Happy birthday Flickr !!!
This week Flickr, one of the original, and most enduring online photography community sites turned 20.
Flickr was launched on February 10, 2004 by the Canadian Ludicorp company. It was at a time when we were being wowed by cameras such as the prosumer 8MP Canon 20D and the professional 12MP Nikon D2X.
There were many other startup photo communities launched in this era, though the site was pretty much unchallenged in that space in terms of popularity.
At the sites peak in 2013, there was an incredible 75 million public photos being uploaded per month (Instagram currently has a staggering 2.85 billion photos uploaded per month).
State Library of New South Wales.
Of course, the birth of social media behemoths Facebook (open to public on 2006) and Instagram (born mid 2010) made sharing photos incredibly easy to not only photographers, but to the general public.
Then when Facebook launched their Group functionality in 2010, it directly challenged Flickr's community aspect. Nonetheless, Flickr has held its own in the amateur and prosumer photographer sphere even til this day where there are still approximately 112 million users.
Flickr has not been without controversy – especially when they championed their 'Creative Commons' licensed photos for commercial use. This saw many users uploading their work to share publicly, and not realising the full ramifications of their decision.
One example is in 2007 where a U.S. user's family vacation image was unwittingly used as a bus shelter advertisement in Adelaide and Melbourne for Virgin Mobile. You can read more about it in the New York Times, or even the court notes here.
Flickr has branched out to be more than just a photo community site. They also offer prints, wall art and photobooks, as well as a Pro plan that gives you unlimited uploads and storage.
workshop in the shell of the Japanese ship 'Myoko Maru,' near Lae, New Guinea,
People Magazine, February 1951, from film negative.
From State Library of NSW. Photographer unknown.
Something well worth checking out is the Flickr Commons section. It is a fantastic repository of historic images from government institutions around the world such as NASA, national museums and even the State Library of NSW.
So we wish the Flickr community and their 70+ employees a Happy Birthday! We hope to see you around for many more years to come.
You can read more about Flickr's history in this blog page documenting significant moments in their development.