Hello new Flickr, goodbye social

To say that it was a shock to find Flickr had released a massive revamp of their site is something of an understatement. Ever since Yahoo took over the reigns the site has received minimal attention leading many to believe that it wouldn’t be long before they gave up altogether. Every time Yahoo announced another set of web properties that they were discontinuing users breathed a sigh of relief to see that Flickr wasn’t on the list … yet. Now those days may be over. Love them or hate them it is clear that Yahoo have invested a lot of time and thought into the changes that they released earlier this week.

The thing that strikes me as really odd about the changes though is what they seem to be doing their best to hide, the social aspect of the site. Flickr was possibly the first social photo sharing service. Many other sites have always existed that allow you to put your photos online and show off your portfolio. Flickr though was always aimed at also making connections and discussing each others photos. You have contacts, comments, favourites not to mention information about where and how each photo was taken right alongside each shot. It seems remarkable that in this time when everyone seems to be trying to build social sites that Yahoo have decided that the social aspect is less important. When you look at a photo’s page now you see a giant version of the photo. All of the information about the photo and comments people have left are hidden below the fold. The front page suffers equally. Where before I would see a list of recent comments on my photos and thumbnails of what my contacts have uploaded recently my current page shows me one and a half pictures from my contacts.

Yahoo seem to have decided that the photo is all that is really important. I disagree, the photo is of course very important but the information about the photo and how people react to it is very important too, far too important to hide.