Flickr announced today that they are now offering video. Now when you log in to Flickr, this is what you see:
Before I go any further, I have to admit that while I watch a lot of video online, I don’t post much video online. Aside from helping my mom post her videos to YouTube, I’ve only ever used Viddler — which I love, and will no doubt judge Flickr video, or any other video hosting site, against. (My Viddler videos are private, so I won’t give you the link to go check them out.)
Having said that, I am a die-hard Flickr fan and balk at anyone who dares to use any other site to host their photos. I mean, come on, there are online photo albums, and then there’s Flickr. There’s just no comparison. I’ve been using them exclusively since January 2005, before they were bought by Yahoo!, and have been thrilled to find that they have only continued to improve their exquisite design and ease of use since the acquisition. Frankly, it’s hard to imagine them dealing with video at any less of a high standard.
Here’s the user experience flow for uploading video, just as it is for photos.
Add as many videos or photos as you’d like tp upload, and hit the big pink button when ready.
You’ll see a pretty pink progress bar as your items upload.
When they’re done, you can add details if you’d like or just move on.
You can opt to add a title, description, tags, add to a set, etc.
The video shows up in your photostream just like any photo would.
Notice the cues that it’s a video — a small play button in the bottom left of the frame, as well as the subtle reference in the copy to it being a video versus a photo.
You can play the video directly in the photostream as well. Please excuse my odd appearance. I had just gotten out of the shower. That’s my parents’ dog, Coco.
Each video has its own dedicated page, just like each photo does. Surprisingly, there is no duration or file size information displayed here. And unlike Viddler, there’s no way to post time-stamped comments.
On the Account page, in the Privacy & Permissions tab, you can set your videos to autoplay. It’s set to “Yes” by default, but somehow my video still didn’t play without my urging.
You can also embed your videos on another website and customize the player.
People are complaining that Flickr isn’t allowing videos longer than 90 seconds. I suppose that’s pretty short, but as someone who isn’t major into creating video, it’s a constraint that I probably won’t butt up against…for now.
If you’re worried about how video on Flickr is going to f-up your world, just read the FAQs.
Read other reviews here, here and here.
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I’ve worked recently (well the past couple of years) on design/creation/ideation and other words ending in “ion” all around video players so I speak with some authority (well, it’s actually my ego coming out, but you already knew that – let’s get back to the topic here).
Flickr pegged its video right by making it SIMPLE. The one beauty about Flickr.photos is the ability for even beginners to understand, adopt and integrate their flow into their own process. And proof to this is that my mom posts more pictures to Flickr in a week than I’ve done in the past year. Yeah.
I agree, they could’ve allowed time-stamped commentary (by adding a simple click-comment on the timeline, or at the comment field level via a simple input box), they could’ve also allowed tagging and reverse-tagging (when I click on a video:tag-time:01:00:00 I could go to that specific time in that specific video).
That being said, I have nothing else to say.
You have to listen to your audience, and I think the whole Yahoo! team is listening as hard as possible due to MS’s douchebaggery. But that’s another blog (comment – since I don’t blog).
;)
There is something nice about the simplicity Flickr is putting in touch with the player.
The only thing I was kinda surprised on was that they didn’t put together a nice flickr preloader, just left it black. I am sure that will be the first thing to change.
BTW, where is the links of these videos of you on flickr?