If you're one of the estimated 30 million Yahoo Photos account holders with with pictures stored on Yahoo Photos, take heed. Yahoo says it will be shutting down Yahoo Photos and urging people to move photos to Flickr, which it bought in 2005.
In a statement to the press Yahoo says the move will better serve digital shutter bugs when it can focus on a single photo service.
Moving day, Yahoo says, is June. That's when Yahoo Photos users will be told to upgrade to Flickr, or move their digital shoeboxes to competing photo storage Web sites. Yahoo says customers will have a 3-month transitional period to make the move and will offer assistance in transferring photos to Flickr or competing sites (Shutterfly, Kodak Gallery, Snapfish or Photobucket) as well.
Details are sketchy on how Yahoo customers will have to preform the "move." Yahoo says more details on the transitions will be posted to Yahoo Photos today.
Why the mass eviction?
In a press release issued by Yahoo today Jeff Weiner, executive vice president, Yahoo Network Division says:
"We are making great strides in our ongoing efforts to align Yahoo's resources and focus on core strategic priorities. Part of this progress is today's decision to close Yahoo Photos to better serve our valued customers through Flickr... We're excited to build on the phenomenal success of Flickr by focusing on this important service."
I speculate that Yahoo Photos doesn't generate enough eyeballs and daily or weekly usage as compared to Flickr. Flickr displays ads alongside photos. Eyeballs and traffic equal ad dollars.
Also Yahoo Photos is a plain vanilla photo storage site for storing and ordering prints. On the other hand Flickr more aggressively pushes the sharing of photos, discovery of photo, and allows for advanced features like Notes and Comments that allow you to people to leave messages directly on your photos (see example).
I'm not convinced this in any way is behind the forced move, but it should be noted that Yahoo Photos allowed for unlimited storage of photos. Flickr limits storage to 10MB. If you're interested in unlimited storage of photos and other perks you'll have to fork over $25 a year for a Flickr Pro account.
