Flickr has announced it will now be hosting video – with a maximum length of 90 seconds. The idea is that these are “long photos”, “capturing slices of life to share”
I’m not sure what the implications are for journalism or journalists (note the distinction). Could we see a July 7 moment, but with short video? Will it be easier for users to upload video to Flickr from their mobiles than it is to upload to YouTube? Can we expect better composed video on Flickr because it comes from a community of photographers? (If that matters to you)
I don’t know, which is why I’m calling for your comments and thoughts on this.
Online Journalism Blog 
I’m not convinced that this will work, since flickr is primarily about sharing art. Is there a need for 90 second video clips in this category.
But, I think that by limiting it to 90 seconds, people will have to think a bit more about what makes the cut, than say with YouTube. So maybe the videos will be more wheat and less chaff.
Interesting this. I’ve just come back from Japan, mainly taking stills but shooting a few very short snippets as video, when that medium summarised the scene more effectively. I cut them together as a less-than-a-minute montage. The natural home for this would be with the other stills on Flickr:
http://flickr.com/photos/38857952@N00/collections/72157604420344880/
rather than isolated on YouTube.
(I’m also not very happy with the technical quality of the uploaded video on YouTube but that’s probably another issue)
I think the enforced shortness is probably a boon – we’re certainly encouraging journalists to make video as short and snappy as possible, and 90 secs seems like the upper limit of what people will accept in a “atmosphere” vid,
It might make people think a lot harder about video length.
For journalistic purposes, 90 seconds might be sufficient. As technology expands, our attention spans are getting shorter. But I agree with Pete that for artistic purposes, most video makers will need more than a minute and a half to express themselves.
A lot of good newspaper videos run about two minutes, so 90 seconds seems a reasonable limit. Flickr seems less unwieldy and easier to navigate than YouTube, and that along with the time limit makes me optimistic about the addition of video.
Also, the first Flickr video I watched was this bit of hilariousness, so I already think the addition is a success.
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