A few hours ago, Yahoo EVP and product Chief Blake Irving sent out a tweet on his Twitter account likely in response to recent questions about Yahoo’s commitment to Flickr. The tweet seems to be a ringing endorsement, at least from Irving, that Yahoo Management *does* in fact value what they have in Flickr.
“Q. Is Yahoo! committed to Flickr? A. Hell yes we are! We love this product and team; on strategy and profitable.” wrote Irving.
It’s nice to finally see someone from the senior Yahoo ranks actually come out and utter the word Flickr. For a while there I was starting to wonder if they even knew they owned it. Flickr has been conspicuously absent from Yahoo analyst earnings calls and other PR opportunities by Yahoo Management and was starting to feel like some sort of neglected orphan. Layoffs at Flickr last month were at about 8% (about twice the overall 4% Yahoo rate that most press cited). Irving’s statement today at least shows that Yahoo gets that it’s important to show Flickr a little love from time to time.
Now, next, how the hell do we get Irving and his boss Carol Bartz to actually sign up for Flickr and open accounts of their own? You know you’re just chomping at the bit to see the latest snapshots from these two Yahoos.
Thanks Danny for tweeting the Search Engine Land Article!
Update: More from ReadWriteWeb here.
Update #2: Apparently Blake Irving actually does have a flickr account. It doesn’t look like he’s updated it though since August of last year. You’d think his assistant could be more on top of that for him. From the two photos of him that are tagged on Flickr, it looks like he actually visited Flickr HQ July of last year once.
But are they committed to their users and the community? Or just profitability?
Remember, this is the company that shuttered the worlds most popular photo sharing site. While it was the worlds most popular photo sharing site.
Good luck…
My personal opinion (and nothing but opinion), Yahoo is getting flickr ready to be sold off.
– Reduce the staff to lower operating cost (more attractive)
– Practially pretend it doesn’t exist in your own numbers
– It really doesn’t fit in the Yahoo family
– More money in Yahoo’s pocket wouldn’t hurt them
– No plans announced to improve/enhance the line
Aside from a recent UI update nothing has been changed or announced as upcoming changes. If I had to guess I would think Adobe would be a likely suitor. But again, just opinion
This tweet means nothing to me. Actions speak louder than words, as the saying goes.
I also believe they’re readying Flickr for a sale. I’ve mentioned before that my guess would be Microsoft. Maybe, maybe not, but it makes sense to me. All anyone can do is guess anyway.
You’d expect someone to make a positive statement. Look what happened to Delicious the moment the ‘sunset’ document was leaked. There’s been no sunset announcement for Flickr (and nor would I expect there to be) but a failure to say something good would probably see some loss of custom. Which doesn’t help a sale price.
Committed? Let’s show us! Listen to the community concerns rather that ignoring or filtering them. Act on those concerns positively rather than hitting the ban button. Your community is more than just a money making opportunity.
Never, ever, ban fee paying customers without some sort of process. It’s a really shitty way to treat the people that pay your wages.
When they stop deleting accounts without reason, or with flimsy reasons as they did to me, that might show some commitment. Right now it’s a reign of terror. If anyone doesn’t like your work, the account is history. It also might be that accounts that use too much bandwidth are being dumped to improve the bottom line.