Flickr is dead. Long live Facebook

It is quite amazing how everything that the Yahoo boys try to do ends up dead in the water, eventually. Even if they make a truckload of money while at it.
Point in fact: strategically speaking, it should have been them who bought up Instagram, not Facebook.
However, with Yahoo just scuttling 2.000 jobs to save about one third of what FB spent on the company, clearly they were not in a strategic position nor had the balls to make such a move, even if it would have strengthened their position considerably.

Anyway.

When Flickr started out, it was kinda cool.
Then, it ended up contributing to the killing off of my favorite photo-sharing websites, like Web Aperture and Harphampix. Even so, the latter happened not because of Flickr, but mostly because it was bound to happen.
The people who ran these sites were volunteers who got tired of the effort, the negative economics, the nagging, infighting and everything else that makes humans interrelate on the Web the way they do.

The people who used to “live” on these sites never quite found what they were used to, afterwards, but wrote it up as just another sacrifice to tech.
Flickr unfortunately never quite understood the social role it had gobbled up and, therefore, never changed its business model - nor its interface, for that matter...

Which are still pretty much the same as when I joined in 2006. On the net that's a LIFETIME ago; more years than the afore mentioned websites thrived or even survived. Or, in other words: 6 (six!) years without any noticeable innovation...
Flickr still limits a “Free Account” to displaying only the 200 most recent pictures and do not allow more than 3 uploads a day. Which was once “normal” but today just simply does not cut it for someone who wants to share large amounts of images – like from a trip or a family event – for example.

Facebook, on the other hand, adapted. Server space cost is now marginal, right?
I have 8 albums there, to which I can upload whatever amount of images I want. They now integrate uploads on my lifeline and people do not have to comment.
Just receiving a “Like” is already more than expected, and plenty for the average pic I post up there, anyway.

Meanwhile, the historically most active Nikon group on Flickr I have the pleasure to participate in – the D90 group – has seen a steady decline in comments, postings and quality, recently.
Yes, you could argue that many members have upgraded their camera and moved elsewhere, however, my take on it is that Flickr itself is in decline, because the drops in the D90 group are not made up for by the growth of the D7000, D5100 and D700 groups combined.

Add to that the sometimes outrageously annoying and presumptuous admins who reside over some of the more popular “post one, comment five” groups.
They will tell you that you must do 1/5, or else... Even if there is absolutely nothing even remotely worth commenting on, they will still prune you.
Now, if we could just give some pics a “Like” it would be more easy to participate, but expecting us to post a comment on each and every five badly lit, me-too macro pics of whatever, is just a little bit too much to ask, or not?
Anyway. That’s FB territory...
I've seen some really talented photogs getting pruned for the silliest of reasons, so, you can imagine what will happen. A powerful mix of WTF?? and who are you to judge my work, anyway?

Images holding steady at 5 views and 1 comment for close to two months was unthinkable, until only very recently. Yet, the very same happened before at my previous favorite photo sharing sites and: guess what?
They’re all goners.
Coincidence? I think not.
The writing's on the wall: the King is dead, long live the King.

See also: All the Nikon cameras used in the Flickr community ('nuf said).