Yahoo Photos Will Soon 'Flickr' Out

If you're a Yahoo Photos user, you'll soon be moving your precious online family albums elsewhere. That's because Yahoo is officially shutting down its Photos portal in favor of its newer -- and far superior -- photo sharing website, Flickr.com.

To Yahoo's credit, it won't simply force Flickr on its users. Instead, according to Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield, Yahoo will also direct folks to a variety of outside options. PhotoBucket, MySpace, Kodak Gallery, Shutterfly, and Snapfish are said to be among the choices Yahoo Photos members will be given.

"Flickr will get top-billing, of course," Butterfield admitted.

So, why the change?

Jeff Weiner, the executive vice president of Yahoo's Network Division, says that the company's decision to replace Yahoo Photos with Flickr will "better serve" its customers. (Source: pcmag.com)

The main reason for this shift may be peanut butter. Well, sort of.

Brad Garlinghouse, the senior vice president of Yahoo's Communications, Communities, and Front Doors division (whew!) is also the author of a document known as "The Peanut Butter Manifesto." In a nutshell (pun intended), Garlinghouse suggested that Yahoo was spreading itself too thin. (Source: zdnet.com)

"We lack a focused, cohesive vision for our company," Garlinghouse wrote. "We want to do everything and be everything -- to everyone. We've known this for years, talk about it incessantly, but do nothing to fundamentally address it. We are scared to be left out. We are reactive instead of charting an unwavering course." (Source: wsj.com)

The transition from Yahoo Photos to Flickr may be the company's first major step in implementing Garlinghouse's "peanut butter" philosophies.

According to Butterfield, Flickr users will soon be able to add videos as well. That obviously places the site in direct competition to Google's popular YouTube service. (Source: zdnet.com)