Flickr Video Goes Live in Fact - for Pros at least
Just as everybody expected, Flickr Video has indeed been launched on April 9, 2008 - after a closed beta testing. It’s only for those with a pro account. Video search: videos will appear along photos in search results (with advanced search you can look for vids only), within new uploads from friends, in Explore, on the Map, in RSS feeds, etc. Length: max. 90 seconds, the most popular (and most economical) online video form is allowed, so go to YouTube, Revver, Metacafe, etc. for mid range videos and to Google Video for about an hour’s length. Thumbnail comes randomly generated from about the first 15% in.
Let’s see what Heather Champ writes on the official Flickr Blog:
Video! Video! Video! The rumours are true and “soon” is now. We’re thrilled to introduce video on Flickr. If you’re a pro member, you can now share videos up to 90 glorious seconds in your photostream. 90 seconds? While this might seem like an arbitrary limit, we thought long and hard about how video would complement the flickrverse. If you’ve memorized the Community Guidelines, you know that Flickr is all about sharing photos that you yourself have taken. Video will be no different and so what quickly bubbled up was the idea of “long photos,” of capturing slices of life to share.
So here’s a ‘long photo’ from Tanzania:
(the customize this HTML did not work for me for some reason)
Flickr is pretty serious about copyright issues:
1. Only “safe” and “moderate” video content is permitted. Your “beautiful wife” should not be moving. (Read more about content filters.)
2. Only upload videos you have created yourself. If you go against either of these rules, we’ll send you a warning and the content will be removed.
As for the video search results on Flickr, I think I would definitely differentiate photos and videos more than a tiny play button in the left corner of the vids. While it reflects Flickr’s “long photo” intention, it does not help users enough. A mid-thumbnail bigger play button could work more efficiently.
How historical this moment is? Quite a lot. Especially now that Yahoo is under the aggressive pounding of Steve Ballmer’s CEOd Microsoft.
I wish the market learnt more grace and humor.