Yahoo Brands Flickr; Users Retaliate(techcrunch.com)
techcrunch.com
Yahoo Brands Flickr; Users Retaliate
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/24/yahoo-brands-flickr-users-retaliate/
13 comments
You know, if Yahoo actually took advantage of the fact that people have multiple accounts on its service, some active (Flickr, Mail), some dormant (delicious, upcoming), and really fucking figured out a coherent user profile strategy, they'd have something.
Aren't Flickr accounts already merged with Mail accounts (and the other Yahoo-branded services)?
Yes.
The underlying fact is that Flickr users, many of whom are techy hipsters
awesome journalism
awesome journalism
I read the first two paragraphs twice trying to figure out who Bartz is. They quoted her twice in the second paragraph, as Bartz, but never said, Carol Bartz, Yahoo CEO. So I looked it up. Bizarre journalism.
I'm of two minds on that.
At the end of the article, I actually found myself thinking, "Hm, that really wasn't terrible." Then I came here for the comments.
The "techy hipsters" bit really wasn't an egregious journalistic error, but it wasn't real professional either. There wasn't really anything wrong with the article, but you also get the impression that, in terms of writing at least, the folks there are amateurs.
Not that that's a bad thing! Maybe it's unfair of us to hold them to the same standards as, say ... Macworld. ahem ;-)
At the end of the article, I actually found myself thinking, "Hm, that really wasn't terrible." Then I came here for the comments.
The "techy hipsters" bit really wasn't an egregious journalistic error, but it wasn't real professional either. There wasn't really anything wrong with the article, but you also get the impression that, in terms of writing at least, the folks there are amateurs.
Not that that's a bad thing! Maybe it's unfair of us to hold them to the same standards as, say ... Macworld. ahem ;-)
May be if Yahoo put up a contest and asked Flickr users to create a logo with Yahoo branding, it would have created a good PR, a better logo and time for Flickr users to digest the fact that this is coming.
Maybe they should've made a Yahoo logo especially for Flickr. The purple staggered lettering does sort of clash with the blue and red flickr logo.
There's a hilariously detailed 50+ page internal style guide at Yahoo explaining exactly what you can and can't do to the logo. These kinds of decisions go all the way to the top at Yahoo! (exclamation mark obligatory), which says a lot about the company.
What's awesome about that is that red was heavily tied into their brand identity and purple came from nowhere and really un-does a lot of the brand equity they have built up.
Internally, Yahoo has always had purple and yellow as a theme. The legend is that they were the cheapest colors at the store when Jerry and Filo were setting up the office. Personally, I don't buy this; probably the real explanation is that they deliberately chose eye-watering colors like every other startup in the mid-90s.
They also say that the online Yahoo logo was made red because there wasn't a good shade of purple on old Windows 3.1 computers. Remember those days?
In recent years, Yahoo has been dominated by more cheerleaders and corporate climbers than do-ers, and purpleness has become an obsession. It's purple purple purple everything there. Proof: the move to rebrand Yahoo as purple, a color which users had never associated with the company before.
They also say that the online Yahoo logo was made red because there wasn't a good shade of purple on old Windows 3.1 computers. Remember those days?
In recent years, Yahoo has been dominated by more cheerleaders and corporate climbers than do-ers, and purpleness has become an obsession. It's purple purple purple everything there. Proof: the move to rebrand Yahoo as purple, a color which users had never associated with the company before.
At least yahoo had the decency to let flickr live at http://www.flickr.com. There's just no escaping the associations of http://picasa.google.com
Were it only a logo change, I'd say much ado about nothing. It's the watermark that's raising hackles. TC piece misses this entirely. See here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/shellen/3951018593/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/shellen/3951018593/
With users like this who needs competitors? It's a bit unreasonable to complain about a company branding a service they own.
Online service makes minor change, users complain. News at 11.
Good for yahoo, lets see those techy hipsters flock to photobucket where freedom reigns.
Ummm... I'll stick to Flickr, thank you very much.
I guess there really does need to be a universal sarcasm indicator on the internet.
You should have used the sarcasm font.
It's been 5 years. I think it's time to let it go.
Just because they changed the logo? It's been a Y! Company for years, it's been yahoo-mail only login for more than a year.
This will almost certainly blow over with a week or two. Remember when Flickr added video and there were mass protests?
Even more, remember when Flickr transitioned to all users having to log in via yahoo? A month after the drop date, no one really cared.
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Does it even benefit Yahoo to put their finger-prints on Flickr?
It does let them show people who say Yahoo is lame, that they do have some "hip" properties, that said, all their best stuff was bought not built. However, I'm not sure most people care except some who read tech blogs.
[deleted]
Sure. Companies pay big bucks for branding campaigns because it works.