I like it. Everyone gets an additional Terabyte on space for free, perfect for storing high-resolution images. I specially like the new Photostream. A great improvement over the old look, in my opinion. All in all, this has been a great week for Yahoo. Marissa Mayer’s leadership is starting to show.

This also reinforces Flickr’s role as the natural “Home” for our photos on the Internet. That’s something I’ve always felt for some reason, so these changes make me happy because they show that Yahoo is actually getting the necessary work done to fix Flickr, and it wasn’t all just talk. I believe they’re on the right track, and it’s not too late for them to make Flickr relevant again, and to make it thrive.

I’ve had a Pro Flickr account ever since I first signed up a few years ago, and I’ve always been quite happy with the service. It was a nice and convenient way to host the images for Analog Senses and that alone made it worth it. However, lately my photostream had become little more than a mirror feed of my Instagram account. I never quite felt the need to upload the pictures of my latest trips or family events, for instance. That was a big sign that something was going wrong.

The funny thing was that I didn’t use any alternative service to upload and share those photos. No, I just kept them to myself. None of the other photo sharing services felt right for that purpose, none of them felt like Flickr once did. That goes to show just how big of a role Flickr used to play a few years ago, and how big a hole it left behind when it stopped being relevant. A hole so big, in fact, that as of today no other service has been able to replace it.

Ever since the first signs of trouble started to appear shortly after Yahoo acquired the service, the Flickr community has felt on the receiving end of a great injustice. Yahoo took something great from us and they ruined it. We all felt the loss as something personal, and we called for them to make it right. Fortunately, Marissa Mayer and her team at Yahoo believed they still had a chance to bring Flickr back, and that it was the right thing to do. I’m really glad to see that they’re taking it.

Now, I’m excited to use Flickr again. Not because of the additional Terabyte or the new look (though those things certainly help), but because it feels like I can finally take my pictures home again.

So:

Dear Marissa Mayer, Thank you.