Flickr celebrates five billionth picture upload

Photo sharing website Flickr was celebrating a remarkable milestone today after the five BILLIONTH picture was uploaded.

Woodwards College, Vancouver: Aaron Yeo

The site has become a worldwide phenomenon since being launched in 2004 and now receives three million photos a day – more than 2,000 every minute.

Flickr allows anyone to upload, host and share their pictures for free.

It boasts 50 million members – five times the population of Sweden – and is viewed by 73.1 million unique visitors every month.

Canadian student Aaron Yeo uploaded the five billionth picture, a stunning shot of the Woodward’s building in Vancouver.

He wrote on the site: ”I am Mr. 5 Billion, and there ain’t nothing you can do to stop me.”

Flickr was originally created by Canadian software company Ludicorp in February 2004 as a tools package for a web-based game called ‘Game Neverending’.

The platform later evolved into a photo-sharing website called FlickrLive, which was a chatroom with real-time photo exchange.

Meerkat family: Irawan Subingar

The site originally focused on collecting images found on the web rather than uploading photographs taken by users, but the emphasis gradually shifted towards original content.

Ludicorp was bought by American giant Yahoo! in 2005 and membership soared from 250,000 to more than two million in just 12 months.

Hot air balloons, Myanmar

Flickr has since become a staple tool for bloggers and internet users to share photos and images.

It is still free to use but makes money by advertising, premium subscriptions and licensing its data.

Users have geo-tagged 130 million photos to the location they were taken in – more than double the the amount of people living in the United Kingdom.

Aurora Borealis, Iceland: Orvar Atli Porgeirsson

Marcus Hawkins, senior editor of Photo Radar magazine, said Flickr had changed photography for everyone from amateurs to professionals.

He said: ”Flickr’s made it easy to share high-quality pictures with like-minded photographers.

”There really is something to satisfy all photography tastes on there, and it doesn’t take long to find it.

”You can rub shoulders with pros uploading some truly inspirational imagery, and being able to drill down to one of the many specialist groups (everything from camera make to night photography to ‘Retro Kitsch Sexy Cool’) means it’s easy to find an audience and get feedback from people in tune with your interests.

David Leclerc

”Flickr’s been such a success because it’s kept its ‘toolbox’ free and simple.

”Its uploading and sharing options are fast, flexible and intuitive, and it’s easy to embed and share pictures.

”Flickr’s range of privacy settings and photo management options provide peace of mind for the serious photographer.”

The most viewed photo on Flickr is a stunning shot of a misty Shanghai skyline taken by professional photographer Peter Morgan, from Toronto, Canada.

Shanghai landscape: Peter Morgan

Taken with his Nikon D70S camera in 2005, it has notched up a staggering 1,828,186 views from around the globe.

The second most viewed shot – with 1,703,957 clicks – was taken by snapper with the code name ‘Poet’, an electrician from Mississippi, US, and features pink flowers facing up towards the sun.

James Stewart

A breathtakingly detailed photo of a bee pollinating a purple bloom was taken by user ‘aussiegall’ is the third most viewed and has been seen 1,420,731 times.

Louise Docker

In May 2009, White House photographer Pete Souza began uploading his intimate shots of life in the White House – without any copyright restriction for publications.

George Clooney and Barack Obama:  Pete Souza

Francesca Birini

Lake Mary, Arizona: Logan Brumm

Macedonia lake side: Mark Orfila

The model Kelsey: Jenna Miller

Houses of Parliament, London: Tony Hisgett

Ukrainian model Yana: Serge Voronov

Ukrainian model Yana: Serge Voronov