Yahoo!-owned photo-sharing site Flickr has branched out and is now giving users the option to store and share video clips which will have the same functionality as photos, enjoying tagging and geotagging and integrating seamlessly into a user’s existing photostream.
While all Flickr users can view video, only paid subscribers (ie Flickr Pro account holders) can actually upload video and this cannot run for longer than 90 seconds or take up more than 150MB in size.
This means that Flickr will not be in direct competition with video-sharing site YouTube, which allows all users to upload footage and also does not have such time and file size restrictions.
Users will also be able to upload video clips from their mobile phone and all videos will have the option to be viewed in fullscreen.
Digital media has changed the behaviour of snap-happy archivers said Kakul Srivastava, general manager of Flickr. He said with the advent of better mobile phones and cheaper digital cameras, people are now much more likely to shoot short video clips which he likens to “long photos”.
“There is a great resonance between this new category of content and the kind of authentic, personal moments already being shared on Flickr.”
Perhaps the time is ripe for Flickr to diversify into video clips as in the past year, the site’s visitor numbers have grown from 27 million per month to over 42 million.
Meanwhile, old-school Flickr fans are not taking to the idea. The ‘No Video on Flickr’ group on the site has 7,924 members and growing.
One user, Doooshty, on the group discussion said: “I paid my hard earned money to join a photography community, not a video-hosting site”, while others have vowed not to renew their Flickr subscription.
By Marie Boran
