Interactive Flickr: Now for everyone
Yahoo has finished a redesign of its Flickr home page that emphasizes the photo-sharing site's social aspects.
The new home page shows off more of a user's own photos and more from the user's contacts, and it surfaces social activity such as comments on the user's photos, replies to comments the user made on others' photos, and new photos posted to the user's Flickr groups. (See a screenshot below.)
The move is part of Yahoo Open Strategy, which aims to expose Yahoo users' social activity across different Yahoo properties, let others build applications on Yahoo properties, and let outside sites use Yahoo data. Next up for Flickr is a redesign of the photo pages that house each image, the company said earlier.
Yahoo offers a screencast describing the new look on its Flickr blog.
The redesigned Flickr shows more photos and, through a 'recent activity' tab, more social interactions. (Click to enlarge.)
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET News)
Stephen Shankland writes about a wide range of technology and products, but has a particular focus on browsers and digital photography. He joined CNET News in 1998 and since then also has covered Google, Yahoo, servers, supercomputing, Linux and open-source software, and science. E-mail Stephen, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/stshank. 
Along with Yahoo's changes to member's profile pages Yahoo has managed to annoy a huge segment of its userbase.
Not everyone, it seems, wants their Flickr or Yahoo profile turned into a MySpace or Facebook clone.
Maybe Yahoo should have asked users what they wanted first!