Yahoo calls Microsoft inadequate

Talk February 16, 2008

The recent news about Microsoft wanting and pushing to buy Yahoo has raised for me a few serious questions on how to proceed in the future.

Personally I am not a big user of Yahoo services, even though I have still two active email accounts. Going onto their site to retrieve email has always been painful for me – too many ads in my face and slow access to the points I am really interested in. To avoid the hassle I use MacFreePop.

So why the worries?

It is my usage of the Flickr services. Over the past years this usage was spotty but convenient. This to a point that I do have a Pro account. And there are currently several plugins which play nicely with it, including WordPress. Being active on different sites it is useful to have one place for dump-them-all kinda bucket. Also that I can blog a photo without hassle is nice touch.

Flickr has become that location from where strings have been pulled here and there. It minimizes work of preparing imagery for different services. It’s interface has been uncluttered which I appreciate a lot. Just recently I had decided to again make more use of these services, especially also with this blog, to communicate about various designs.

The news of Microsoft pursuing purchase of Yahoo has put Flickr for me into an unstable state.

Even though I am aware that if aquisition WOULD ever happen, changes to Flickr would not happen too quickly… if at all. It is the mere thought that these changes COULD be in the future which makes me think hard about how to proceed. I could go back to my former path and e.g. upload all imagery directly to this server and once again become totally independent from Flickr.

Even though I don’t want to face it, Ashley from Upstartblogger might just have hit the nail by saying:

Unfortunately I don’t think Yahoo will be able hold out forever and it’s a given that Microsoft won’t give up. At least this rejection will buy some time for all those people who want to clear out their Flickr accounts before Gates and Balmer get their hands on them.

And maybe this is just the way to go.

How do you see it, what are your thoughts on this issue? Are you already packing the bags or are you sitting back to watch the show?