From our SIAT (Storm In A Teacup) department:
"A splinter faction of Flickr photo-sharing community members is threatening a symbolic "mass suicide" to protest closer integration with the website's new owner, Yahoo," reports Wired News.
"At stake is a new user-profile stipulation that reads: 'We will be migrating all independent Flickr accounts to Yahoo's network in 2006. At that time, if you have not done so already, you will be asked to create a Yahoo ID (or link your account to your Yahoo ID if you already have one) in order to continue using your account.'"
Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield told Wired News that Flickr users "can be as distinct as they want it to be in terms of how other users see them -- it just means that they sign on using different credentials. The integration will make it a lot easier to most new users, since so many people already have Yahoo IDs, and there will be lots of benefits for everyone. It doesn't make sense to run both systems in parallel forever."
