Just like promised, Flickr added videos earlier this week. The Flickr community is showing a mixed response, while some users are happy with videos, others are crying over the limitations. There is even a group of users protesting the launch of videos from Flickr.
Talking about the limitations, only pro members are eligible to upload videos. These members pay a subscription of $24.95 per year to get unlimited storage, sets and now for videos. Yahoo Blog explains "Pro members are the most active, dedicated members of the Flickr community and are the foundation to all we do at Flickr".
The length of the videos you upload to Flickr can be no greater than 90 seconds. Any video greater than 90 seconds will be automatically clipped after 90 seconds mark. Maximum size of the video cannot exceed 150 MB, which sounds decent for a 90 second video. I guess this limitation was imposed to ensure no copyright infringed videos enter Flickr, however it still disappoints me a lot. Here’s a sample of how Flickr Video will look like, if embedded on your site:
As you can see above, the flash player is quite beautiful. You can switch to a fullscreen view straight from where it was embedded, no watermark, and the controls neatly disappear once the video starts playing.
As a little bonus for free member, they’ve doubled the size per photo. This means free users can now upload 10 MB per photo and members with pro account can upload 20 MB per photo.
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