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How Flickr Did It Right

First of all, I would like to thank Chris Brogan for giving bloggers like me something to write about. Yes. In his blog he has given a list of 100 topics which he hopes that bloggers write about. In his blog he has clearly explained how some people approach him and ask about how he manages to get topics to blog about each day. He has explained how his situation is quite the opposite as for him, he has too much to write about. Not boring you anymore with my reporting. "He said, He hopes, He explained" Ok no more.

So one of the topics I got from that list was:

"How Flickr Did It Right"

There were  a variety of topics to choose from but I chose this because I wanted to do some research before writing. Let me be honest here. At this moment when I start writing I have no clue what it is. Yes I do know its part of the popular new generation networking band wagon and that it has something to do with sharing. Maybe pics or reports or articles. I donno. In fact, I doubt if I can clearly explain any of these new hotshot websites. Yes Facebook and twitter is known to all, so is our dear Youtube, but Pintrest? I haven't used it and hence no idea. Flickr is one such website I have not used.

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One good thing about the present generation I am in is that information is at our fingertips unlike in our parents' or grandparents' generation. Imagine living a life without Google? And again, just a few minutes back I was reading about an article in a website with a rather interesting name, any guesses?

www.damninteresting.com

I was reading about John Mathew Ottoson who was initially from Japan but got separated from his 'locked' homeland due to his ship being in a storm and loosing navigation. Of all the things that should have struck to me while reading this, what struck me is the fact that people used to travel in ships. Imagine a journey through the endless ocean in a ship. No plane, no car, no nothing. Just boats, ships, bullock carts and so on. So the point is, once you have gotten used to the luxury that modern life has given to you its difficult to even imagine the hardships the previous generation people must have faced. It is an interesting topic into which I would love to deep dive, but not now maybe later. And about the Flickr details, well, its still

LOADING..

So I just googled 'Flickr' and the first thing I find is that my guess was right. It is a photo sharing website. And while typing this I realized that my computer does not recognize the word "googled". As I do this exercise, I start realizing how much internet has invaded our lives. Maybe its because its a post lunch period but still more of philosophical thoughts are occurring to me, much more than statistical values. People can call it being sleepy and so on. But since I have promised to write an article on Flickr and made you read so much I have to write about it. Hence maybe the post will be slightly long as I feel like writing something non techie write now. Maybe I'l put some

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sign. And the next time, some "We are back" board is placed you can start reading from that point. Ya so as I was saying, it is only when you search for something you realize how much the world around you has changed over the last decade. The first thing that our eyes search for after googling is for the Wikipedia page. I must say that the kids these days are actually lucky! For all assignments and tests they have Wiki. Yes towards the end of my schooling I did have access to internet and even breezed through all college assignments thanks to Google. I am a kid born in the 90's (as mentioned in those memes) and my childhood was awesome, but the kids born in the 00's or whatever they call it when they are grown up enough, would have an entirely different childhood. My childhood had DragonballZ, Jackie Chan adventures or to summarize Cartoon Network, wonder what the new kids have.

At this point I start thinking if I have written enough gas above and whether I should continue to some proper details. Guess I'l start righting about 'Flickr' and what it did write. You can learn about this on our own Wiki page but the difference here, in this blog, is that it has a personalized edition of opinion, yes, my opinion. You have any idea how valuable that is? :-P

Does blogger have smileys? If so it would have made blogs a lot more colorful and interesting. Just did a google and read the first 3-4 links, its all about adding smileys in comments on a blog. So at this instant I'm assuming such a feature does not exist. Prove me wrong if you can, cause I love to learn new things ;-)

Flickr is an image and video hosting website founded by Ludicorp in the year 2004 and was acquired by Yahoo in 2005. Yes, Yahoo swallowed Flickr and the entire Ludicorp as well. These mergers and acquisitions I tell you! MBA types decision! Some of the best include Google's acquisition of Youtube, Android, etc. These decisions helped make a search engine an even more unavoidable part of our lives. I was reading some stats about Youtube. 100 hours of video is uploaded every minute. Imagine! And speaking about Android, well it doesn't need explanation. Everyone knows how much Android has become a part of smart phones in the world. Initially it was all the fuss about Nokia. Then came Symbian OS from Nokia and then came its decline. It continued to a point where recently it was swallowed in a $7billion deal by Microsoft. And Samsung, who was a moderate player in the mobile section, used this android to propel itself to the top and even threaten the status of the small device that was introduced to the world by Steve Jobs. I called it small, because in today's world when phablets and tablets are invading, Apple still refuses to go beyond its 4'' screen. Even Apple's market share is declining. And as I read somewhere after the launch of iOS7 the OS used in iPhone, that Apple had set the benchmark for itself too high in terms of innovation. I am a bit too interested in mobile phones so excuse me if this goes on a bit longer. So Samsung grew in the mobile market and became big enough to compete with Apple. Now its part of the elite team and have started over pricing, brand value increase!

Got caught in between to attend a talk show, I prefer not to go into the details. Back to flikr. And in addition, have 2 more topics I wanna discuss today which will be:
  • Obama Care
  • Blue Ocean Strategy
Lets get done with Flickr first.In March 2013, Flickr had a total of 87 million registered users and 3.5 million images uploaded daily. Photos and videos can be accessed without the need to register while you need an account to upload photos and videos. If you have an account, you can also add another account as friend. A concept to which FB users need no introduction. Ask around and you will hear volumes about hesitation, anticipation, relief, etc before and after a friend request. Lets not go there. And Flickr also has apps for iOS, Android, Windows, Playstation Vita, etc. just like most other bigshot websites.

Additional Info: It tends to be blocked in Corporate offices, like my own, and you know why!

One of the founders of Flickr was Catherina Fake. Please note the surname. Service emerged from tools initially designed for a multiplayer online game 'NeverEnding'. There was initially a chat room which later got buried. RIP Chat room in Flickr. Yahoo acquired Flickr in March 2005 for an amount of $35 million. So what where you doing in March '05? Assuming of course that anyone reading this blog was alive and kicking by then. The 'OldSkool' members(ones previously associated with Flickr before Yahoo acquisition) were asked to associate the account with a Yahoo! Mail in order to continue using the services. This move was criticized from various quarters. Duh, obviously! But think from Yahoo!'s angle please and get a Yahoo! account. In 2008, they started allowing videos limited to 90 seconds and 150 MB in size. Flickr laid off some employees during a cut in size. And in 2008, the initial founders Butter Field and Fake left the company and Butterfield wrote a humorous resignation letter. Photos are classified by means of a tag. Public and private image storage available. Ok cool! That's that. This is Flickr for you. I feel more like doing a typing job as I do this. Compile info from various sources and type it!

And pleas excuse me for using Flikr instead of Flickr (I went on to edit it later as I felt it looked stupid to have it wrong in the heading itself!), if you believe me, it was unaware to me until this point. I don't know the reason why it became famous, but personally I think with the advent of the internet, more and more people took to these websites as a platform to express ones own self and thus gained popularity and grew. Last year photo sharing apps also came into existence for smartphones, Instagram. And I have personally used it. Never found it too interesting as many people in my circle did not use it. It again depends on the crowd using it. If people near you use it and discuss about it you have  a tendency to use it as well. Here another thing comes into picture, Marketing. Online marketing is something that grew recently, I guess people 20 years back would have never imagined that the internet would influence people's life in this manner.

Now two more things I need to cover:

Blue Ocean Strategy:

Blue Ocean Strategy suggests that an organization should create new demand in an uncontested market space.  It is a business strategy book first published in 2005 and written by Chan Kim and Renee of The Blue Ocean Strategy Institute at INSEAD. I think reading the first line itself would give a proper idea.

Obama Care:

It does impose a tax penalty if you don't have health insurance(You don't have to have it, you just have to pay a penalty at tax time if you don't have health insurance). And it is a pseudo name given by Republicans to the actual Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.



PS: Do not forget to mention in a scale of 10, how good? or how crappy? it was. Doesn't matter if it was crappy cause I was just trying to be original here. Maybe based on the feedback I get here I can improve. Thanks :-)

 

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