Whither Flickr

The New York Times has a think piece about the possibly bleak future of the Yahoo-Flickr partnership. Traffic on the site is down, which, combined with Yahoo’s recent layoffs and overall floundering, has led to rumors that the site may be sold off or even shuttered altogether. When it comes to photos and the sharing thereof, Facebook is eating Flickr’s lunch. Flickr is still really popular among professional photographers and amateurs who really love photography. But for snapshots of friends, vacations, stuff like that, it goes back to Facebook. One analyst quoted in the Times said, “The Internet is starting to rotate around the axis of Facebook — not everything, but everything social.Yahoo and Flickr don’t really have the gravitational pull that would make Flickr the axis that they once imagined.”

Beyond being a story about Flickr, its about the consolidation of one giant social company that is killing off others.

Also, you are commanded to watch this video from Jonathan Coulton: