How does Flickr make money?

asim

asim

asim

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Hey. I have been doing some research into web based companies as I'm interested in possibly starting a web business. But I'd rather not do the same old same old so I'm look at new ideas and also the failure/successes of other companies.

What I came across was Flickr

It intrigued me because someone had said in an article that they thought it was based on a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG). Which kind of took me over to what makes Flickr a success? And where does their profit come from?

I know people here will know the answers so please fill me in :p

Asim
 
that link ?

Its a yahoo photo hosting site, where do they get their money? From advertising by yahoo?

i dont get the question. sorry :)
 
it's been bought by yahoo as another already reputable service they can offer, like launch among others
as far as i'm aware there is a premium account option, which will bring some revenue in, the rest will come from advertising and probably some funding from yahoo
it's not really a big business site, i cant imagine it makes amazing amounts of money, but that which it does will come from the above
i imagine yahoo now host/maintain it
 
So I assume something of this nature could be created and sold to a large organisation. I think the way myspace was created and then sold.
 
I'm not sure flickr has adverts on it – certainly can’t see any at a glance. Instead its model is based on the provision of a limited free service with considerable incentive to upgrade to a ‘pro’ account. Thus it gets people hooked for free and then takes money off them if they want more.

So they have a decent product and a good distinction between free and ‘pro’ versions that make people want to upgrade.
 
asim said:
So I assume something of this nature could be created and sold to a large organisation. I think the way myspace was created and then sold.
Click to expand...

it could, but as far as i'm aware myspace, launch, flickr werent inentionally designed to then be bought by a big company, it was just due to their success that offers came in

you need a very very successful site before a big company would be interested in buying it
and it's got to be adding something to their repetoire that they dont already have
 
I've got a Pro account on flickr. It's good value for 2gb upload per month upload for a year. It's reassuring to know that all your photos are backed up somewhere safe.

It was recently bought by Yahoo. Previously it was owened by a canadian company called Ludicorp. I think Yahoo bought it for the userbase, making users merge their accounts to form one single 'Yahoo ID'. Many flickr users were unhappy with the Yahoo acqusition and formed a protest against it, which nothing really came of.

There are loads of people in/near Newcastle on flickr who meetup quite often. It's more than just a website, it's an entire community. If I ever go to Bristol or London I know I'll have a contact that be delighted to show me around and take me on a photographic tour.

Alex
 
Flickr does have adverts on - text links to the left of the page (http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/liberty/ for example). Other image hosting sites like photobucket have paired up with photo printing companies to offer prints of uploads to people which is quite a good idea imo.

I don't think this alone is the company worth, like myspace, flickbook and many other social networking type sites is the userbase and the potential to market other services to a demographic that is harder to reach.
 
New ideas are constantly based on fully taking into consideration what the user will be attracted to and want to use rather than being concerned with what will make the most money. Gotta think outside of the box. Sometimes it seems like everything you need is already there, but thats the thinking of a quitter and a man with no imagination. :)
 
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