14th
Back To The Basics
Time for My Flickr to shift back to the basics!
Over the past year, the number of people and Facebook Pages using My Flickr has grown tremendously, and, for that, I say, Thank You! At the writing of this post, My Flickr has +390,000 monthly active users and almost 20,000 fans. It is running completely on your support through both PayPal donations and minimal ads.
My Flickr, which I started developing as soon as Facebook revealed its app platform in May 2007, has grown to accomplish the following features:
- Display exactly the photos a user wants according to searches (simple to advanced)
- Showcase up to three custom searches of a user’s Flickr photos and photosets in a huge My Flickr tab in their Facebook profile
- Broadcast updates about a user’s latest Flickr photo uploads to their news feed
- Display larger versions of a user’s photos to their Facebook friends
- Allow Facebook friends to comment on Flickr photos within Facebook without needing a Flickr account!
However, as of January 12, 2010, the latter two features (4 & 5) have been disabled until further notice, bringing My Flickr back to the basics. I’ll explain.
One of the biggest complaints & concerns voiced by My Flickr’s users included ME, is that navigating around the My Flickr app became extremely slow and sometimes just failed to load. Anyone? Yes. Something needed to be done. I began tweaking & re-factoring the code here and there as much as I could and made some progress; nevertheless, the increasing load from the number of excited users and their Facebook friends taking advantage of the sweet new Photostream & commenting features became to much for our server to handle.
What do people on Facebook most want to do with their Flickr photos?
First, automatically notify their friends & family when they upload new photos. Secondly, showcase & share photos taken with those who view their profile! The basics.

My Flickr desires to accomplish those two tasks and execute them well.
This past semester (senior year!) was definitely the most involved and busiest of my scholastic career. I learned Objective-C programming & even created UH Guide, an iPhone application for the University of Houston (download here). I had no free time to work on My Flickr’s growing load problems.
As I mentioned, both viewing and commenting on larger versions of one’s photos within My Flickr is disabled until further notice. Don’t worry though, Facebook friends who click on a user’s photo or photosets will continue to be directed to the appropriate Flickr pages to view them in full glory! During my free time this last semester, I’ll be working on ways to continue to improve the basics in the My Flickr Facebook application as well as ways to re-enable the other features.
Cheers.
-Kaleb Fulgham




