Frank J Casella Photographs
Dogs, Seasons, and Flickr
"Photography is a major force in explaining man to man".
-- Edward Steichen
I hope this is not the last picture like this I upload to Flickr and make with the FlickrApp. Because in due time it is now at risk of being deleted by Flickr. Yup, just like Facebook and Twitter block you or your posts for certain content, Flickr can remove your pictures for having too much content.
This is a picture of Buddy, the Golden Wonder Dog. He likes to sniff the leaves falling from the Autumn trees. Especially when it rains out, as they must have a particular aroma.
These are the types of pictures that are share worthy. That are worth holding on to because of the fleeting moments of seasons of life, and the short life of dogs compared to us humans.
The type of picture you would find in many of the groups on Flickr that make you smile. Because the community here on Flickr is like family, we inspire each other as time goes by.
I believe inspiration - especially through pictures - brings hope into this war torn world of ours, because verbal abuse and violence it seems is everywhere we turn.
Buddy just celebrated his twelfth Birthday. We call Buddy the Wonder Dog because he's been through so much in life. (The short list is he's a rescue dog, came to us with severe aggression toward women and took 9 months to help him, lost sight in one eye at the dog park, got a bad ligament from playing basketball with the kids, and was attacked by other dog's several times -- once by three Pitt Bulls at the same time) .... and he's still living like nothing happened.
I don't know about you, but I've had a dog or two who taught me much about life and unconditional love more than I've learned from humans.
The reason Flickr needs to not delete members older images indefinitely is they offer this to institutions and museums archives also, it is not only goodwill but good business because it shows they care what matters to us.
You see, it was encouraged by Flickr not too many years ago that we have a camera roll in our Flickr account that we can sync with our Flickrapp, and then use to auto upload from our phone so as to remove the load from too many photos.
Flickr provided both free and paid member generous storage space to do all this. It was brilliant! Because it fostered community, and a household name where our life in pictures was stored, that we keep coming back to.
(However, I have more than 12,000 images here and, though private, not for storage. See my About page for more)
Life is short, and if I die tomorrow my Flickr Photostream would have been shared at my funeral. But not any more. There should be a rule where when people die their contribution falls into a special archive.
But the terms have recently changed by the new owner of Flickr, who is SmugMug. To explain and keep it simple, I have been a paid member over a decade and recently let that laps. Because, although as a paid member I could have unlimited storage, the people who have free accounts are told the storage space is more narrow, and once they hit the wall set for them the oldest photos will be deleted.
What this causes is less uploads, less sharing with groups (and older photos into newer groups), less community ... and a threat to the family atmosphere on Flcikr as I've come to know and enjoy. So I've decided to join my free member colleagues and not pay again unless this is sorted. Because we are all family. ... we stick together.
On the other front, a couple months ago the members like me who have paid for this service over the years are now told we are paying upon renewal time the original fee that was discounted by Yahoo for the past few years. Many of us found the bill without notice. Though Flcikr / SmugMug this past week offered a different discount again, they should have just waited with the increase until this announcement.
In other words, it doesn't make sense to remove pictures of the free members and not those of the paid members, when we are all suppose to be family ... it's about fostering community. So paid members should have the (deletion) wall as well of 1TB if prime storage space is so expensive.
You might think I'm too emotional and to just pay up and shut up? But this is more about good business. About taking the noble obligation to respect the people, talent, and skills that built this platform before us.
This is also about the attitude over the years that when there is a change chaos happens on the Help Forum. This can all be relieved, as well as how members talk to each other on the Forum, just by the new CEO Don MacAskill of Flickr setting the right tone and using better insight. ....
... you see, the main theme I'm seeing on the forum presently is the loss of trust, how MacAskill is giving people the feeling it is all about money .... they are saying Flickr is not SmugMug, and it shouldn't be ....
... what I'm talking about is, SmugMug should have figured into not making a profit to start. To keep the old terms the way they were, and to start with the new terms with new members. At least in the first year. ... to establish trust.
Because keen business people know to work smarter and not harder, that it is easier to keep the customers you have than find new ones ... some savvy business owners call this a 'loss leader'.
But instead Smug Mug decided to bring their business model to Flcikr: To make a profit right away even if it means saying goodbye to family ... and their beloved dogs. They've set the tone that profitability is more important than people, including the vision and ideals of the people who founded and nurtured this platform to this day.
I don't know, but suspect, SmugMug bought Flickr for ten cents on the dollar. (SmugMug is like the size of a tug boat, compared to Flickr being like the size of a large cruise ship.)
And still it seems they didn't figure in the expense of not making a profit for some time until they can sort out the features, bugs, and glitches while keeping the present tenants happy.
A better business model would be to allow free members one-hundred uploads per year - two per week - indefinitely so the wall is not hit. Look at the business models of benchmarkemail.com and WordPress.com, you can send unlimited posts or emails on the free plan without the added paid features.
If you look at pixels.com and ipernity.com the free plan presently make images over the limit to be invisible, so why can't Flickr do likewise?
So in the near future I'm going to have to down load my photostream, to prevent deletion. And then figure out how to upload without hitting that wall. Unless this matter gets sorted ...
Life is short, and the unconditional love from dogs and the seasons in life, and the people we love, go by too fast and are taken away from us too soon.
The last thing I thought given to us that would be taken away is our share worthy moments in time by CEO Don-MacAskill and Flickr.
“The only thing we take with us when we die, is what we have given away.” -- Francis Cardinal George.
----
A version of this also shared on my LinkedIn Blog:
FLICKR ISN'T GOING AWAY, BUT A LOT OF YOUR PHOTOS WILL BE www.linkedin.com/pulse/flickr-isnt-going-away-lot-your-ph...
Dogs, Seasons, and Flickr
"Photography is a major force in explaining man to man".
-- Edward Steichen
I hope this is not the last picture like this I upload to Flickr and make with the FlickrApp. Because in due time it is now at risk of being deleted by Flickr. Yup, just like Facebook and Twitter block you or your posts for certain content, Flickr can remove your pictures for having too much content.
This is a picture of Buddy, the Golden Wonder Dog. He likes to sniff the leaves falling from the Autumn trees. Especially when it rains out, as they must have a particular aroma.
These are the types of pictures that are share worthy. That are worth holding on to because of the fleeting moments of seasons of life, and the short life of dogs compared to us humans.
The type of picture you would find in many of the groups on Flickr that make you smile. Because the community here on Flickr is like family, we inspire each other as time goes by.
I believe inspiration - especially through pictures - brings hope into this war torn world of ours, because verbal abuse and violence it seems is everywhere we turn.
Buddy just celebrated his twelfth Birthday. We call Buddy the Wonder Dog because he's been through so much in life. (The short list is he's a rescue dog, came to us with severe aggression toward women and took 9 months to help him, lost sight in one eye at the dog park, got a bad ligament from playing basketball with the kids, and was attacked by other dog's several times -- once by three Pitt Bulls at the same time) .... and he's still living like nothing happened.
I don't know about you, but I've had a dog or two who taught me much about life and unconditional love more than I've learned from humans.
The reason Flickr needs to not delete members older images indefinitely is they offer this to institutions and museums archives also, it is not only goodwill but good business because it shows they care what matters to us.
You see, it was encouraged by Flickr not too many years ago that we have a camera roll in our Flickr account that we can sync with our Flickrapp, and then use to auto upload from our phone so as to remove the load from too many photos.
Flickr provided both free and paid member generous storage space to do all this. It was brilliant! Because it fostered community, and a household name where our life in pictures was stored, that we keep coming back to.
(However, I have more than 12,000 images here and, though private, not for storage. See my About page for more)
Life is short, and if I die tomorrow my Flickr Photostream would have been shared at my funeral. But not any more. There should be a rule where when people die their contribution falls into a special archive.
But the terms have recently changed by the new owner of Flickr, who is SmugMug. To explain and keep it simple, I have been a paid member over a decade and recently let that laps. Because, although as a paid member I could have unlimited storage, the people who have free accounts are told the storage space is more narrow, and once they hit the wall set for them the oldest photos will be deleted.
What this causes is less uploads, less sharing with groups (and older photos into newer groups), less community ... and a threat to the family atmosphere on Flcikr as I've come to know and enjoy. So I've decided to join my free member colleagues and not pay again unless this is sorted. Because we are all family. ... we stick together.
On the other front, a couple months ago the members like me who have paid for this service over the years are now told we are paying upon renewal time the original fee that was discounted by Yahoo for the past few years. Many of us found the bill without notice. Though Flcikr / SmugMug this past week offered a different discount again, they should have just waited with the increase until this announcement.
In other words, it doesn't make sense to remove pictures of the free members and not those of the paid members, when we are all suppose to be family ... it's about fostering community. So paid members should have the (deletion) wall as well of 1TB if prime storage space is so expensive.
You might think I'm too emotional and to just pay up and shut up? But this is more about good business. About taking the noble obligation to respect the people, talent, and skills that built this platform before us.
This is also about the attitude over the years that when there is a change chaos happens on the Help Forum. This can all be relieved, as well as how members talk to each other on the Forum, just by the new CEO Don MacAskill of Flickr setting the right tone and using better insight. ....
... you see, the main theme I'm seeing on the forum presently is the loss of trust, how MacAskill is giving people the feeling it is all about money .... they are saying Flickr is not SmugMug, and it shouldn't be ....
... what I'm talking about is, SmugMug should have figured into not making a profit to start. To keep the old terms the way they were, and to start with the new terms with new members. At least in the first year. ... to establish trust.
Because keen business people know to work smarter and not harder, that it is easier to keep the customers you have than find new ones ... some savvy business owners call this a 'loss leader'.
But instead Smug Mug decided to bring their business model to Flcikr: To make a profit right away even if it means saying goodbye to family ... and their beloved dogs. They've set the tone that profitability is more important than people, including the vision and ideals of the people who founded and nurtured this platform to this day.
I don't know, but suspect, SmugMug bought Flickr for ten cents on the dollar. (SmugMug is like the size of a tug boat, compared to Flickr being like the size of a large cruise ship.)
And still it seems they didn't figure in the expense of not making a profit for some time until they can sort out the features, bugs, and glitches while keeping the present tenants happy.
A better business model would be to allow free members one-hundred uploads per year - two per week - indefinitely so the wall is not hit. Look at the business models of benchmarkemail.com and WordPress.com, you can send unlimited posts or emails on the free plan without the added paid features.
If you look at pixels.com and ipernity.com the free plan presently make images over the limit to be invisible, so why can't Flickr do likewise?
So in the near future I'm going to have to down load my photostream, to prevent deletion. And then figure out how to upload without hitting that wall. Unless this matter gets sorted ...
Life is short, and the unconditional love from dogs and the seasons in life, and the people we love, go by too fast and are taken away from us too soon.
The last thing I thought given to us that would be taken away is our share worthy moments in time by CEO Don-MacAskill and Flickr.
“The only thing we take with us when we die, is what we have given away.” -- Francis Cardinal George.
----
A version of this also shared on my LinkedIn Blog:
FLICKR ISN'T GOING AWAY, BUT A LOT OF YOUR PHOTOS WILL BE www.linkedin.com/pulse/flickr-isnt-going-away-lot-your-ph...