Builders are too annoyed with the new Flickr to upload anything, and we’re all too confused to find anything new to blog.
What do you think? Long overdue redesign or unusable “new web” garbage? Has Yahoo! jumped the shark? Discuss!
Builders are too annoyed with the new Flickr to upload anything, and we’re all too confused to find anything new to blog.
What do you think? Long overdue redesign or unusable “new web” garbage? Has Yahoo! jumped the shark? Discuss!
I am not liking it all that much. The old way seemed to work fine. Maybe I will get used to it. Change for changes sake is not always best.
I don’t love, but I also don’t hate it. I am already pretty used to it. I actually kind of like the new photo pages and photostream pages (with cover photo), it is mainly the home page that seems too cumbersome to be useful.
I will say that I am not too happy with the new prices though. $50 just to remove the ads with no other added benefits over the free version?!? Craziness! I am also still confused on whether current pro users (which I am) will continue to have access to stats as long as you keep renewing…
I would want to invite all the disgruntled Flickr users to try MOCpages again if it were not for the constant image uploader problems on that site. So in-between MOCpages image issues and Flickr’s bizarre redesign, it doesn’t look like a good time for Lego fans.
Flickr hasn’t just jumped the shark–it can’t even see the shark from its current orbit.
The redesign of the UI is godawful. The new site tries to fill virtually every square centimeter of screen real estate with images, and that–especially when you add in the transparency on the top bar–is as predictably sluggish and laggy as anyone with five minutes of web development experience would expect. Worse, it turns the site into a wall of clashing colors and shapes that makes it difficult to focus on anything. Whitespace has a purpose in both art and UI design, and they’ve eliminated as much of it as they could.
The new photo pages aren’t much better–a jarring mashup of the black-background “lightbox” page (which I used to like, when I chose to use it–now it’s no longer a choice) for the image, stacked above a version of the old details and comments that looks like it’s lost some of its formatting in an unintentional way.
All this is exacerbated by the last straw of the changes to their pricing structure and paid account details. Apparently they are no longer selling Pro accounts. Going forward, Free accounts will have 1TB of space and will have ads on them, and no stats. The new paid account costs twice as much at $50/year, no longer has stats, has the same space limitation, and gains you nothing except removing the ads–something I can and will already do with an ad blocker, like 10-20% of all Internet users. If you want more space, you have to pony up $500/year (no, that is NOT a typo) for an extra TB and the privilege of getting stats.
I don’t think it’s hyperbolic to say that they’ve ruined Flickr with all of these changes. And thus far the response to the tens of thousands of complaints on the help forums has been… utter silence.
Whoever at Yahoo is responsible for this needs to be cleaning out their desk by the end of the day. If there isn’t a major reversal and mea culpa for this atrocity of bad design and poor business decisions, they’re going to lose most of their paying user base.
If I understand correctly, if you had your current Pro account set up for automatic renewal, it will continue to do so for the same prices/features. I just checked my Pro Account settings, and it says that I will automatically renew on July 8, 2013 for $24.95. I don’t know how long that will last, but hopefully Yahoo gets this all sorted out before it ceases!
^ What Catsy said. The homepage is borderline unusable. Flickr has now become nothing more than an image hosting site, as far as I’m concerned. Granted, it’s a 1 TB hosting site, which is awesome for those of us who didn’t have pro accounts to begin with, but it had it’s own forum-like community vibe before which has pretty much been zilched into oblivion as it is now.
^ How has the ‘forum-like community’ been affected in any way? The group pages are the one area that look exactly the same. If anything they are improved upon as there is the ‘Recent Discussions’ link within the Communities tab.
Browsing through photos is a chore now. The photos on my homepage are far too large, and I can’t browse through either contact photos or favorites without the gorram justified mode on.
The only way to navigate any more is through the top bar, which really kills the feeling of browsing through contacts streams.
Hopefully they’ll at least put out some options to customize your own homepage, but if not I’ll be reading up on webdesign and making a new site myself.
Also. I hate the justified view of photos within a contacts photostream, and even more in my own. I had the photos arranged in a visually pleasing way, now it’s a jumbled slideshow.
I hate that comments load three at a time and you have to keep hitting a button to see any more.
I hate that everything is shown on black. I hate that there’s no white space anywhere. Everything looks cluttered and jumbled.
I get a headache looking at the new flickr. Unless we get some options to make it less painful, or the site is just rolled back a bit and we get the choice of what features to use, the entire website is simply unusable for me.
I’ll let you know what I think about the homepage as soon as it finishes loading… in a couple of days. The picture bombardment is annoying at best to the simpleminded person like me. At least the forums are the same I guess… maybe I’ll try MOCpages, but that seem to have issues all it own which is why I never started a page there in the first place.
I checked TBB several times today to see if and what they say about the new flickr design. Here are my thoughts, a copy of my comment in the flickr help forum:
I don’t know which clever person(s) came up with this new layout, but it’s clear to me that they did the worst job possible and should be fired immediately.
– My pictures are jammed together like sardines in a tin. No layout, no white space and no visible text under the pictures (only with mouseover). This works for the google picture search, but not for a photo presentation platform.
– All my photos are now displayd on a black background. Before the change it was an option, now not anymore.
– Now I need to scroll down to see the picture’s elucidate text and part of the comments.
– I need to click to see all comments.
I’m a paying customer and I certainly don’t like the new ‘layout’ and how it was handled.
It’s like my landlord comes to my apartment and paints all my walls green while I’m at work and without asking me.
I think it looks pretty cool, but a little cluttered. I’m not sure I like having my Sets on a different page instead of in a sidebar on my main page. I uploaded a new MOC last night. Looks good! I am hoping I will still have access to stats at the $50 level sub. Does anyone know if that’s the case?
I like some of it, but to me the cons outweigh the pros. My main concern is the black behind the photos, this creates so much contrast that it is hard to comfortably look at the pics. Plus, many FOL’s use white based backgrounds behind their MOC’s when photographing them, again creating that annoying contrast.
The bottom line for me is that the new homepage (which is where I spend most of my time, checking activity on photos I’ve commented on, or looking for new uploads from friends) literally gives me a physical headache. Luckily, my iPhone app is still the same, so I guess for now I’ll stick to browsing via mobile.
Flickr has a totally confusing homepage, MOCpages has issues with uploading images… Let’s get back to Brickshelf! LOL
The problem is that there really is no good alternative. IMO the single biggest feature that made Flickr so useful for Lego in particular was the ability to add notes on photos. It made it a snap to add targeted feedback without needing to add a comment with something to the effect of “that one bit next to that long gray piece on the left side that I can’t remember the name of”.
It’s not the only thing that made Flickr great, of course. The Lego community has grown considerably more consolidated around Flickr for the last five years, and that kind of consolidation has its own inertia.
MOCPages, sadly, isn’t really a viable option for me. Aside from the uploading problems, the images that get uploaded go through some kind of reformatting or recompression that makes them look awful, the site is sluggish on the best of days, and it’s incredibly frustrating to navigate–among other things, whenever you click through to a photo and hit back, you get automatically reset to the top of the page which makes it aggravating to go through a long set of images one by one.
Brickshelf is a nice idea, but there are a vast number of image archive sites which are superior in every way. Its simplicity and Lego-centric focus are all it has going for it, and that simplicity is to an extreme that makes it a liability while the Lego-centricity doesn’t really mean anything when the site has virtually no way to build a community of feedback around it.
500px is only a few steps removed from the exact same flavor of awfulness that has been inflicted on the new Flickr UI: a near-total lack of whitespace and excessively image-heavy streaming pages.
I don’t have a solution. I wish I did. In the meantime, here’s a few things you can do:
First, try the mobile site, m.flickr.com. It doesn’t have an easy way to get to groups/communities, and it’s a bit bare-bones, but it’s quick and clean in all the same ways that made the old Flickr great.
To get a view similar to your old Photostream, click the Edit button or add /?details=1 to the end of your PS URL.
To get your old activity view, use http://www.flickr.com/activity
I don’t think it’s change for the sake of change. I suspect it’s to make things more suitable for tablets and smart phones.
I actually like what my photostream and the sets look like. I’d like to keep the option to see pictures as small or medium size rather than justified, though. Right now that still seems to work on some pages, in groups for instance, but not on my contacts photos. I don’t like having to scroll down to see comments or picture descriptions either.
I’ll admit, when I first got on and saw it, I was like “WHAT THE HECK. NO.” But it’s slowly growing on me, the only problems I have with it are:
a) Can’t see next contacts uploads in thumbnail as easily
b) Can’t see comments on photos as easily.
c) Way too much dark color
d) Can’t find things as easily, but this will be adjusted too over time.
Just my thoughts.
^Agreed.
I hate it too, for all the reasons already noted.
ipernity.com looks pretty similar to the old flickr, although I have only looked at it for a minute. There is already at least one group for LEGO: http://www.ipernity.com/group/116321
Andrew, maybe TBB should look beyond flickr for interesting material?
Well now my ads are for cameras instead of the hundreds of local singles in my area, the free iPads I’ve won, the shocking teeth-whitening trick developed by local unemployed single mom making $10k/year, the ridiculous rates I’m paying for car insurance, or Obama’s opinions on refinancing my mortgage; so this has been a good update.
^^We do look beyond flickr for interesting material, occasionally blogging stuff from MOCpages, for instance. I started on MOCPages many years ago, but nuked my account after I moved to flickr. I have no regrets and I’m not at all keen on going back there. Most of the interesting stuff on there was also on flickr and most of the rest was, well, a bit rubbish.
Anyone else found a bug yet? I spotted two:
1) If you run a group, and want to remove a picture, you’d better hope that that it’s not a wide one. Because of it is, the little ‘x’ to remove it has disappeared off the right side of your screen. You need to hide your sidebar to repaginate.
2) There is still a footer. But since flickr has ‘infinite scrolling’ it’s bloody hard to get. Fortunately it’s not actually infinite, merely large.
^^ This.
Personally, I use dozens of sources for LEGO photos, but over the years, I’ve found that everything good I want to blog is most often on Flickr anyway. Flickr is a huge and diverse community, including lots of people who aren’t otherwise active in the LEGO fan community — it is central, and thus inherently diverse. So, I start with Flickr, and if I don’t find anything good there after all, move elsewhere to cover my bases.
My problem with what some others do is focus exclusively on their favorite builders on Flickr via their contacts’ photos rather than looking at, say, the LEGO group pool or more-specific building communities on Flickr. I certainly don’t rely on my Flickr contacts as my sole source of LEGO photos. :-)
I’m trying to search for a user, and it appears I have to write my own script to do this. Last time I checked, this wasn’t 1985, and we have user friendly interfaces. Is there an easier way?
Workflow is impacted but I fear we will just learn to accept it…my beef is the new pricing structure…$500 for 1TB… u serious??? Can not for the life of me work out why anyone would buy that, and we need more before we spend the $50… Yahoo, at it again, borking whatever they touch.
So I have been playing with the new features on Flickr, there not a whole lot that has really changed. The access to the Groups and Feeds are still the same, all that Yahoo really did is make it BIGGER and BRIGHTER. Fore the new individual catch page. I’m still on the fence.
Now here is another question, is Yahoo making Flickr into a much more expanded social media page?
Anybody remember del.icio.us? “Oh, yeah…” you say vaguely. Right. Yahoo! killed that, too.
I’m not sure what to think about it at the moment. I actually kind of like the appearance of the page when you log in, although I am no web designer by any stretch. What I’m not too thrilled with is all the features on the main page, or, in this case, the lack thereof. I am not a pro user at this time, so what has been taken away from the pro users doesn’t effect me at the moment, however $500 for anything on a website is an outrage. Well, the bottom line is this, we, as LEGO users, don’t have a lot of places to go, so as long as there is a Flickr in this world, I will still be posting there.
Flickr has long been overdue for a coding update. I don’t think any of us were really expecting any changes of this magnitude though. While portions of it remain the same (Flickr Messaging, Groups), vital parts of it, like the activity-feed, are completely brain damaged for all of us LEGO users.
I for one like the new cover photos and photostream layouts. I would definitely suggest some settings to personalize the stream, and even allow for a changing to the old format. Obviously, changes like this are hard to get used to, but its not the end of the world.
Now my Flickr homepage is glitching like crazy, is anyone else experiencing this?
I’ve encountered a few glitches and mistakes here and there, but considering they didn’t do a widespread beta test, that’s not surprising. I have faith that these issues will be resolved.
I’m a fan of the redesign, it’s better than the boring wasted space of a webpage it used to be. A site that is dedicated to photos should put emphasis on those photos, which is does now.
Small forgotten fact of the day: Everyone pissed and moaned the last time flickr updated its layout. People just like to get angry about change.
^ Too true.
I don’t know what you two are talking about, but a photo sharing site shouldn’t look like an emo fifteen year old crack addict’s stupid montage they did for art class.
It should look like a nice portfolio, like what you’d find at an expensive pro photographer’s place. Catsy is dead on. Blank space has a purpose – to draw the eye and focus attention.
The new home page is just plain jacked up. They need to fix that garbage. The navigation stuff should never have broken in the first place. But worse to me is trying to figure out the cover photo. What an awful mess. I got it done, but not before breaking both the uploader and the chooser for the cover. I had to log out, shut down the browser and log back in before it finally worked.
I think I’ll get used to the new UI eventually. I was planning on developing a meth habit anyway.
I am not opposed to change. I am opposed to BAD change. As a rule, bad change is bad.
There are too many things that are bad about it to ramble on and on about here, but what I like least is that with my (recently renewed) Pro account I really don’t get anything better than a free user does now. (I have ad-block enabled, so sometimes I forget the internet has ads…)
I can get used to new styles, buttons, and features. What I can’t get used to is a website that is poorly designed, broken, and clunky. Boy what I wouldn’t give to hear what my Web Design Basics prof would say about this.
This move is intentionally designed to drive engaged power-users away from the site, and attract more casual browsers and mobile uploaders. I don’t like that. I have a lot of individual nitpicks about the changes, but it can mostly be summed up by saying that the site now works functions like a mobile app, which is terrific while I’m on a smartphone. But when I’m on a 20″ monitor, it’s inefficient and overwhelming.
And I was just starting to consider upgrading to pro in a few months, now that will never happen.
As others have said, there are a few features I like, but I can’t stand the “Infinite” scrolling. It takes forever to load all the pictures, and if I try to scroll up just a little, the lag causes me to go almost to the the top of the page.
And the Homepage, I really don’t like the way it’s in your face with everything!
Anyways, I’d like to seem them change it back, but I highly doubt we’ll see that happen.
Like others have said; so many bad changes here. I really dislike the new homepage. Actually, I don’t even know how it looks like because my computer just can’t display it. It keeps trying to load while it takes up 100% CPU power. I just have to kill it after some time before my computer blows up. :(
After poking around I discovered that a lot of features still work the same way, so if I just go directly to those pages I’m good. One feature I really miss though from the old homepage is photos from my groups. It was really nice that every time I connected latest uploads were featured from one of the many LEGO groups I’m member of. It was a nice way to see some really interesting MOCs that didn’t show up under my contact’s photos. Anybody knows how to get to this? Or if even possible? :?
I want my speed back. I don’t have all day to check what awesome things my contacts are up to (okay, sometimes I do). Also, the way they cluttered the photos and comments together is a downright sin.
Old flickr was very streamlined. A simple two second glance would show what people had said and whether or not anything worth while had been uploaded. You just can’t do the same with new flickr.
Well It`s so stupid :(
Instead of donating cows vs pigs or chickens vs horses I would gladly subsidize some “AFOL Photostream” :D
I just want medium thumbs back so I can choose myself which pictures I want to see up close instead of Flickr choosing them for me. It’s so easy to miss good stuff now. Also I dislike the “view more comments” option. I don’t mind cover photos and bigger buddy icons.
As if FlickR needed a redesign…
MOCpages needs a redesign!
Relevant:
http://www.flickr.com/help/forum/en-us/72157633536708919/
It’s really sad… hardly anyone uploaded anything since the update. Dear Brothers Brick, please figure this out and write up a guide for the LEGO community.
I’m seriously trying to like the new format, but its been an uphill battle thus far. The homepage is definitely the worst offender. Even if just the homepage was changed back, I’d be a happy camper.
Count me among those that cancelled my Pro account yesterday and signed up for the free version of Ipernity.
Side note… I had to sign up with my real name, but does anyone know if it’s possible to choose a screen name to display on Ipernity instead?
I was just about to post about Ipernity as a possible new place to reside.
So far I can only find one group though.
Morgan, yes it is. It’s in your account settings.
While it’s great to have alternatives to consider, I’d hate to see a knee-jerk flight reaction. It’s unreasonable to expect that Yahoo! will totally roll back everything they changed, but it’s also fairly short-sighted to immediately go off and move elsewhere.
I’d suggest hanging tight for a little while and seeing what happens.
I have no interest in going on flickr on a smartphone, since I don’t own or want to own one. To me personally, as a longtime paying Pro subscriber, this is a massive downgrade in every possible way.
I’ve often told builders who aren’t on flickr, that joining up and spending 25 bucks a year is the best investment of 25 bucks they’ll ever put into their Lego hobby. I’m not sure I can make that recommendation anymore.
I like to be an optimist and say that I will get used to this, but I guess I will have to wait and find out. Add me to the list of very unhappy customers who just want their old flickr back.
^ And now it’s even pricier at $50/year, unless you were already a Pro subscriber prior to the redesign.
I created an account on Ipernity and it is pretty much the old flickr from what I can tell. You can add notes or comments to the photos, there are groups, the frontpage is pretty much like the old flickr frontpage. I’m going to try it for a while.
For the record, I don’t really have any major issue with the looks of the new flickr (I can actually browse it using the highspeed internet at work!) and would like to stay and am going to try to stay. I think the new look is annoying, but I think I could get used to it. My problem is my sub-par internet service at home just can’t handle webpages that have pictures plastered across every square millimeter.
Sign me up for the theoretical AFOL image site.
I made an Ipernity account as a ‘just-in-case’ backup plan. Its a pretty nice sight actually. I’m hoping I’ll just get used to this Flickr change, though. I’d really hate to have to move all my pictures over.
^Agreed.
Can’t stand the new look. Yes I’ll probably get used to it, but if enough people get on Ipernity so that it replaces flickr I’ll make the move more permanent.
I’m mixed…I like some aspects and mostly agree with everyone else when they state they hate the home page aspect. The rest is not bad though as the community groups for the most part remain unaffected…but I do agree that it might be time to consider other options like Peggyjdb suggested to migrate over to Ipernity since Flickr and Yahoo in general don’t seem to be overly interested in listening.
Catsy nailed it. I also agree with what Andrew said: maybe they will modify some of their settings, or allow users options. There appears to be a lot of frustration being voiced now. But if they choose not to (or don’t) listen, then maybe it will be time to move on.
Hi Everyone, I joined mostly to comment here but also hopefully branch out.
Anywho. While I completely encourage keeping a community together, the beautiful thing about the internet is we can have accounts on multiple sites. Like myself for example. I’m now 3rdeye88 here, on MOCpages, and Deviantart, and “Thirdeye88” on Flickr and skype.
I’ve recently embarked on a movement to help spread awareness of the MOCing community on Deviantart. It is a smaller community, but with the new changes to Flickr, I and a few friends are hoping that we can suggest DeviantART as an alternative. The entire site is built around social art, Its not merely a site that host pictures that MOCers use as a nest to house their community, its designed to encourage the community aspect of art with smooth messaging and linking systems, sharing buttons, journal skins, and many other features we’re all used to such as favorites, and groups. I find the best solution to any problem like the one flickr is facing is all the solutions, be on all the sites, networking across sites means one site’s pros makes up for another’s cons. I could be just as active on Flickr, but I chose Deviantart because of the three main sites(DA, Flickr, MOCpages) DA has been the most responsive. I mean I’ve gotten a Daily Deviation there once where the ENTIRE SITE SAW MY MOC Not just the people in the MOCing community. Stat’s don’t lie. Almost 40,000 on a single MOC isn’t bad right?
I’m not asking anyone to leave, I’m just saying, “come check it out.”