News, info, and opinion by Mac users, for Mac users.

April 9, 2008

video

Flickr adds moving pictures support

Posted Apr. 9, ’08, 8:35 AM PT by Dan Moren
Category | Video

Flickr videoI remember the first time I ever saw video on a computer. It was on a friend’s Mac back in the early ’90s, and not only was it about the size of a postage stamp. It was also about the quality of a flipbook made out of postage stamps. That there might be a day when everybody would watch video on their computers was about as ridiculous as suggesting that there might come a day when MC Hammer was not cool.

But now, as the kids say, everybody’s doing it. Even photo-sharing site Flickr has gotten into the act, now allowing its pro users to upload 90-second movies right into their photostream, right alongside their pictures. Why 90 seconds? The Flickr crew sees it more as adding “long photos” rather than, say, narrative, or the kinds of things that You Tube uses. We say, bring on the creative constraints. They’ve already started their first meme, Fridgets.

Though uploading video requires a $25/year pro account, Flickr has also upgraded their limits on how much data users can upload, raising the limits to 20MB per photo for pro users, and 10MB per photo for free accounts.

Anyways, to celebrate, I’ve uploaded a short video of me hard at work. As you can see, things here at MacUser HQ have never been more exhilarating.


4 Comments

Aayush Arya said:
Flickr has gotten into the act, now allowing its pro users to upload 90-second movies
I’ve uploaded a short video of me hard at work.Duh. :p
April 9, 2008 9:38 AM
VisualDave said:

Flickr's effort is not good enough. Sites like Vimeo allows upto 500MB/unlimited length of video per week, including HD. And they do it for FREE no less.

I've been disenchanted by Flickr's 200 photo limit too non-paying members and fled to webshots.com. Flickr is implementing the same narrow minded policy to video.

April 10, 2008 8:56 AM
Dan Moren Author Profile Page said:

@VisualDave: It seems like Flickr's video solution is clearly not for you, but I'm not convinced that their implementation is not "good enough." If you read their blog post on the subject, I believe they made a choice about how to integrate video into their site in such a way as to compliment their main mission—photos—and not because they wanted to become a video-sharing site. I don't think they aim to take down YouTube or Vimeo, in the same way that Twitter is not about to render WordPress obsolete.

As for their non-paying member limits, well, they've got to make money somehow. They could have gone with an ad-supported method, but I, for one, appreciate not being bombarded with ads when I'm browsing photos. And $25/year seems hardly an outrageous fee to pay for a basically unlimited account.

April 10, 2008 9:12 AM
VisualDave said:

Dan, I agree with you that $25 per for a quality site like Flickr.com maybe worth it.

But I've been using multiple "small fee will get you more service" sites and membership fees do add up rather quickly.

I don't mind seeing few adds here and there if I can use the site for free.

April 10, 2008 11:21 AM

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