(Via Slashdot) I came upon a story from USA Today which announces that the powers-that-be at Yahoo! plan to shut down the long running #1 or #2 site in the photo-sharing category (Yahoo! Photos) and ask users to migrate their photos to Flickr (which Yahoo! acquired in March of 2005) instead [1].
The irony for me is that, having been a Flickr user for a long time, I was only last week looking into using Yahoo! Photos because TiVo offers built in access to Yahoo! Photos (top service on that page).
I can’t find anything online today about whether TiVo will get an update that will enable TiVo users direct access to Flickr.
But they won’t have to. There’s already a solution: the Flickr/TiVo Viewer.
Haven’t had a chance to try it yet, but will hopefully do so this weekend [2]. It takes advantage of TiVo’s HME Software Development Kit, which lets users create Java applications to run on TiVo Series2 DVRs.
One more reason TiVo and Open Source are cool.
[1] Actually USA Today says:
Users will be directed over a three-month period to transfer their images to Flickr or other photo sites such as Shutterfly, Kodak Gallery, Snapfish or Photobucket. Yahoo says it will make the transition easy, with a one-click transfer process.
If I were Yahoo! I’d make the process one-click, but only for Flickr.
I’m not suggesting they should hold photos captive – I’m a big fan of the users-own-their-data meme – but I think it’s ok if the one-click transfer within the family is easier than the several-click export necessary for other sites.
Does that make me less customer-centric?
[2] My flickr photos
Also posted to Tech Crunch: Breaking: Yahoo to Shut Down Yahoo Photos in Favor of Flickr
“Does that make me less customer-centric?”
Yeah, it does.
Fair enough, ogman. Guess Yahoo! should have the confidence that Flickr is the right property and it doesn’t need to use its incumbent position to shoehorn people toward it.
On the other hand, I still think it’s defensible to have a red-carpet path in the direction you want folks to go and a slightly-less-convenient but not horribly annoying experience for other options.
FYI, the Flickr/TiVo viewer works perfectly as advertised – you can authorize, on the computer you run it on, access to your Flickr account, and then you can browse your photos, your contacts’ photos, etc.