Flickr is one of those great services that began as an independent initiative and then was purchased by one of the larger “players” (Yahoo in this case). I have always assumed this was a business model – become popular, get purchased – because how the original Flickr folks expected to cover their costs was never obvious to me.<\/p>\n
It now appears that Yahoo is making the effort to integrate Flickr as a service. When Flickr was first purchased, the impact on users was minimal. The service you were using was simply owned by someone else. I am guessing this situation did not tie in Flickr users sufficiently to benefit Yahoo. A transition of sorts required users to obtain a Yahoo account (no cost) and this process probably brought some exposure to other Yahoo services AND the ads embedded within such services.<\/p>\n
Yahoo now appears to want to clean up loose ends and completely integrate Flickr within Yahoo. Those of us who joined before the transition received the following message:<\/p>\n
You’re getting this email from Flickr HQ because you decided to detach your “markdgrabe” Flickr account from its Yahoo! ID. That means you’ve got what we like to call a “dangly” Flickr account that you need to deal with.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I have been trying untangle this situation for several days without much luck. I don’t have a great investment in the images I have stored in Flickr because this is one more of those services I have used so that I have an understanding of how the service works and can discuss the service based on experience. If a “dangly” account goes away, I can upload some new sample images without much difficult. However, I do like to play with the gadgets, widgets, or whatever offered by these services and have embedded Flickr services in several of my public offerings (e.g., this blog). I may have to wait for something to break and then fix it before this Yahoo transition makes sense to me.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n