Comments on: Can Orkut/Facebook kill Flickr?

By: r4 ds

r4 ds — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 13:43:24 +0000

Hi,
I am currently using orkut and facebook i always choose orkut as my regular usage..
Because orkut was really nice social site and this article giving me info about orkut so i really like it..

By: Dhananjay Nene

Dhananjay Nene — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 03:45:41 +0000

I think facebook / orkut have the opportunity to maim flickr should they choose to do so. Notwithstanding many comments above, from a lay end user perspective integration with many other aspects of social networking is far more of an asset than just the capabilities of photosharing per se.

So if facebook/orkut decide to ramp up the feature set and promote it aggressively, I suspect flickr will find only the high end photoblogging segment left to itself. And the pressures to have paid accounts for anything more than the most rudimentary services could become high. Sure it could still continue to be operational and profitable in that context but it definitely risks substantially losing its dominance in terms of quantity (not quality) of photos shared and viewed.

In summary, if facebook/myspace/orkut invested in photosharing promotion much more, I suspect flickr is destined to be a niche not a dominant player unless it pulls some rabbit out of the hat – one it hasn’t since its initial launch and success.

By: Vibhushan

Vibhushan — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 07:21:34 +0000

@Praveen
Thats exactly what I said in my previous comment. For niche group of serious photo-enthusiasts, Flickr will continue to be best option, but for a very common regular user of internet (which forms majority in Indian scenario), these advanced features are a bit too advanced, and I wonder if they would appreciate the value given their pattern of usage. My guess is that photo-sharing on Orkut is a big drive for Orkut usage in India and if enhanced a bit, can give serious competition to Flickr in India.

By: Praveen Shirali

Praveen Shirali — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 06:12:40 +0000

Orkut/FB will not kill Flickr. The photo-sharing features on social networking sites are primarily centered around sharing photos in a quick-n-dirty way with friends/people on the network. The features provided are not photo-centric, but merely designed to share media on the network. Text would be one,..photos would be just an other. Sites like Flickr on the other hand have a very strong focus on how photos need to be shared and managed. There is control over picture resolution, copyright management, extensive grouping, tagging and pooling etc.

Even if Orkut/FB decide to go the Flickr way and start adding features similar to ones offered by Flickr, they’d still be considered too specialized. Users on Orkut/FB, I presume just want to share photos and be done with it. A few people who might understand the potential might utilize it. It would definitely take away basic users off photo-sharing sites as they’d want to utilize the social network better to share their photos. On the other hand, if Flickr/photosharing sites keep innovating and continue to provide good photo-centric advanced features, they’ll stay miles ahead of what any user-centric social network.

By: Vibhushan

Vibhushan — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 20:20:15 +0000

@Andy
Agree that Flickr is for serious pro-photographers, and that Orkut/FB and Flickr are two different products. But for a regular social networking sites user in India, I doubt if anyone will have even a decent sized network on niche socio-net like Flickr. For photograph to serve as an additional medium of social networking, I would always prefer to have the facility on a site where I already have my primary social network. In such situation, enhancing the current photo-sharing facility on Orkut/FB can be of much value for regular users. Public photo content discovery is best served through regular image search on Google or Yahoo! Search. Yahoo! already includes Flickr images in their image search, Google can start by providing one on Orkut.

@Yogesh
Orkut/FB already have a good photo-sharing feature going on. Highly unlikely that they will divert traffic to external site like Flickr for photo-sharing.

By: Yogesh Pathak

Yogesh Pathak — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 04:08:48 +0000

Difficult to dislodge flickr due to the loyalty it has built not only among the lay users, but also among pro photographers.

Flickr being only focused on photos has some advantages
* Simpler interface
* Many ways to upload
* Listening carefully to user needs

Re. why the socials did not go for image search: Often this happens to due prioritization of product features. Social networks first had to focus on making the me-centric experience possible for users, and they possibly did not envision we’d go there and search for photos horizontally across their full database. The expectation is that you’d mainly browse photos among your friend networks.

What would be cool is a social-flickr bridge widget which allows you to “publish” selected photos to a site like a flickr from within your Orkut/FB page. But they won’t do this, will they? In coming days, look for more integration of flickr with Y! ecosystem though.

By: Andy

Andy — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 03:01:09 +0000

This is like saying.. can the point and shoot digicam kill the DSLR?

The two products are used for vastly different purposes. One is to see and share pics of your friends from a trip or party, while the other is mainly to showcase your (quality) photos and search other quality photos from other photo enthusiasts. One is for private sharing within personal networks, the other is for public sharing and content discovery. One is tied heavily to the social graph, the other is not.