'Flickr takes 100% market share of users'

This number one Internet photo sharing and management service has just celebrated 3 years of operation. Co-founder Stewart Butterfield shared his thoughts on Flickr's development process, Yahoo's position and ambitions in the future.

- How do you rate what Flickr has done in the last 3 years?

Through Flickr, we have a more specific view of the world. The problem is that we have to make this service grow stronger but still maintain the quality and create a sense of attachment for more than 7.2 million subscribers and 23 million visitors a month.

Stewart Butterfield.Photos: Wikipedia .

Yahoo's goal is to connect passionate people and Flickr to play an important role in that strategy. We have attracted many members who are passionate about photography. In addition, they have countless other interests and Flickr is an intermediary for them to exchange and share with each other.

- If viewed as "the eyes of the world", how would you like Flickr to play in providing news and images?

Yes, we are pursuing that goal. Flickr is currently used as a huge source of images and I dare say there is no way to achieve diversity and richness like on Flickr. There have been a number of events appearing in the media but there are no illustrations, while we have tried to look up on Flickr and always find at least some "toxic" photos. In the future, users can easily ask: "Show me the pictures that were taken 15 minutes ago within 1 km".

- Do you intend to support the photography community to sell or rent their photos?

That's what we should do and we're looking to realize this plan, but there's also a lot of trouble, for example, a time issue. For example, in a plane crash in New York, the reporter will not have enough time to negotiate with the photographer and they will only write the Flickr source.

- Who is the main rival of Flickr today?

Very interesting question. When it was first merged into Yahoo, many people wondered where Flickr stood in the market, specifically how many percent. I still answer that our market is all Flickr users, so we have 100% market share. We don't have a real opponent yet, but there will be a day when that opponent will appear.

Flickr also became a place to sell items such as cameras, clothing, jewelry . to Vietnamese users.Screenshots.

On the one hand, Flickr competes with photo sharing websites, but we offer services in a completely different way. On the other hand, we are racing indirectly with Facebook, MySpace . but that is not a direct confrontation.

- Flickr is a "pioneer" in content classification and tagging (tagging). What do you think about the development of tagging?

Tagging is always "healthy" on Flickr even though people have not really paid attention to the revolution of this technology. Many people don't even know how to use it, but it helps them to search in real time over 400 million photos on Flickr.

- Are Yahoo's leaders happy with Flickr?

Flickr's profit comes mainly from subscription services and we are also testing online advertising. No one in Yahoo is concerned about Flickr's revenue and always believes in the great potential of the service.