Flickr Users Consider Their Potential Microsoft Overlords
By David F. Gallagher (New York Times)
The hard-core users of Flickr, the photo-sharing Web site owned by Yahoo, have this to say about a potential Microsoft takeover: “Oh no, not again!”
When Yahoo bought Flickr in 2005, it was one of the most promising of the so-called Web 2.0 start-ups. While online communities are notoriously susceptible to tempests in teapots, the Flickr crowd has always been an especially prickly bunch, lashing out at any whiff of censorship or corporate heavy-handedness. Something as minor as switching longtime Flickr users over to Yahoo’s log-in system prompted protests from people who resisted being sucked into the evil Yahoo machine.
