On Monday, Time wrote about the “25 Sites We Can’t Live Without.” Meh. Don’t count me in that we. Amazon? Really? I think if something happened to Amazon, I could still live. I prefer Google “Products” search these days (although the old name Froogle was much better). Some of the choices I definitely agree with (IMDB, eBay, Craig’s List, Wikipedia), but other sites get the WTF Face: Yahoo? CitySearch? It’s not 1998 anymore. Freakin’ Netflix?? As a service, it’s great. But as a site-I-can’t-live-without…?
At least Flickr is on the list. Flickr is one site that continually delights me. As of late, I’m digging the maps section, an area where people geo-tag their photos and drop them on the map where the photos were taken, or close to it. The maps interface is a bit clumsy right now, from a usability perspective, but I have faith that they’ll improve it, as they have everything else on the site. I love the limited amount of quality products Flickr has for sale, too — like Qoop photobooks. I ordered one last year, and it was professional-looking, inexpensive, and shipped fast. And it makes a really great personal gift. They give their members credit by not making the commerce options the focal point of the homepage, or any other page for that matter. In fact, while there’s a block of info about products on the homepage by default, members can click to close the commercial message. When you refresh the page, poof! It’s gone. How many websites today will let you control the money-making aspects of the site?
Hmm. Maybe this should have been a post about the “25 parts of Flickr I can’t live without.” I haven’t even started on my favorite groups yet.
