Flickr between Communities and Commerce

Chapter Five focused on Flickr's oscillation between "various platform functions: from community site to social network platform, from photo news site to memory service and archival facility" (van Dijck, 2013, p. 91). José van Dijck (2013) noted the origin of Flickr centered on its use as a true online community of sharing visuals and updates with people who shared and liked the same things with regard to text and imagery. However, as Flickr's ownership has changed over the years, the simple platform that was so conducive for a connected community has diminished.

Flickr's technology platform began in 2004, before Facebook and Twitter had claimed all online sociality. The original platform was simple and elegant in its design and user experience, but when it was purchased by Yahoo in 2005, the technology behind sharing photos and experiences was slowly tied into the Yahoo experience—a completely different online community space. Over time, the carousel of interface design ranged from being a tool for building communities and groups to a general social networking site (SNS).

The drive behind Flickr's success had always been its users and content. Van Dijck noted that photo sharing is unlike microblogging in that it was not created from scratch. Users had to upload and share private images of family albums, vacations, artwork, and galleries of photos that may mean more to users than a status update. Flickr's origin was crucial to social media because it "developed as a site for users interested in community building and intimate sharing, regarding photos as their prime contributions to an enhanced online experience. Flickr members wanted the owners [of Flickr] to invest in user connectedness and were willing to pay for the privilege" (p. 94). The original 2004 site motto was "Share your photos," but after its purchase, Yahoo was less interested in helping users make connections through sharing and more interested in the rich data of tagged photos that could be mined for geo-locations and used to steer content advertisers towards other users and other companies. (If you uploaded a large number of pictures of skiing, ads relating to skiing were put into your user experience.) Thus, the content of Flickr was driving trends.

Ownership of Flickr and content became even more problematic after Yahoo's merger with Microsoft along with AOL in 2011, which allowed each to sell the other's display ad inventory. As its member base dwindled, Flickr was seen as missing the mobile boat as applications such as Instagram came along and took most of its users. Flickr reacted by creating The Commons, partnering with the National Archives, and then forging an alliance with Getty Images (which subsequently expired in March 2014), but the loss of so many users over the previous years showed a growing discomfort with ownership and its treatment of users: Flickr became disconnected.

Van Dijck (2013) noted another large problem through governance as users clashed with new rules stipulated by the terms of service that stated users could not upload any harmful or obscene photos to the site. If someone does this, Flickr takes down the images and removes the user's account. However, if someone were perusing the National Archives and came across images they believed were not suitable for children's eyes, who decides and governs the artistic integrity of the site? This business model of controlling images gave Flickr the advantage of charging users of pro accounts money instead of the free accounts of regular users. Pro accounts paid for more because they used it more, and as such, they provided Flickr with more content, data, and revenue. Users were finally paying for the privilege of uploading and using a vast database, but given the actions of the owners, users did not feel so privileged anymore as Flickr management, "aware of the value users added to the site, tried to reconcile two opposing demands and, as a result, found itself in a contentious double bind. The original concept of collectivism and community-based collaboration, however well intended and deployed with integrity, ill suited a gradually corporate-based, profit-oriented ecosystem" (p. 108). The same problem that plagued Facebook and Twitter, fostering community without that community feeling it was being exploited for profit, was undermining the very foundation of Flickr, and as a result, users left.

Van Dijck (2013) pointed out that Flickr may not be attempting to be a part of the top five SNSs, but given some of its more recent actions to appease users, it could be going back to its roots as it listens to its users and gets back to what it was originally good at: connecting and building communities. But while this chapter finally attempted to forecast the future of a SNS, there is no clear guarantee of Flickr's success, nor of any SNS that cannot balance the fostering of community and profit. What she misses is that social media is fickle, and the stigma associated with the betrayal of Flickr stays with users. If there is a lesson to be taken from the history of social media (and Flickr), it is that you only get one chance, unless of course you already have 500 million active users. Facebook can and has branched out into different communicative spaces, absorbing them into its social media mega sphere. Flickr cannot do this. If Flickr does go back to its roots, then it is what it once was, which is great for photo enthusiasts, but not for those who now see social media as Facebook has made it: an all encompassing space where everyone resides.