Flickr and Video, Together!
Wednesday, April 9th, 2008
Some really interesting news in Flickr-land was announced today. Flickr has, after many weeks of rumors flying around, announced that they will be allowing users to share videos on their site. This is really great news, as I subscribe to some folks on YouTube, but most of the videos they post are crap (funny videos, clips from TV shows, etc). And there is nothing wrong with that sort of stuff, but I think there needs to be a filter mechanism to separate all of the recycled stuff from personally crafted content.
On top of that, they have imposed a 90 second limit for the videos. I’m sure some people will say that they want to share longer videos than that cut off, and I can certainly see that side of the argument. But, as the Flickr Blog states:
“90 seconds? While this might seem like an arbitrary limit, we thought long and hard about how video would complement the flickrverse. If you’ve memorized the Community Guidelines, you know that Flickr is all about sharing photos that you yourself have taken. Video will be no different and so what quickly bubbled up was the idea of ‘long photos,’ of capturing slices of life to share.”
I think folks will learn to share their quicker ‘clips’ at Flickr and find another place to share their longer videos, either at YouTube or a nicer competitor like Vimeo.
I’m really excited about this, as I really think that the best way to share video online is through short video clips rather than long, epic movies. It’s kind of the Twitter-esque philosophy, but instead of 140 characters, it’s 90 seconds of video. I think this will encourage people to focus on quality and not just upload every stupid video clip they produce. And since Flickr guidelines state that the only video you can share is video that you yourself have taken, it kind of makes sense in that regard as well.
This also may inspire me to purchase a Flip Video, which it would appear about half of the internet is talking about. It’s a tiny little camera that only costs $179, and shoots one hour of video at 640×480 in AVI format. From the examples I’ve seen out there, the quality is excellent for such a low-priced camera. The problem most people have with video is the fact that their gear is cumbersome and expensive. Both make it pretty tough to want to take to social functions or just ‘out’ for the day at the park or whatever. This will make it a lot easier to capture quality video, plug it into your computer, and within minutes have your video online.
Anyway, if you’re a pro Flickr user, I recommend you get over there and check out some of the videos and share your own.
And if you’re feeling really saucy, check out an old favorite. At least an old favorite of mine.
Welcome! If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Posted on April 9th, 2008 | 4 Comments »
Check out 
Here is an article about 
