Flickr originally launched at the O’Reilly Emerging Tech conference back on February 10, 2004. In March of 2004, Flickr raised its upload limit to 1 MB per photo. Not long after introducing tags and comments for photos, Flickr was acquired by Yahoo in 2005. By the time 2007 rolled around, Flickr reached 2 billion photos, a number that would triple over the following four years. Flickr added video support in 2008, along with launching the Commons, a catalogue of the world’s public photo archives in collaboration with the Library of Congress. Today Flickr offers 1 TB of free storage and its users take part in two million groups and share one million photos each day.
Recently Flickr updated its website (making it “biggr” and more “spectaculr”) and mobile Android and iPhone apps to include new camera capabilities, custom filters and auto-correction features. Yahoo has also recently tapped Flickr for a new Picture of the Day column on its home site.
Below, see how Flickr evolved over the last decade:
Stewart Butterfield, Co-Founder of Flickr, said:
It’s exciting for me to celebrate Flickr’s birthday! When we dreamed this photo site 10 years ago, we couldn’t have imagined the impact it would have on digital photo sharing and the way it would connect people worldwide. I am proud of Flickr and excited for what’s ahead.
You can also check out Flickr’s decade celebration video here.
Happy birthday Flickr!