Flickr Gets Faster Drag-and-Drop Uploader, Larger Upload Limits

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Flickr

Remember Flickr? It was the site everyone used to store their photos on before Facebook and Instagram (now the same company) became the default locations for photos on the web.

Recently, however, Flickr has been taking steps toward becoming relevant again. First it was a site redesign and now it’s upgrading its uploading tool using some HTML5 magic.

(PHOTOS: Pictures of the Week: April 13 – April 20)

Now you’ll be able to simply drag-and-drop photos into your browser to upload them, provided you have Chrome 6, Safari 5 or Firefox 8. Sure, sites like imgur already have that functionality, but it’s still pretty convenient. You’ll also be able to reorder photos by dragging them around on your browser before they show up in your photostream.

Flickr says its new uploader will work 20% to 30% faster for most users, with some international users getting a 50% to %60 boost in speed. File size limits have also been increased to 50MB for Pro users and 30MB for free users.

These are all nice improvements, but it still stands to see if Flickr can regain some its mojo from other sites — namely Facebook. Flickr boasts that people have uploaded 7 billion photos on the site since it was founded eight years ago. People upload 250 million photos to Facebook every single day, meaning it takes less than a month for the social network to pass Flickr’s total.

Flickr obviously is never going to pass Facebook in sheer numbers, but I don’t see why it can’t grow its niche of semi-serious  and serious photographers who want to store and share high-resolution photos. Users can expect to see the new changes within the next couple of weeks.

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