Flickr

Flickr (from English to flick through something, " something BROWSE ", eg " apparatus for browsing " or "By Blätterer " or from English to flicker, " flicker " ) is a commercial web - service portal with community elements, makes it users allows to load, digital and digitized images and short videos of three minutes' duration with comments and notes on the website and so to make available to other users ( " share "). In addition to the conventional Upload via the website, the images can also be transmitted by e -mail or from the mobile phone and linked later by other web presences from.

History

Flickr was developed by the Ludicorp Research & Development Ltd.. developed a 2002 founded company in Canada with offices in Vancouver. Originally uploading images was only one aspect of the online game Game Neverending, Caterina Fake and her husband Stewart Butterfield had programmed. This component was, however, particularly among users, which led to the fact that the work was stopped on the online game, and Flickr was created in its present form. In March 2005, Flickr and Ludicorp of Yahoo were purchased.

Flickr has indicated that around 5000 uploads per minute and nearly 77 million unique users. According to the Alexa search engine Flickr is among the 50 most frequented sites on the Internet.

Since June 12, 2007 Flickr is available in different languages ​​(also in German ).

On 12 November 2007 the two billionth photo on Flickr uploaded. Nearly a year later, on November 3, 2008, which dreimilliardste photo was put online. Since August 2011, more than 6 billion photos are on the platform. In December 2012, there were already 8 billion photos. On February 10, 2012 Flickr celebrated his eighth birthday.

In May 2013 Flickr announced an expansion of the free space of each user to one terabyte. Furthermore, since images can be uploaded at maximum resolution and video at up to three minutes in length in high definition. In addition to the new features, the design of the service has been redesigned.

Functions

Flickr offers the option of photos into categories ( also tags called ) to sort, to be incorporated into so-called pools, to search for key words to look at so-called photostream (user profiles in the form of small " photo blog" ) other users and comment images with image excerpts.

In addition, there are a variety of RSS feeds available that will simplify the presentation of images on any websites or finding new images on a specific subject.

Flickr offers a special search function to find public domain images and images with Creative Commons licenses, which allow the user to further processing.

The level of development of the underlying software was changed on May 16, 2006 by a beta on a gamma version. On 12 June 2007 a ​​further localization in German and six other languages ​​was announced. In February 2012, Flickr began with a redesign of its pages; the targets were easier navigation, less white space in the layout, enhanced social features and a better exchange of Flickr community together.

Cooperations

In November 2009 Flickr entered into cooperation with the photo - printing service Snapfish by HP. Thus, users have the option to order prints or to design products such as photo books, calendars and greeting cards.

In cooperation with Getty Images Flickr members can license their images commercially. About the photos in question decide the picture editors of Getty Images in the first step. In addition, Getty Images hosts the Flickr group " Getty Images Call for Artists", whose members may submit a portfolio of 25 images per month to put her forward for an invitation to the Flickr Collection.

For online editing of photos uploaded Flickr has integrated an image processing software ( " Editor") of Aviary.

Visibility

The user can post visible to everyone or so upload that only they can access the images on the pictures. Permission for viewing can be limited even to a group of other Flickr users. In 2005, 82 % of users set their photos available to anyone. The images can be provided with one of the six Creative Commons licenses.

Access restrictions (until 2013)

For users who have registered for free, were to 2013 include the following restrictions:

• High load volume of 300 MB per month
• Maximum photo size of 30 MB
• Be displayed to the public in the photostream only the 200 latest photos
• There is no access to the original file, but on smaller images ( custom size )
• Maximum of 2 videos per month with a size of 150 MB
• Flickr reserves the option the right to delete access points that have been inactive for more than 90 days,
• Images can be entered in up to ten groups of photos simultaneously

With the commercially available so-called Pro account these restrictions fell away, and it was:

• Maximum file size for photos: 50 MB
• Maximum file size of videos: 500 MB
• Original images in full resolution
• An unlimited number of videos in HD quality

Access Restrictions ( as of 2013 )

This concept was until May 2013 and was then replaced by the following:

• Each user receives 1 TB of storage.
• A photo must be 200 MB in size and have arbitrary dimensions.
• A video resolution up to 1080p may have to be 1 GB in size and last for three minutes.
• There is no ( official ) bandwidth throttling ( megabytes per month, etc. for new files ).
• The "Pro " account can not be re- booked, but is retained for existing accounts.
• For a fee, the advertising be shut (engl.: "ad free " )
• Against payment of the additional space can be doubled to 2 TB ( " doublr ", jokingly for English double " double " "double" or ).

The new conditions occurred on 20 May 2013. At the same time the appearance of the web pages has been fundamentally changed, which also met with criticism. Then there were technical difficulties, either with the full-screen view on certain browsers.

Tags and Categories

The ability to categorize each image free to adding a description and to allow comment by others, supports the user in the rapid assembly of metadata.

With the help of search engines, which can analyze this data specifically, we obtain a more organized Web, classified and evaluated jointly by many. In English, this phenomenon is called folksonomy, fits in best German the term " collaborative classification of information retrieval ".

Flickr provides a search by categories. So you can look at, for example, the latest pictures, links and blog articles on any search term.

The " People in Photos" also makes it possible - if the users allow it in their settings - to mutually mark to photos and labeled.

Interaction and interfaces

Flickr uses Ajax to build the web pages dynamically; for slide shows and other applications generated by open source software Flash is still used. The external connection of various applications such as blogs, Flickr supports open interfaces. IPTC comments and keywords of the image data is automatically transferred as "tags" and description. Flickr users pages and categories can be subscribed to via RSS and Atom. GPS data contained in the photo data is automatically read from Flickr or can be subsequently added as a " machine tags" by the user. The recording positions of the photos will be shown on maps around the world.

Flickr is in this context consistently on the use of open standards, so many advancements and uses Flickr images or metadata only arise if the necessary data are available in open, well-documented interfaces.

Criticism

On 12 June 2007 Flickr has been updated. Since that day, some countries ( Germany, Romania, Hong Kong, Singapore, and South Korea Maktoob.com ) are limited in the search. Decisive for this is the Yahoo ID.

" If you use a Yahoo! ID from Singapore, Hong Kong, India, Korea or Maktoob.com, you only secure content in accordance with the rules applicable to your country of service will be displayed. So you can not turn off the safe search. If you have a Yahoo! ID from Germany or Romania, you can apply there because of the Terms of Service to show restricted content. "

This comes mainly from the German community with strong opposition. Meanwhile, some groups and forums have been formed that are trying to move to a Yahoo! reversal.

Yahoo Germany justifies this by Child Protection Laws, the action should the German youth protection are met.

Since 9 April 2008, it was possible, in addition to pictures and short video sequences ( max. 90 seconds) to publish on Flickr. This met with strong resistance in the community, which called for a demarcation of video portals such as YouTube.