by alec on January 30, 2007
I had to miss this afternoon’s press conference with Mark Spencer and new Digium CEO Danny Windham. Pauline at MRB (Digium’s PR company) called as I was heading into the security checkpoint for my flight home. Tom Keating, however, recorded the entirety of the call. Others have commented on what this means, and generally speaking I agree with the view expressed by commenters like Garrett Smith and Owen Linderholm. Digium has taken a giant step forward with this move. Already profitable, they’ve now brought in talent to grow their channels to market, and the ecosystem of third parties building products that work with Asterisk. It’s just what the doctor ordered.Â
Since the summer when Digium took a venture investment from Matrix, various commenters have wondered publicly and privately how long Mark Spencer would stay as CEO. It wasn’t unexpected that Mark would eventually end up in a new role. Venture capitalists, after all, have a nasty habit of replacing founding CEOs. Sometimes it’s a happy ending, and sometimes not. What was clear on this call, however, was the easy relationship between Mark and incoming CEO Danny Windham. Windham has been a Digium board member for the last seven years, and it shows. From the very beginning of the call, you get the sense that this was Mark’s choice. It appears that not only is he comfortable with the decision, he’s eager to get to work in his new role.
Well done.Â
by alec on January 30, 2007
When Yahoo! bought Flickr, they kept the old Flickr with the old accounts that the initial supporters of Flickr had purchased intact. Your account name was your email address, and that was that. Anybody who had a Yahoo ID was just another account name, but you could still be a Flickr member as before.
Today this arrived in my Flickr inbox:
From:
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FlickrHQ
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Subject:
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Update for Old Skool members
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Dear Old Skool Account-Holding Flickr Member,Â
On March 15th we’ll be discontinuing the old email-based Flickr sign in system. From that point on, everyone will have to use a Yahoo! ID to sign in to Flickr.
We’re making this change now to simplify the sign in process in advance of several large projects launching this year, but some Flickr features and tools already require Yahoo! IDs for sign in — like the mobile site at m.flickr.com or the new Yahoo! Go program for mobiles, available at Yahoo! Go.
95% of your fellow Flickrites already use this system and their experience is just the same as yours is now, except they sign in on a different page. It’s easy to switch: it takes about a minute if you already have a Yahoo! ID and about five minutes if you don’t.
You can make the switch at any time in the next few months, from today till the 15th. (After that day, you’ll be required to merge before you continue using your account.) To switch, go to Merge a Flickr and Yahoo! account.
Nothing else on your account or experience of Flickr changes: you can continue to have your FlickrMail and notifications sent to any email address at any domain and your screenname will remain the same.
Complete details and answers to most common questions are in our FAQ: Yahoo! IDs, signing in and screen names.
Thanks for your patience and understanding – and even bigger thanks for your continued support of Flickr: if you’re reading this, you’ve been around for a while and that means a lot to us!
Warmest regards,
- The Flickreenos |
Now, I have already got a couple of Yahoo IDs. Every time they come out with a service I want to try, I end up getting a new Yahoo ID, because I can’t remember the old one. Fact is, the email address I used when I joined Flickr is the most consistent identifier I have, and the most consistent way to reach me.
I don’t really want a Yahoo ID, and every time Yahoo (or AOL, or… whoever!!!) forces me to get one it drives me crazy. But now that Yahoo has my photos hostage (and this blog, by the way, since there would be a ton of broken links if I were to drop my Flickr account), I’ll be forced to use one.
Frankly, it sucks. I shouldn’t have to get new credentials every time someone launches a new web service. I shouldn’t be forced to participate in every BigCo’s proprietary identity scheme just to use their services, either.
