I was talking with a friend last night via Facebook messaging about photography and where we share it. He's a fan of
Flickr and I'm...
not. I found it funny that he, a young fellow, likes Flickr while this old guy likes
Instagram. I thought it was supposed to be the other way around!
I'm
pretty social online, but I spend the majority of my social time on Facebook and Instagram. I'd like to like Flickr more, because there are some
super talented rail photographers on there, both seasoned and up-and-coming, like
George Pitarys,
Matthew Robson,
George Hamlin,
Hal Reiser,
Michael Berry,
Phil Ross,
Caleb Wentzell,
Matt Landry,
David Gray and
Julien Boily.
Flickr on a desktop computer is OK. It's the mobile version that I don't like, and here's why. Maybe I'm just using it wrong...
Comment Nagging
When I see a photo I like, I usually click the "like" or "favourite" or whatever the "this is cool" button is on the site I'm viewing. When I really like it, I'll leave a comment. I think this is a good way to show the photographer that you really appreciate the photo.
On Flickr, like many other platforms, it will notify you whenever someone else comments on the photo after you. The difference with the mobile version of Flickr is that there seems to be no way to
turn that off. On Facebook or Google+ you can disable further notifications easily from a mobile device, but there's no way that I can find to do that with the mobile Flickr. You have to remember which post is nagging you, then go to the desktop version and turn it off. Who's going to do that?
What ends up happening is that I don't comment on Flickr photos much, to avoid being nagged by the mobile version. That's a shame, because contributors deserve to get notice, and although my one comment isn't much, every little bit helps.
Multiple Photos in One Post
Like other platforms, Flickr allows you to post multiple photos in one post. The problem with Flickr on the desktop is that only one of them is really visible and the others are tiny thumbnails.
I'll use David Gray as an example, just because he happened to be near the top of my Flickr feed when I wrote this post. Check out his blog,
Going Trackside, and his
YouTube channel!
Here's a recent post of his on the desktop version (
see it on Flickr).
Here if you click on the star icon like I did, you are liking the big photo. You can click on the other photo icons to see them. It works OK. The difference between this and Facebook is that you are liking the one photo, not the post of photos like Facebook. It's a difference in platforms, where Flickr is photo-centric and Facebook is post-centric.
Here's the mobile view of the same post.
The problem here is that there is no way to easily "like" the post or photo. You have to tap "View All 4 Photos", then you see all four photos, then you have to tap one of them,
THEN like it, then back out again. Four additional actions.
Compare that to Instagram, where everything scrolls by in one feed. You see a photo, double-tap on the photo itself to Like, scroll on. It's super quick and easy to use.
Summary
I know it sounds like I'm whining,
and I am, but I want to point out that mobile versions should be designed to be super quick and easy to use or people won't use them.
If you
do use Flickr, I'm there as
traingeek. :)
Tell me why you like Flickr and why I'm wrong...
PS - good article here:
Good Riddance, Flickr
