So like others I have gotten the email from Flickr about needing a Yahoo ID to login after March 15th. The “nice” email was titled as “[Flickr] Update for Old Skool members”. This email did two things.

1. Made me mad.
2. Made me check out Zooomr.

And a #3 that I should do.

3. Take into consideration if I want to switch over this.

I have one main issue with this email, and yes it is fully selfish on my part. It is really plain and simple, I do not want to use a Yahoo ID. I am happy with and like my current login. I guess I always knew that the Old Skool members would get pushed or I guess I should say screwed at some point however I still do not like it. I do understand that it is just a new login not really a big deal but I DO NOT want a new login.

I feel that the so called “Old Skool” members should still get something, and by something I am not looking for freebies just not being punished is good enough for me. I know we did get some free time on Pro Accounts for signing up very early and I was also given a few (I think 2) accounts to give away in the early days, but we (the Old Skool members) are the ones who grew this service. We tested and pushed it to both our tech and non-tech friends. Don’t punish us now. I just do not like Yahoo!. I have had a Yahoo account in the past. That being the key word, “past”. I have been there and done that, I don’t want to be forced to go back now.

So with this news I started to look at Zooomr, I am pretty sure I had signed up once before but not really sure. Either way maybe I did then the account was recycled because of lack of use. I am pretty sure I did sign up but I know I did not use the account.

So after signing up I was a bit disappointed, but kind of expected it because I have such a common name. My “robertnelson” name was already taken. So I am not sure that I want to switch from Flickr to Zooomr, although I did sign up for an account with “areyouageek” That will work, just not my preferred.

I do like the way Zooomr looks and they do have some cool features. I can still upload and share my photo’s just like with Flickr. I mainly upload by computer (on my Mac) and on my mobile (Blackberry Pearl) both of which I can do on Zooomr. I still have to do some more checking because I am not sure what the Mac support actually is. I currently use a tool that works from iPhoto and also Flickr Uploadr. Hopefully I can fins something along the same lines, I know they offer jUploadr but I have not tested it out yet.

After checking out Zooomr one thing that I am confused and pissed off by is the login procedure. They use the “openid” and to me I still do not want this. What happened to just using an email address or user id to login. I know that openid is not as evil as the YahooID, but its still something else. Maybe Zooomr’s login is not any better than what Flickr is making me do.

For those that have not used Zooomr or openid: (from the Zooomr website)
“So, what is all of this OpenID Stuff?

OpenID is a simple single sign-on mechanism that allows you to login at multiple websites with the same identity.
What does that all mean for me?

Simply that once you create an OpenID, you can use it on other websites — not just Zooomr.”

For me I do not use or even know of any other sites that use openid so for me this is not a time saver, and hey I can already use the same login for many sites. its called my EMAIL ADDRESS. Thanks anyway Zooomr.

On another note I tried to update my Profile on Zooomr a few times and keep getting errors. I am not sure if it is the fact that I am using Safari on a Mac or just the actual website.

[UPDATE]
Thomas Hawk has a nice post about this. Keep in mind he is the CEO of Zooomr.

It was also Dugg, let’s see what kind of comments and support it gets from Digg.