Photo-sharing site SmugMug — used by consumers and professionals alike — has agreed to acquire Flickr from Yahoo-owner Oath. The deal will see Flickr continuing to operate as a separate entity.
Photo-sharing site SmugMug — used by consumers and professionals alike — has agreed to acquire Flickr from Yahoo-owner Oath. The deal will see Flickr continuing to operate as a separate entity.
The aim is to great what’s described as “the world’s best home for photography”, building on Flickr’s existing 100 million-strong userbase. But what does the acquisition mean for Flickr users, and what does it mean for SmugMug’s customers?
Both companies are eager to stress that nothing is going to change. That said, SmugMug does says that it will be migrating Flickr onto SmugMug’s technology infrastructure, but it does not give any indication of when this will be happening. The company also says “we don’t have any plans for immediate changes”, but this obviously doesn’t rule out change completely, and the notion of “immediately” is open to interpretation.
A message posted on the SmugMug website doesn’t give away anything about the terms of the deal:
SmugMug makes it clear that Flickr will be kept completely separately, and there are no currently plans to either remove free Flickr subscriptions, or change the price of paid-for packages. The company is also keen to reassure users that there are no other changes planned for the services, other than an “eventual” move to SmugMug terms of service — SmugMug uses the word “eventually”, but Flickr explains:
In a FAQ about the acquisition, SmugMug says:
Flickr users who have questions about what the acquisition means can turn to the official discussion thread in the site’s help forums.
