Data Backup Digest

Yahoo recently up hauled all of Flickr and gave it a completely new design. A new website front page provided users with an activity feed of photos, while a new app was launched for Android devices. Perhaps one of the biggest announcements was the news that every user would be given 1TB of storage space completely free.
"We hope you'll agree that we have made huge strides to make Flickr awesome again," said Yahoo chief executive Marissa Mayer.
Additionally, users will now be able to upload longer video files and higher resolution pictures. Previously, free users had a limit of 30MB on a photo and paid users had a 50MB limit. This is now 200MB for both. There is also now a three minute limit on video clips instead of the previous 90 seconds.
The 1TB of storage space will be more than enough for the majority of users. Flickr are banking on the fact that a lot of people will barely ever touch that limit. According to their onsite calculator, 1 terabyte is equal to 537,731 photos from a 6.5 megapixel camera. That’s a lot of photos and that figure only decreases if your camera isn’t as strong as that.
"Other people are talking about gigabytes of storage, but here we are talking about terabytes. 'Limitless' is very difficult to say from a legal perspective, but we hope people using Flickr will never have to worry about storage,” said Jennifer Davies, head of social and community properties at Yahoo.
The new storage changes have also brought about different account prices. Pro accounts were previously $24.99 a year for “unlimited” storage; now the storage cap is the same as free users, with the only benefit being no adverts, for a price of $49.99 a year. Users wishing to double their storage to 2TB will need to pay $499.99 a year, known as a ‘Doublr’ account.
Although $499.99 a year for 2TB may seem like a lot in comparison to the free price tag of 1TB, it’s still a much better offering than competitors. That sort of storage space would cost you over a grand from Google, although granted there are less file restrictions.
1TB of space is equivalent to around 180 hours of high definition video. Only enthusiasts and professionals are ever going to get close to touching that limit on their Flickr accounts, and it’s these people that Yahoo are targeting with their $499.99 price tag.
Chris Green, principal technology analyst at Davies Murphy Group Europe, said, “Marissa Mayer is trying to realign the business to focus on a core set of high-traffic properties. The 1TB of ad-supported free storage is the big thing. It puts Flickr back on the agenda making it relevant to both hobbyist and professional photographers alike, but it also reignites the whole storage capacity war that started with Gmail and that we are now seeing with cloud file sharing services.”
Flickr currently has around 90 million monthly users and this strongly competitive move from Yahoo looks set to keep the service on strong footing for a long time.