photo by Gnal
A small but vocal minority on Flickr are already staging online protests at
the prospect of a Microsoft takeover. Flickr is one of several popular Web
2.0 websites owned by Yahoo that loyal users fear will suffer under
Microsoft ownership.
As soon as the news hit the wires that Microsoft
is proposing a $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo, Flickr users began posting
anti-Microsoft images, satirical "Flickr Live" logos and announcing they
will abandon Flickr if it falls into Microsoft hands, fearing such a move
would mark the beginning of the end.
“Well then, I'm outta here!” announced one Flickr user who goes by the name Judland.
While Microsoft has established its dominance on the desktop, its web properties lag behind those of Yahoo and others.
When it comes to building or acquiring hip, community-focused websites, Microsoft has fumbled where Yahoo has thrived. Last year, Microsoft tried its hand at a community site to compete with Flickr by adding photo-sharing capability to its Windows Live web service. But Windows Live Spaces doesn't have the cutting-edge user interface or the Web 2.0 cache that Flickr has. It also doesn't have the closely-knit community of passionate users that makes Flickr so successful.
In addition, Yahoo services like Upcoming and del.icio.us also have a strong following among the Web 2.0 crowd, an audience Microsoft's competing services — Windows Live Local and Windows Live Favorites — has failed to attract.
It's the same story with Windows Live QnA, a public beta website meant to compete with Yahoo Answers. Microsoft's service is basically a clone of Yahoo's, but without the breadth of content or the dedication of the community.
As this graph comparing acquisitions by Google, Yahoo and Microsoft shows, Microsoft has focused on back-end and enterprise companies like devBiz or DesktopStandard, while Yahoo and Google are more adept at scooping up choice consumer startups like YouTube, MyBlogLog or Feedburner.
Microsoft's approach to online communities strike many Flickr users as being directly at odds with Flickr's ethos.
Yahoo's efforts to embrace the latest online standards — like OpenID, a single login mechanism, which was recently added to all Flickr accounts — might not succeed under Microsoft.
Yahoo declined to comment for this story.
Flickr user Xenolon addresses many users' fears, saying, “Microsoft is not a customer oriented company, they're an enterprise company.”
Many of these same concerns were raised when Yahoo first bought Flickr back in March of 2005. Although widely decried by Flickr users at the time, the Yahoo purchase ended up being largely transparent and seems to have had very little effect on the site, aside from requiring members to associate their Flickr accounts with a Yahoo ID.
However, Microsoft is another beast entirely and it's no surprise that today's acquisition offer has already prompted some vitriolic response from the Flickr community, as illustrated by the image above from Flickr user Gnal.
Of course even if the deal is accepted and Microsoft lays down a cool $44.6 billion to acquire Yahoo, it would likely be some time before Flickr users see any changes. As it stands most are just waiting to see what happens. As Xenolon says, “it's not that I'm worried that the sky is falling or anything like that, I just don't like the idea. Period.”
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