company needs to listen to its users, especially its pro users, who have paid for a certain level of service, these people do not want crap shoved in their face, I know I most certainly don't. Yahoo needs to decide what Flickr is, and from what the users have said, its not Facebook. We, the users have spoken, but the question is, will Yahoo listen?
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