Now Playing: Flickr Video

Starting this past Wednesday, Flickr underwent a major change in allowing pro users to upload videos as well as photos. This news has made a big splash across the web, with the community divided on whether this was a good or bad move.

Those who are against the move have united in large numbers on the Flickr website. There are several groups that want Flickr to remain solely for photos. They have some legitimate concerns that I understand. No one wants Flickr to become another YouTube. Flickr is largely a very personal site, and flooding it with television clips and music videos would be absolutely horrid.

The Flickr team has addressed these concerns however, by imposing limits on the length of the videos. Right now they are limiting each video to 90 seconds in length, which should eliminate some of the larger YouTube effect. They also have imposed a 150mb file size limit. The restrictions that are placed on videos are meant to focus the use of Flickr video into what the team refers to as “long photos.” They talk about this and more in the official Flickr blog.

I do share some concerns with these people, but I think that measurements have been taken to preserve the integrity of the site. With these in place I feel that video clips can be a useful addition to Flickr. Most digital cameras have video functionality, and as we will see later some have impressive quality (in my opinion anyway). Flickr video is intended for short clips that you would snap almost as quickly as a photo, and I am sure a lot of users are going to create some great content to share with their friends and family.

Being a Flickr Pro user, I have the capability to upload videos. To try out the service I created a video and uploaded it. You can see on its Flickr page, or watch the embedded video below (if you are reading this in an RSS reader you will want to open up a browser).

This is actually the first time I tried the video functionality on my Sony DSC-T70. I was impressed by the quality of video it produces. It is definitely a step-up from “standard” web video quality. The process of uploading the video to Flickr was just as simple as uploading a photo. Once everything was complete, I could watch the video and also get the code to embed it just as easily as a photo.

I think the player is slick, and Flickr has maintained its simple identity throughout the process. I hope to get some more videos up that are more than me just looking unshaven and showing off my computer. I was hesitant when I heard the rumors, but now that Flickr Video is actually here I must say I am excited. Flickr will remain probably 90% photography for me, but having the ability to upload videos is very cool. I am just curious how it will be received with some users already using offerings such as Vimeo.

Would more jbomb.net videos be a good thing? What are your thoughts on the new Flickr service?