Why is Flickr so popular?

[calbear2000]

There were hundreds of photo sharing services available, many with social networking aspects behind them like commenting and user profiles.

I guess searchable tags really made them unique, but it doesn't seem that useful of a feature to me. Am I missing something or do others feel this way as well?

 

[tfinch2]

pbase for life 😛

 

[HN]

yahoo

 

[alphatarget1]

because it's pretty easy to use. I uploaded over 1gb of photos this month so far.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/alphatarget1

 

[calbear2000]

Originally posted by: HN
yahoo

But yahoo never advertised for it. (at least not on the front page). Flickr's popularity was driven organically and virally.

Or maybe they spammed people to get their start 🙂

 

[ballmode]

it's free. and that flash flickr thing I put on my blog is COOL

 

[torpid]

Because it's free, easy to use, and most important of all is very supportive of collaboration and sharing among a community.

 

[notfred]

Because it's better than all the other online photo services. You can link to images from anywhere with no ads. Uploading and organizing stuff is easy, thery give you lots of space, etc.

 

[calbear2000]

Originally posted by: torpid
Because it's free, easy to use, and most important of all is very supportive of collaboration and sharing among a community.

I think you nailed it on the head. But I fail to see the widespread (and mainstream) usage model. I can see how people commenting on one another's pictures builds community. And I can see how people forming groups based on interests and picture-types can build community.

I guess more people are attracted to these features than I think...

 

[BrokenVisage]

I don't see what the big deal is either, but I don't have a MySpace or Xanga to use Flickr trying to impress people.

I'm happy with Imageshack, kthxbye.

 

[chuckywang]

Nice, simple layout...fast and easy to use. Highly browsable/searchable.