Flickr’s future uncertain as Verizon seem set to buy Yahoo for $5 billion
Jul 25, 2016
John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
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It’s not new information that Yahoo has been struggling. It may have been one of the Internet’s original giants, but they just can’t keep up and compete today. Google dominates the search market, Messenger usurped by Facebook, no real mobile platform, and no solid leadership. It’s not looking good.
About the only things Yahoo have left that are really all that useful to the general Internet population are Flickr and Tumblr. Now, Recode reports that Verizon are about to take up the reins in a $5 billion acquisition of Yahoo.
Despite being wildly popular, both Tumblr and Flickr have huge audience but don’t make Yahoo a whole lot of money (relatively speaking). Business Insider estimates that Flickr brings in around $50 million a year. Last year, it was estimated that Tumblr would be bringomg in around $100 million in 2015. A sizeable increase over Flickr, but a mere fraction of the $1.1 billion Yahoo paid to acquire it.
Given Yahoo’s admission that Tumblr was pretty much an expensive mistake, it faces an uncertain future with Verizon’s acquisition. Maybe Verizon have big plans for it, but maybe not. Verizon isn’t one to keep hold of something that won’t make a profit.
Flickr has already faced stiff competition from sites like 500px. It has a much cleaner UI, better mobile app, easier ways for users to make profit, and is much more pleasant browser experience overall. Photographers started making the move years ago, and it continues to happen today.
With Flickr’s dwindling popularity and lack of serious income, it also faces a very precarious future.
Hopefully, Verizon have big plans for both Tumblr and Flickr, and they’ll see greatness again in the future. But I’d still suggest that if any of you have any valuable content on those sites, go and download it now before it becomes too late.
Is this going be good for Yahoo’s services? Can Flickr and Tumblr get the breath of life they so desparately need? Will it be enough to save them? Or do you think they’ll cut them loose? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
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10 responses to “Flickr’s future uncertain as Verizon seem set to buy Yahoo for $5 billion”
If Verizon can’t find a way to monetize the Flickr collection from a stock photography standpoint Flickr is doomed. No one loiters at Flickr any more. It has only become fancy cloud storage for photos, one that is clunky, slow, cumbersome, and glitchy at times. The obituary for Flickr should have been written a year or more ago when Hernandez left the company. Verizon CEO McAdam and AOL CEO Armstrong (who will likely be given the keys and asked to sort the mess out) won’t waste time. I fear the end is nigh.
That would be too bad. From an amateur standpoint, it’s my favored site to share, store and appreciate. And 1 terabyte free.
It’s very hard to know what Verizon will do with either property, but an acquisition of this size takes months to even close, followed by months of determining which properties to invest in. The message of “download now” seems pretty apocalyptic for the day it was announced.
I’ve never understood why Yahoo didn’t spin out flickr on its own. In many ways with its legacy base of users, a really good mobile app experience (along with a full featured website), flickr could have been a legitimate competitor to Instagram. Perhaps if it had been marketed as a “social” app rather than a pure photography app it might have found a second life and gained some momentum. Facebook’s stewardship of Instagram has taken that app more in the direction of what flickr already is, it is just too bad to see such a good site dwindle to obsolescence.
Make Yahoo great again
All this Flicker hate. I’m doing better on flicker now than ever, and enjoy the groups and people I have met there. It is still a vibrant community, those who say otherwise aren’t trying.
Not being given professional and just needing to store (after losing a few thousand pics) as well as share and appreciate others, I found Flickr ideal and easy. And 1 terabyte free storage.
I find it easy, casual, relaxed and still vibrant.
I prefer flickr to 500px, though I lament how far flickr has fallen from the early days when it worked smoothly and the communities were more active. Even so, I see a lot more variety and artistry on flickr than I do on 500px. I hope that somehow it pull through all of this morass that started the moment Yahoo bought it.
All we hope is, the acquisition doesn’t change the overall functionality of the site. It is the best as the way it is.
I hope they save both Flickr and Tumblr, they are valuable tools that a lot of people have spent a lot of time and effort working on, it would be a shame and waste to just shut them down.