Yahoo acquired the photo-sharing service Flickr in 2005 for approximately $35 million.
Flickr was created by Ludicorp, a Canadian company founded by Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake. The service launched in 2004 and quickly became known for online photo storage, tagging, commenting, and community interaction. Yahoo acquired Ludicorp in March 2005, bringing Flickr into its expanding portfolio of internet services.
The acquisition happened before smartphone photography and social networks transformed image sharing. Flickr’s emphasis on organized collections, metadata, and public communities helped establish conventions that later became common across photo platforms.
Flickr is sometimes confused with Instagram because both are associated with online photo sharing, but they arose in different periods and had different product designs. Instagram launched in 2010 and was acquired by Facebook in 2012; Yahoo’s 2005 deal concerned Flickr and its parent company, Ludicorp.