The Internet is speaking, and it wants new Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer to save and fix Flickr.
The screenshot above is the entirety of DearMarissaMayer.com, a website that launched in the hours after Mayer was named Yahoo’s new CEO on Monday.
It asks Mayer to “please make Flickr awesome again,” and is signed, “Love, the internet.” But it’s actually the work of Los Angelean Sean Bonner, who writes on his blog about why he put up the website:
I think flickr is their most underrated product and if they would put some support behind it, bring it up to date, give it an actually functional mobile app and commit to keeping it alive, that would be amazing. It’s no secret that everyone blames Yahoo! for killing flickr, but I don’t believe it’s dead yet, and Marissa could be the one to breath life back into it. So here’s hoping.
The internet appears to agree. At the moment, the URL has been tweeted more than 13,300 times, shared on Facebook almost 8,000 times, received more than 8,200 points on Reddit and about 750 plus-ones on Google.
Although there’s been plenty of speculation about Yahoo products that might be shut down, Flickr is actually one product that’s received development attention this year. It has a new photo uploader and new interfaces for photo galleries and other views. But there have also been reports of substantial layoffs in Flickr customer service … which adds weight to the internet’s plea for Mayer to save and fix Flickr.
Postscript, July 19: Flickr has responded to this meme by sending out a tweet today that promotes flickr.com/dearinternet, a page that uses the same look and feel to get out the message that Flickr is hiring.
There’s no doubt that recruiting will be one of Mayer’s biggest and primary challenges at Yahoo; many of the company’s biggest brains have left in recent years.
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