The photo-sharing website Flickr has just received a makeover for its iOS and Android app, but the move has a number of observers questioning if it is too much like the photo networking site Instagram. The move comes as Instagram continues to dominate the photo-sharing sector, but sees Flickr attempt to get back into the top of the market with the new features and design.
The new look Flickr v3.0 delivers a number of upgrades, although they are a bit comparable to Instagram in that automatic uploads to the cloud are immediate and posting can be done more instantaneously. Still, even though the comparisons with Instagram are coming out in almost all reporting on the updates, Flickr still has the advantage in terms of organizational tools.
This should be a huge step for the photo site and a lot of observers are curious to see how the battle plays out, since it does appear Flickr is setting the stage for a photo networking war that pits Instagram against itself.
"The new Flickr apps for iOS and Android give you all the best of Flickr on mobile, including a 1,000 GB of space, auto-upload, powerful search based on geography, time, image intelligence, intelligent privacy controls, and access to billions of the world's most beautiful photos," the company says in the accompanying statement on the video.
However, it is clear on one level that despite the wide range of new features, including organizing all photos into searchable means by location and date and time, Flickr is still the site for delivering individuals with more means to showcase their work for professional reasons as opposed to Instagram's more popular, social networking take.
The upgrades allow users to see their images cropped with ease in the feed, but upon clicking on the image, it reveals the full dimensions, a key professional edge in the search for publishable images. The update also replaces the dual-column viewing on the smartphone with an easier and smoother single-column of images, much like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
The new update also allows embedded metadata that viewers can then see what camera the image was taken with, a cool way of gauging the quality and professionalism of a photo.
Making the biggest splash, however, appears to be the new search option, which takes technology the company acquired over the past year to assist users in searching and finding top quality images on more than 1,000 objects from Yahoo's algorithms. This will enable the new Flickr to be easier in accessing and searching databases, creating a more inclusive and easier experience.
For now, observers are keen to see how people react to the new update and whether it will see a surge in use.
