flickr - Semantically driven

What Flickr updates mean for existing Flickr Pro members

May 21, 2013 by Jen

Old Flickr look

As usual with Twitter being a news source for me, I found out that Flickr had redesigned its Photostream look, and also changed the amount of upload you can get for free from 200Mb to 1Tb – which is a lot. I like the new layout too.

New Flickr look

I’ve been a Flickr Pro user since March 2005 – it was one of my first social networks. There used to be a pretty good Flickr community in Adelaide which has now died down a lot. Either that or I’m just not in the loop anymore.

I got a bit confused as I wasn’t sure what these changes meant for existing Pro users and the website wasn’t that much help to me.

Pro users can keep renewing but it doesn’t say at what cost on the Help page. I’ve since found out it’s at the same annual cost of $24.95.Pro users still get unlimited upload and can still view stats for photos.

I can’t see that this option is available to new users at all so I wonder if the Pro options will one day be phased out? And I’m also wondering how many new Flickr users will want the $49.99 annual payment for an ad-free Flickr.

I’m undecided as to whether to keep renewing my Pro account, or just to move to a free account.

How about you? Do you think you’ll stay using Flickr Pro, or move to a free account? And what do you think of the changes?

And if you’re on Flickr and want to connect, please do.

How to add your Flickr photos to your blog

November 24, 2008 by Jen

I’ve had a Flickr account now for around two years and I love it as a place to keep my photos. Keeping that site and this one separate doesn’t work because photography is part of what I do, therefore part of what I write about.

On that note, I saw an old school friend the other night. It was the first time I’d seen her since I left school over 20 years ago. She found me through Facebook. Facebook is another place I share my Flickr photos which she sees. She told me that she really likes my photos and was even able to tell me which ones she likes, like the one below.

Getting my photos from Flickr showing up on my blog has been a bit cumbersome, but doable.

Manually adding photos to blog from Flickr

In Flickr, I select the photo I want from my collection, click on All sizes and choose the medium size (500 pixels wide).

I then copy the HTML code that will link back to that particular photo.

Back to my blog, I go to the HTML view and paste the code into the blog.

I then change back to the visual view and select the image, hold the shift key down and drag the picture into a size I want, in my case 450 pixels. Holding the shift key down keeps the photos proportions correct. If your blog’s main window is 500 wide then you don’t need to fluff around resizing images.

Here’s the result.

Adding your Flickr photos to blog using WordPress plug-in

This was how I used to do, but I found a plug-in over the weekend that takes away having to visit the Flickr website. It’s the WordPress Media Flickr plug-in and so far works a treat.

Once it’s installed and setup to talk to your Flickr account, just select the Flickr icon in your post window. Note, you can also view everyone’s photos but because of copyright reasons I plan to avoid this. Here’s how to add others’ photos to your blog under the Creative Commons licence.

Then select the size options and where you want the photo to sit within your post. I choose 500 wide and the default alignment because I add my own style to it. I still have to resize down to 450 wide but this is really easy as shown above.

If there’s an even easier way to do what I’ve described above, please let me know. I’m all for shortcuts.

Christmas Flickr meet

November 22, 2008 by Jen

Last weekend JJ and I went up to Mt Lofty Botanic Gardens for the annual SA Central Christmas Flickr meet. I haven’t met up with the group since about March because of other commitments. The Mt Lofty Botanic Gardens are a beautiful spot for a picnic which we had first before we strolled around taking more photos.

This little girl was the photographic star of the show.

JJ and I lost the rest of the group when this happened but met up with them at the end before we all left.

Even thought it was mostly an overcast and cool day I still got a bit sunburned which was silly as I’d packed my sunscreen.

See the rest of the photos here.

Flickr page redesign

September 20, 2008 by Jen

For those of you who use Flickr you may have noticed that you can elect to use their new homepage design. I did and I like it. (Click on image above to see larger screengrab.)

At a glance I can see everything I immediately look for when using Flickr. I like the recent activity from comments I’ve made and comments others have made on my photostream. I sometimes forget to go and reply to comments so it’s good to have this upfront. It’s possible to mute this activity too if there’s a lot of activity you’re not interested in.

The stats graph is right there too and being a sometimes stats junkie this is very gratifying. I noticed a big spike in my views yesterday. I think some work could still be done on the stats themselves but maybe this will happen next. So while I could see a big stats bleep (not reflected in this screengrab) I don’t really know where the views came from as many of the views were for my photostream and not individual photos.

As before the contacts’ latest photos are available, and now so is the activity of the groups you’re in.

As an RSS subscriber to the Flickr blog I’d like to free this real estate up on the Flickr homepage for me, but that’s not an option.

Overall though, I like the new redesign. Oh, and I also renewed my Pro membership and took advantage of the extra three months free option (available until 30 September).