We wrote a post yesterday calling into question the financial viability of Flickr, given another blogger’s rough estimates of its annual revenue, Yahoo’s struggles and the recent news that Delicious is going to be shuttered or sold.
A number of people chimed in to reassure us that Flickr is going to be ok. First, former Flickr chief software architect Cal Henderson posted several comments assuring us that costs were lower than estimated and ad revenue much higher. Now today Yahoo PR sent us the following statement from Blake Irving, Chief Product Officer at Yahoo. Irviing says the company is absolutely committed to Flickr.
“I appreciate the thoughtful discussion here and I want to add clarity to this topic: Yahoo! is absolutely committed to Flickr and its community of members. The board, myself, and the entire leadership team love this product and believe it is incredibly in sync with our product strategy for Yahoo! Flickr has a huge worldwide audience, an amazing brand, and it’s profitable. We’re excited to continue evolving and supporting Flickr so we can make the service even better. “
Blake Irving
EVP, Chief Product Officer, Yahoo!
Irving said roughly the same thing in 140 charecters a few minutes ago. You might recognize that avatar as the same one who freaked out and promised to fire whoever leaked the internal slide deck disclosing the company’s plans to “sunset” Delicious. I hope this is all for real. If Flickr were closed, or had less instead of more energy put into it, that would be a real shame.
