Flickr Has Always Sucked… Now it Sucks More!
A lot of the people I know and work with just can’t help doing a little dance whenever they think of Flickr. They’re constantly raving about how wonderful it is to join this silly little community of photo sharing web pedestrians. I, for my part have always been skeptical. Everyone who blogs needs a way to incorporate photos into their posts, and to be fair, Flickr does make this easy. I, however, have always liked the idea of controlling my own content, so decided to use Gallery2 and its WPG2 integration with WordPress.
This solution worked well for a long time, but suddenly the iPhoto uploader to Gallery2 broke, and I was faced with a decision. I reluctantly decided to try Flickr. After struggling for what seemed like hours, I finally managed to find a crappy Yahoo username that I could only half tolerate. I tried it, but quickly gave up because I could never remember the cryptic username I had selected.
Casey reminded me that he had invited me to Flickr before they had merged with Yahoo, and that I had created an oldskool, non-Yahoo Flickr account with my normal human readable username. I decided to give it another shot. I hated the restrictive terms of service, and the dozens of clicks it took to get a different sized image, but I tolerated it because images were easy to upload. I even went so far as to create a Pro account.
Well, that all came crashing down around me, and thousands of other Flickr users today when I received notification that Flickr was forcing all their users to merge with a Yahoo account! I was furious! I do not have a lot of images in Flickr, but many of them are linked and presented in this site, and I really don’t want to take the time to go back and change all those links. I would have to create a Yahoo account and merge it thanks to Flickr’s Nazish new policy.
I’m not the only one who is cheesed off either. ThomasHawk.com has been following the forums and has compiled a collection of peoples complaints.
One user had this to say:
What really pisses me off is Yahoo’s God-awful ID setup. It took me over an hour this morning to set up an ID, mostly because every name I tried was taken - including random letters I got by hitting the keyboard in frustration. So now I’m stuck with a username I didn’t want, can’t change, don’t like, and won’t remember.
Another user writs:
Is yahoo offering any sort of counselling for people who go into fits of rage after the 387th attempt to find an available user ID that doesn’t suck?
I could not agree more. It took me forever to find a username, and as before, it’s cryptic, and I will never remember it. Somehow I very much doubt that my Flickr Pro account will stand the test of this betrayal. I have never really liked Flickr, but tolerated it. This will most likely be the last straw for me. I’m just glad I left my Gallery2 integration up and running!
Real-Life Derek Zoolander
Since leaving the desolate wasteland of PHPNuke for the bountiful fields of WordPress, I have become quite a fan of the software, and regularly visit developer Matthew Mullenweg’s site “photomatt.net” to see what’s going on with with WordPress development. So, you can imagine my surprise when instead of going to photomatt.net, I mistakenly went to photomatt.org and discovered a real-life Derek Zoolander.
For those who have seen the movie “Zoolander” the hilarity of Matt Blalock’s headshots will become instantly apparent. For those of you who have not, Derek Zoolander is a dumber-than-a-stump male model character played by Ben Stiller who has names for all his “looks” and wants to build “The Derek Zoolander Center for Kids That Can’t Read Good”.
Apparently poor Matt is having a “phase” and has had to take down his old site due to some male model frustrations. He says:
Sorry to disappoint you all, but I’m currently going through a bit of a “phase” and I’ve pulled down all of the material that was on this site in order to bring you something that I actually enjoyed. Yes, I enjoyed the last site just fine and dandy but I want something different. So please bear with me while I get it all redesigned and reuploaded.
But luckily for all of us he has kept his photos up for a “Special Someone”.
For a special someone…my photos are still on the site…click the smileie!!
WOW, Matt! That person must sure be special for you to go all the way from tearing down your website because of a tragic “phase” to “my photos are still on the site”! Hopefully you get through your “phase” without too much trouble.
Then he says:
Here ya go….all for you. My photos. Sorry they’re not all small and stuff, that takes work and you know how I’m crunched for time these days. However…I think you deserve them since you asked.
Don’t worry Matt… We understand how rough it can be to thumbnail images for the web. We’re just glad the pictures are still up.
Unlike Derek Zoolander, Matt has not named his “looks”, so I have taken the liberty of naming some of the better ones for him. Feel free to comment if you have better names than the ones I’ve come up with.
Smug Iceman >
Ponderous Fusion >
Notable Intensity >
Cold Fission >
Icy Hot Killa >
How long until we see the “Matt Blalock Center for Kids Who Can’t Compose Photos Good”, or the “Matt Blalock Center for Hilarious Headshots”? I can’t wait!
