The group you mentioned is quite big, but there is a bigger one already, with 16,500 members called "We Say NO to Videos on Flickr". See http://www.flickr.com/groups/no_video_on_flickr/

But I don't see the problem with video. It seems like a natural extension of what Flickr already offers.

Adding video to Flickr why is this controversial I read the petition and how does it harm photographers exactly. What does any of this have to do with web 2.0 .

that protest banner would look so much better as an animated gif, or in flash.

I can see why a photographer wouldn't want video on flickr - hell do we really need another youtube/collegehumour/porntube whatever- i agree with them keep all the pics on flickr static.

I thought Web 2 was a collection of bits you could put together yourself to tailor it to what you want. So, I can't really see what the problem is. Perhaps Web 2 is really about people who have nothing else to interest them and lead really vacuous lives. Personally, I could care less what Yahoo! do, they offer a service, use whichever bits are of interest if you want, ignore it too if that makes you happy, but try to get a life before its too late.

The group mentioned in the first post now has over 18,000 members. The 2 others, between them, have over 15,000.

That's 32,000 people in the first few hours alone who are saying no! And reading here on Reg was the first I'd heard of it, so as more and more people hear, I expect the numbers to increase.

Oh well, if MS buy Yahoo, it'll be a moot point anyway, since I'll be leaving.

Mebbe the Flickr users have a point - images are small files compared to most vids, and would any sane hobbyist really want videos of some idiot driving twice the legal speed limit or teenagers running through puddles, or schoolkids "happy-slapping" each other wasting space on still more servers?

You wouldn't want to walk into your specialist computer shop - you know, the one where you can find all the "out of date" hardware and the staff actually have a clue what is inside the magic box (been to a high street "IT superstore" recently? Last time I bothered, I was asked if the IDE disk I was looking at would work in my computer... ) - and find it had been filled with XBoxes and Playstations with all the real computer kit stuffed into the back corner and the knowledgable staff replaced with PFYs, would you?

Good luck to the Flickr Users, I think they're gonna need it...

(Mine's the coat with the "Dinosaurs against Nuclear Power!" label)

...can't they leave alone. Flickr has a good rep with it's users and the photographic community, and let's face it YouTube is just full of utter sh#t. Why would Yahoo! WANT to add video and trash Flickr's reputation in one easy move?

Note to Yahoo!: You don't need to be like Google!

Flickr has always had some bloody good work on their, as well as you family snaps. Whereas Youtube is just a random collection of crap, usually taken on a mobile phone and involves people between the ages of 9 & 19, either hitting someone, trying to sing or doing an "amazing" parody of a Micheal jackson song. Either that or stuff nicked off the telly.

Leave flickr alone....

Flickr is not Youtube, anyone posting any of the following :-

Lipsyncing

Crap dancing

Driving Fast

Happy slapping

Bad copies of famous clips

Chavs

Chris Crocker

Shall be immediately and permanently banned.

I'm on Flickr too, and I've seen this controversy swirling about. From what I remember, the videos are currently limited to only 90 seconds. I think the idea is that they will be video snapshots, although I imagine that people will ditch photographs entirely and start posting 90-second porn chunks. It seems unlikely that Flickr will give up on photographs entirely. I reckon the protestors are just worried that they will be overshadowed.

The protesters are just faffing about, though. Flickr is already full of moronic subliteral commentators, pirated pictures, usless crap stolen from elsewhere. Flickr doesn't have any kind of moral high ground, it's mostly a dumping ground for ugly, overweight middle-aged men who think that they look fabulous in women's clothes, or people who can't spell the word "hi".

"90-second porn chunks" would be a good name for a band.

Flickr, or at least it's active users, have always seen the service (rightly IMO) as a cut above the rest of the unwashed Web 2.0 masses in terms of 'quality'. Even the hint that the service has an association with Yahoo! makes the pro user community shudder, as was shown by the kafuffle around forcing users to login with YahooIDs.

Perhaps there is a case for not dumbing-down with endless hours of pointless content (I can get that on Freeview), but it's not going to make me cancel my subscription - not until this happens:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/46882861@N00/2234079183/

When they introduced the ability to pay for a extended library service it quickly became a viable option for photographers to post Hi res copies of their work to use as their own portfolio, and it drastically reduces server space and hosting costs for you personally.

The integration with their API means you can still host your own dedicated site but suck the images from your flickr account. The introduction of videos will only have a negative effect and is not widening the scope of the service or improving it, it will just increase poor content submission, and water down the quality of not just group facilities but searching as well, if you think that a search on everything is now going to also be indexing video tags and data as well.

If you confess to yourself, Youtube is shit. Have you really ever watched anything submitted by someone that was of any real quality? it is a quagmire of teenage dross and dicking around with your phone.

I am not saying there isn't elements of that in flickr already but there is a far more creative and educational community within.

I don't understand why they didn't just launch a sister site rather than saturating something that is good and pure.

What exactly is the problem here? Surely users can still just browse Flickr for images, just like they did before?

http://video.flickr.com

http://photo.flickr.com

If it works for Google, why can't it work for Flickr?

Odd. Who's have thought you'd find luddites on Flickr? How ironic.

They missed an opportunity to have an ajax powered widget? With a googlemap mash-up of opponents throughout the world?

I can't even tag it.

"But I don't see the problem with video. It seems like a natural extension of what Flickr already offers."

Those that aren't purists or enthusiasts often don't see the problem. I'm not a Flickr user, but the dilution or widening of any ethos is always going to be an issue for the hardcore users/devotees.

And to widen its ethos to cover such cringeworthy, mundane, childish and oft-pathetic content that one can find on YouTube does seem a little like bandwagonism.

In such a vague and wishy-washy Web 2.0 world, let's hear it for a bit of distinction.

"I love Flickr, and I think it should stay the same way it has always been. It should just be for Photos!" reads the group description. "We don't need another YouTube! I have nothing against YouTube. I just don't want to see all the $*#% that on there to wind up on here!"

As opposed to all the $*#% there already is on Flickr?

"The group mentioned in the first post now has over 18,000 members. The 2 others, between them, have over 15,000.

That's 32,000 people"

Unlikely. More like 18,000 people, most of whom have joined 3 groups.

"The group mentioned in the first post now has over 18,000 members. The 2 others, between them, have over 15,000. That's 32,000 people in the first few hours alone who are saying no!"

I'm not too sure about your arithmetic, old bean. Also, you're assuming that the members don't overlap, and that none of them has two accounts.

I can't see what all the fuss is about. I'm sure there'll be some way to ignore the videos if you don't want to see them. There are people on flickr with 200,000 photos who you've probably never heard of - why do you think the videos are going to inconvenience you?

The only reason that Flickr is pushing video is to try and make Yahoo! look like it's still a contender. Still photography is their core competency, and getting outside that is only going to result in two offerings of secondary quality instead of one offering of pretty decent quality. Do what you're good at applies to almost everything.

I sent Flickr a message relaying my concerns and they replied that if I sent multiple emails then I would be making the Magic Donkey Cry.... I have no idea what that means, but it sounds dirty.

"Youtube is shit. Have you really ever watched anything submitted by someone that was of any real quality? "

Er, yes.

Last night I watched James Burke's Connections, series 1, episodes 1 and 2. As far as I know, these are not currently available to buy on DVD in the UK (which is why I had to use YT).

As far as Flickr goes, I'd prefer they stuck to photography, but as I'm not even paying to use it, it's up to them.

I think video is alright on flickr - I don't want youtubeness infesting the thing either, but I have private video of nieces and nephews that I wouldn't want to be public, and putting them on my private flickr account seems logical enough.

Flickr bulk user's are mainly boring Flickr's anyway.

I personally think video is a good idea, its one ive wished theyve had before. Flickr already offers an outlet for visual creativity or family snaps, so its a logical extension to have the same relevant content but in video format there too.

I doubt you'll have video blogs on there like YouTube/Google Video or general 'clips', as it doesn't seem like the kind of content the average Flickr user would want included as part of their profile, and its rare you see any Flickr users accounts with content other than that they created themselves.

The immutable first rule of the internet: Everything that Yahoo touches eventually turns to shit.

I'm just surprised it's taken Flickr so long.

LMAO! I love the last comment about how even The Register laments that it is not as popular as Google.

Hopefully there will be something to distinguish the evolution of the Internet besides the trend to use ever larger amounts of bandwidth, processing, and disk space to communicate ever shrinking amounts of information.

Or, in other words, the signal to noise ratio for data on the Internet seems to decrease as one move along a spectrum of getting the most signal from text, then pictures, then audio, finally arriving at the noise heavy end of the stick with video.

We love 90 second porn excerpts in my house. Download all the free samplers from pay-sites, load 'em into a playlist, sit back, relax and enjoy.

Fast-moving, no plot, and without any of the boring bits. Try it, you might just like it...

Come on... why even the name "Flickr" implies video...

-- Smoovious