It’s time to get a Flickr Pro account if you are a fan of the photo hosting service/social media platform. The Flickr commercial use policy has been in effect for years, so even though they have not enforced it in the past, they are now. It’s time to pay up or risk having your account terminated. According to this blog post on NWN, many Second Life residents with FREE accounts are in violation of the commercial use policy.
If you are a designer in SL and make money, consider Flickr Pro the cost of doing business, if you actually want to do business and not call it a “hobby”. As my friend says, even hobbies cost money. I’m surprised at the pushback from some SL designers and bloggers since Flickr is the photo social platform of choice for SL residents, and not even prohibitively expensive. It’s only $50/year! I’ve been a Flickr Pro member since November 2007 (proof below) and an SL snapshot addict with over 19,660 photos. I definitely see value in Flickr from the moment I started using it to cross-post my blog photos and saw that I could multi-task by promoting my blog and follow my favorite brands at the same time!
There are so many reasons that Flickr is superior to other photo hosting services, that it would be a huge loss for designers and Second Life residents if it shuts down. Would you support a service that you use for pleasure or for profit, for $50/year? Many brands in SL don’t even update their blog nowadays, so they rely on the social power of Flickr to share their new releases. And what will become of “flickr bloggers”, if they can no longer credit brands and post links? If you find value in Flickr, it’s time to go pro before it bites the dust.
If you want to remain a FREE Flickr account, here’s what you need to do to not have your account terminated:
Go to your Flickr page -> click on CAMERA ROLL tab -> go down the list of your photos sorted by Year & Month, click on each month then click Select All -> then click Edit
Here is where you can ‘batch’ edit all of the photos in that month to remove ALL of the descriptions and just make it blank. It should be a fairly easy task with only 12 months in a year. Don’t edit with the Organizr, go through Camera Roll, it’s much better for batch removal of descriptions.
Once you have the Edit window up, you can just delete anything that you have in the description, click Save, and it will remove all the description form ALL of the photos selected for that month.
Are you affected by Flickr now enforcing its commercial use policy? Are you going pro or remaining a free account? Let me know in the comments!
*** This blog post is not paid by Flickr, although they should pay me cos I am a huge fan! I’ve been a fan through several acquisitions and have loved it for over a decade. Hire me, Don MacAskill!
