With the advent of web technologies, users and developers have something to look forward to enhance their software. Most people are familiar with desktop applications term but do not have idea of how it fit into Rich Internet Application (RIA) world. RIA demonstrates rich user experiences with a combination of Graphical User Interface applications and applications and multimedia content (Stewart, 2007). The technology is mostly good from both a user and developer standpoint.
Flickr is a good example of RIA that simulates user experiences in web applications. It is an easy-to-use application with great interface and acts as a platform for social interaction and sharing. “Flickr also provides a rich user experience along with a community of sharing and visual dialogue through posted photographs and linking” (Stiles, 2005). One of the key components of Flickr is the tagging capabilities. “Tagging is the use of user-generated keywords, or tags, to easily find images via topical searches and to link subject matter across the whole Flickr community of photographs” (Stiles, 2005).
There are drawbacks in any new technologies, same goes to Flickr. Flickr has been reported as having ongoing server issues as it always going online and offline for some time. Furthermore, there was a change with the Flickr policy where they will make non-photographic images unavailable to the public if the account does not contain most photographs (Cha, 2006). In addition, Flickr has deleted contact’s stream without proof or warning to the user. These situations have drawn criticism from its user and have been recognized as complete disregard of its users (Dysamoria, 2009). In term of technical, Flickr’s security alert has warned users of identity thieves who use fake photo packages to trick users to give their username and password. I believe that the issues are common in RIA environment hence put everything at risks and need to be resolved.
Everybody is aware that Yahoo bought Flickr and left it alone (Haff, 2008). To stay competitive In future, Flickr needs to address all the above stated problems and created something bigger than they originally intended.
Sources:
Cha, R. (2006, 06 20). Future of Flickr. Retrieved March 2010, from if:Book: http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2006/06/future_of_flickr_1.html
Dysamoria. (2009, July 24). Flickr Recognized Yet Again for Complete Disregard of its Users. Retrieved March 2010, from Now Public: http://www.nowpublic.com/culture/flickr-recognized-yet-again-complete-disregard-its-users
Haff, G. (2008, February 1). Microsoft: Threat or savior for Flickr? Retrieved March 2010, from Cnet News: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13556_3-9862793-61.html
Stewart, R. (2007, February 9). User Experience, Rich Internet Applications and the future of software. Retrieved March 2010, from ZDNet: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Stewart/?p=256
Stiles, T. S. (2005). Rich User Experience. Retrieved March 2010, from DMST4100_Research Project: http://www.tstiles.com/dms/web20/richuser.html
