flickr considered harmful
I started using the photo sharing service Flickr last November as the request of my sweetheart; I started really maximizing my use of the site as I enjoyed its social networking features, and at the urging of my host Laughing Squid to integrate my photoblogging and regular blogging.
Context & Ripple Effects
By mid-2007 Violet Blue had moved deep into Flickr's orbit: she joined in November 2006 at her partner's request, leaned hard on its social networking features, set up automated uploads from her pictures folder in May, and folded photoblogging into her main blog at hosting provider Laughing Squid's urging. Yahoo's property was actively courting exactly this kind of embedded use — a Maker Faire booth scanning polaroids straight to the service, site localization across Asia, and a planned Chinese-language version aimed at Hong Kong.
First-order effects
- Blue's readers see a prominent user publicly break with a platform she had woven into her publishing workflow, and Digital Download's syndication sharpens the frame to 'Flickr Censors Violet Blue.'
- Flickr takes a credibility hit inside the very blogging community its integration push — Laughing Squid-recommended setups, Maker Faire demos — was designed to win over.
Second-order effects
- Integration partners like Laughing Squid face pressure to justify steering customers onto a single hosted photo service whose moderation calls they neither make nor control.
- Photobloggers weighing hosted services against self-hosting gain a fresh cautionary data point on platform dependence, handing Flickr's competitors a differentiation argument built on user control.
Third-order effects
- If governance disputes keep converting embedded power users into public critics, photo platforms will have to treat moderation decisions as product-facing events with community fallout rather than back-office enforcement calls.
- The episode feeds a broader rebalancing between bloggers and the centralized services they build on — with an unconfirmed April rumor that Flickr's owners declined AOL acquisition money suggesting the company felt little pressure to bend.
The trend: Centralized media platforms' content-governance decisions are becoming flashpoints with the exact power users their growth strategies depend on embedding them deeper into independent publishing.