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flickr

The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.

Founded2004
Event year2007

01 / WHAT IT BUILT

What the company did

Flickr was a pioneering photo-sharing website founded in 2004 in Vancouver by Ludicorp, the startup of Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake. It combined photo hosting with social features like groups, comments and contacts, becoming one of the defining Web 2.0 services before Yahoo acquired it in March 2005.

02 / flickr FAILURE REASONS

Failure reasons

Flickr faded under Yahoo ownership. The 2007 decision to force every user onto a Yahoo login alienated its core community, while Yahoo starved the product of investment and attention. Flickr missed the shift to mobile and social feeds, ceding photo sharing to Instagram and smartphones, and never regained its early leadership.

03 / EVENT HISTORY

Events in the structured record

  1. Company founded

    Ludicorp launches Flickr in Vancouver as a photo-sharing site with social features.

  2. Acquired by Yahoo

    Yahoo acquires Flickr in March 2005 for a reported sum of around $35 million.

  3. Yahoo Photos closed; Yahoo login forced

    Yahoo announces it will shut down Yahoo Photos in favor of Flickr, and requires all Flickr users to sign in with a Yahoo ID.

  4. Verizon buys Yahoo

    Verizon acquires Yahoo and places Flickr under its Oath subsidiary.

  5. Sold to SmugMug

    SmugMug acquires Flickr in April 2018 for undisclosed terms and later limits free accounts to 1,000 photos.

  6. Yahoo login dropped

    Flickr ends the Yahoo ID login requirement introduced in 2007.

04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT

Difficulty of rebuilding this project today

Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.

Rebuild difficultyPending assessmentNot completed
Scoring basisNot completed
ScalabilityPending assessmentNot completed
Scoring basisNot completed

Overall assessment: Not completed

05 / CAUSAL CHAIN

How the factors connect

  1. 01

    Yahoo acquired Flickr in 2005 for a reported $35 million.

  2. 02

    Verizon acquired Yahoo in 2017, sweeping Flickr into its Oath subsidiary.

  3. 03

    SmugMug bought Flickr in April 2018; financial terms were not disclosed.

  4. 04

    The new owner cut free storage to 1,000 photos and pushed $50-per-year Pro subscriptions to make the service pay for itself.

  5. 05

    No reliable loss figure with a clear subject, period and basis exists, so no loss amount is recorded.