A Photos Alternative

Reading through the feedback that you send us here on the Yahoo! Mail Beta team, I see a lot of comments/questions about how best to send photos through Mail. One suggestion that I can offer is – in fact – not to send Photos through mail. A much easier, robust and fun alternative exists, and it’s right at your fingertips. It’s called Flickr – the award winning photos sharing site – that just happens to be another great Yahoo! site.

So how does it work?
Simple really. Just log into Flickr with your Yahoo! ID. (If it’s your first time logging into Flickr you get to choose a screen name which can be different from your user ID). At this point you can upload a photo, or if you have a whole bunch of photos you can use one of the Flickr uploading tools. When you’re finished uploading, you can change the title, enter a description or add a tag.

Once you’re finished uploading, find the link on the bottom-right side of the page called “Send to a friend”. Enter an email address, or two, or three. Write a witty message. Then click send. That’s all there is to it.

So why is this good?
This way is an excellent way to share photos for so many reasons it’s going to be hard to list them all here. But what the heck, I’ll give it a go:

• Your photos aren’t constrained by size
• You don’t overstuff your friends’ inboxes (hey, we know not everyone uses Yahoo! with unlimited storage – but you’ll change that right? ;-) )
• One link gives them access to all of your photos
• Create groups in Flickr for your friends and family and when you upload new pictures they can be alerted right away.
• Your friends and family can leave comments and everyone can see the comments (sure beats reply-all)
• You can place your photos on a map (how addictive is that?!?!)
• And so much more

A fun way to get started with Flickr is by just exploring. It’s fun, addictive and a great way to share photos with friends, family and a world-wide photo community.

Happy snapping!
Andrew – Yahoo! Mail Beta Team