Flickr, Video and Image Hosting Acquired by SmugMug, Photography Platform

Flickr has agreed to be acquired by SmugMug, the photography platform dedicated to visual storytellers.

Flickr the San Francisco-based image- and video-hosting website and web services suite announced this that it has agreed to be acquired by SmugMug, the photography platform. All Flickr data and user’s account will transfer over to SmugMug on May 25, 2018, stated Flickr in an email statement to The Scope Weekly.

It’s not the first time that Flickr changes hand. It was first created by Vancouver, British Columbia-based Ludicorp in 2004,  and acquired by Yahoo on 20 March 2005. Then on 25 July 2016, Verizon announced that it had entered a deal to acquire Yahoo and Flickr with the deal closing on 13 June 2017.

According to Yahoo Flickr media page pitch, there are currently 51 million registered Flickr members. Yahoo further cites “24.8 million unique U.S. visitors (nearly 80 million worldwide) spending an average of 2.7 minutes per visit to the site.  And even though, it has seen its popularity dwindle somehow, everybody in the publishing industry uses Flickr. The IACP Center for Social Media says that Flickr users upload 3.5 million photos to the site each day.

SmugMug a small family-run business is an oddity in Silicon Valley. It has never taken a dime from investors and operates on a smaller scale.  Founded in 2002, it has faithfully build a following of millions with a single-mindedness focus on photography and storytelling.  SmugMug CEO Don MacAskill told USA TODAY who broke the news that he’s still figuring out his actual plans: “It sounds silly for the CEO not to know what he’s going to do, but we haven’t built SmugMug on a master plan either. We try to listen to our customers, and when enough of them ask for something that’s important to them or to the community, we go and build it.”

Taking a direct shot at Facebook, MacAskill added, “This is a new model for me.” Taking a direct shot at Facebook, he also said “We don’t mine our customers’ photos for information to sell to the highest bidder, or to turn into targeted advertising campaigns.”

The company’ s vision for the merger is hinted at in its FAQ:

SmugMug and Flickr represent the world’s most influential community of photographers, and there is strength in numbers. We want to provide photographers with both inspiration and the tools they need to tell their stories. We want to bring excitement and energy to inspire more photographers to share their perspective. And we want to be a welcome place for all photographers: hobbyist to archivist to professional.

Following is Flickr’s partial statement:

SmugMug has a long history of empowering people who love photography and who want to improve their craft, making them a perfect fit for Flickr and our creative community. With SmugMug, we’ll continue to focus on you, the Flickr members who inspire us all with your work.

Nothing will change immediately with regard to your Flickr account. You will still access Flickr with your current login credentials, and you will have the same Flickr experience as you do now. We will continue to work to make your Flickr experience even better.

We think you are going to love Flickr under SmugMug ownership, but you can choose to not have your Flickr account and data transferred to SmugMug until May 25, 2018. If you want to keep your Flickr account and data from being transferred, you must go to your Flickr account to download the photos and videos you want to keep, then delete your account from your Account Settings by May 25, 2018.

 No details surrounding the financial terms of the acquisition have been made public yet.

At the time of publishing, SmugMug had not responded to our request for comments. If new information is provided, the article will be updated accordingly.


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