USAToday has published an article about Flickr in
today's Money section in which it's mentioned that Yahoo! has deliberately not pushed the promotion of Flickr (and
presumably other recent acquisitions)."The right way to find Flickr is to be invited by a friend, to get plugged into the social network that way," says Bradley Horowitz - the leader of the Technology Development group.
I agree - the technology itself is just the catalyst for people to bond over a common interest (in Flickr's case - digital photos) and it's not always evident at first what that additional value is, or how to describe it via traditional marketing. Being introduced by someone you know is a far more powerful tool - you are more likely to want to look at their contributions, and will be more inclined to add your own for them.
