July 14, 2004

FeedBurner and Flickr Announce Partnership to Drive Next-Generation Photo Sharing Services

The two innovative startups announce co-development of photo syndication standard, and the first integrated feature of their two services.

Flickr, the online photo sharing service, and FeedBurner, a provider of syndication services, will today begin offering 'splicing', a unique way to combine photos into existing weblog RSS feeds. Combining weblog and photo feeds into one chronological feed simplifies the sharing process for both publishers and viewers.

"The way photographs are shared is undergoing a change as big as the move from film to digital," noted Stewart Butterfield, president of Ludicorp, the company behind Flickr. "It's exciting to be working with the team at FeedBurner on this; no one else is doing as much for the future of XML syndication."

The launch of the splicing service demonstrates the promise and potential of syndication services. Individuals now have the ability to use favorite and specific publishing tools for different media, while still providing a single source of content for their subscribers in syndication. Using this technology people could conceivably make dynamic screensavers or wallpaper for their computers that consists of only their friends' and family's photos and personal notes, like a virtual picture frame or refrigerator door that is constantly updated.

The two also announced co-development of syndication namespace extensions for richer photo display and metadata. The draft specification is undergoing final internal review and will be published for public comment shortly. The namespace extensions will facilitate the emergence of next generation RSS clients that enable sophisticated display and sharing of photos.

"Syndication is about making it easier to share and communicate. As personal publishers begin to mix and burn feeds in a variety of ways, it will become easier for people on the receiving end of that content to find it, use it, and share it", said Dick Costolo, CEO of FeedBurner. "Flickr has begun to change the way people think about storing and sharing photos, so it was very natural for us to make this foray together."

Further enhancements to the two services will allow for more seamless integration of new and existing services.

About RSS: "RSS" means "Really Simple Syndication" and is a standard that enables users to pull content they choose from news sources, weblogs, and on Flickr, photostreams.

About Flickr: (http://flickr.com/): Flickr is a next-generation online photo management and sharing application, currently in public beta, and set to launch later this summer. Flickr is a product of Vancouver-based Ludicorp.

About FeedBurner: (http://feedburner.com/): FeedBurner provides a suite of feed syndication services to commercial and individual publishers.