Flickr is no longer a Yahoo property: acquired by SmugMug

When you visit the Flickr or SmugMug website today, you are informed that the photo storage service SmugMug has acquired the photo hosting community site Flickr from Yahoo / Oath / Verizon.

Flickr was once a popular, maybe the most popular, photo hosting community site on the Internet. Users could sign up for an account on the site to upload photos to it and use different community features to join groups, share photos, or use comment and voting functionality.

The rise of smartphones and competing image hosting services impacted Flickr's popularity in a negative way. Yahoo tried to compete with new services by launching redesigns of Flickr, but it seemed that the company's priorities lay elsewhere.

Information is scarce at this point in time. The "together page" has lots of photos but only a couple of sentences that reveal little.

SmugMug has acquired Flickr.

If you use our products today, rest easy, they aren't going anywhere.

The future is bright, but we'll only get there together.

Let's do this.

SmugMug revealed, however, that Flickr will operate as an individual entity which means that both sites and services will remain available on the Internet for the foreseeable future.

SmugMug and Flickr represent the world’s most influential community of photographers, and there is strength in numbers. We want to provide photographers with both inspiration and the tools they need to tell their stories. We want to bring excitement and energy to inspire more photographers to share their perspective. And we want to be a welcome place for all photographers: hobbyist to archivist to professional.

Verizon acquired Yahoo last year and Flickr was part of the deal. It was clear back then that Verizon had plans to sell services and sites that did not make good fits for the company's web portfolio.

Neither Oath/Verizon nor SmugMug revealed details of the deal. It is unclear how much SmugMug paid Oath for the acquisition of Flickr.

The FAQ page reveals additional information about the impact of the deal:

• Flickr accounts and SmugMug accounts will continue to work just like before.
• Photos won't be moved or changed.
• Flickr will continue to offer a free version.
• Flickr's pricing for Pro customers won't change.
• All Flickr users will get emails asking them to accept SmugMug's Terms of Service.