Flickr ascendant

Yahoo! has announced that it will close Yahoo! Photos in favor of Flickr. On the one hand, the move looks a bit funny considering that Y!P has consistently been a much more trafficked site than Flickr. On the other hand, Yahoo! Photos' traffic has been flat while Flickr's has been growing steadily. Plus, in the wake of Yahoo!'s persistent struggles it makes sense to consolidate properties and not run two competing photo-sharing sites.

All of which makes the news not entirely unexpected.

Still, this raises (at least in my eyes) a couple of issues that I hope Yahoo! has thought through:

1. The interface thing - I love Flickr, but I think it has one of the most problematic interfaces out there. After more than two years of using the service (and having paid up as a member twice now) I still find myself hesitating and being forced to read the help material when trying to do relatively simple tasks. Yahoo! Photos made things a lot more simple. Which leads me to wonder how my non-computer savvy mother-in-law who might have been able to handle Y!P's interface will get along with Flickr's.
   
   Granted Flickr has been improving things over time, but IMHO it's still not quite ready for prime time and I wonder what effect this will have on old-time Y!P users.
    
2. Flickr's snob factor - Flickr managed to acquire the mind share that it has in part because it is positioned as a quality photo site. As some people have pointed out, Flikr's message (think of the "Interestingness" feature) creates a kind of subtle pressure only to upload your best photos. Compare and contrast with the message you get from sites like Photobucket. Yahoo! Photos leans more in the direction of the latter than the former, so again it will be interesting to see how Y!P users adapt and how longtime Flickr users will react to the waves of hillbillies who are now moving into their neighborhood, as it were.
    
3. New services - If Yahoo! wants the new Flickr to really take off it will need to enhance a couple of features, especially photo printing. Yahoo! Photos was pretty good with this, Flickr not so much. Also, IMHO they need to improve features for regulating access to photo albums.