I've never been anything but a casual consumer of flickr, so I'm a bit out of touch--what is it that Yahoo changed to make it not awesome? Can anybody explain to me what changes they'd like her to make?
But there's definitely still a niche for people who don't want to weave every single aspect of their online identity together in one profile. If Yahoo! can allow Flickr the independence to emulate the photo-sharing aspects of FB without the "we're tracking your every move" rapacious identity profiling of FB, it should be able to revive the brand. Not only that, Flickr might actually become the kind of "Facebook-like" place that Yahoo 360 tried to be, or that Google Plus is still working on becoming.
How can they not have an iPad app yet?
They have not integrated social into it very much. For example, one is able to comment, but one cannot arrange by timeline vs popular (there is no up or downvoting comments). One cannot say "show me all the comments I've made".
There is no easy way to showcase photos in a group (other than the pool itself). Basically the concept of "galleries" that they have for individuals but instead for groups. In other words better "curation" tools for groups -where most of the exciting conversations happen anyway.
Search is horrible.
They do have a very captive audience but they need to act before people migrate to other services. Facebook is okay but it's different.
On the other hand, they have not made using it "creepy" and they have resisted plastering it with ads (for the free users). I like that it's just my photos an my interactions with other enthusiasts and does not relate to my life elsewhere.
Otherwise, Flickr remains for me far superior to the other options out there. I don't use Facebook and don't have any interest in using Instagram to actively degrade my photos.
My question is: Why can't Flickr do everything the other photo apps/sites do? I don't really need/want it to, but can Flickr be all things to all people? Is that important?
If they start making changes so the users come back, I'm afraid those changes won't be for good of the actual users.