Who does Yahoo! think they are? (or How To Turn Away Your Biggest Fans)
Flickr: Really cool.
Yahoo!: Really big.
I decided to use a Flickr account for the youth group that I work with at church. In order to do so, I needed to create a Yahoo! account (yes, I got in after the acquisition). I created one, uploaded some pictures and then went a few weeks without signing in.
Of course, I forgot my sign-in information. I’m not a one-password-fits-all guy because that’s just too easy.
Here’s where the ridiculousness of big Yahoo! comes into play. A password retrieval from Yahoo! now requires your month, day and year of birth and your zip code.
Normally, I’m pretty honest on web forms and stuff in case someone decides to do something like this. But I don’t go back and check the form two or three times to make sure I didn’t fat-finger my birthday. It’s never mattered before.
OK, fine. They’re looking out for my security. I guess I’ll send a request to customer service and maybe they can help. No such luck. This was included in the automated response: “Please remember that Customer Care may not reset your password…”
This means I’ll have to start over again, I suppose.
- Go create yet another Yahoo! account (which I can’t use my existing email address for - so I’ll need another email address).
- Create another Flickr account.
- Upload all of my pictures again.
Or, I could go find another service that hasn’t been swallowed by Yahoo! and post my pictures there.
And encourage all of my friends to do the same.
March 20th, 2006 at 3:36 pm
[…] Given the long hiatus of Jonathan and Bryan on this page (they’ve joined a cargo cult), I like to give shout-outs to their current whereabouts from time to time. You might have noticed this week’s Geek Links has a link to Jonathan’s blog. Now it’s Bryan’s turn. Check out his dismay over the possible downfall of Flickr, the once great digital photo sharing website. And tell him to start posting on Colaspot again! […]
July 21st, 2006 at 6:32 am
the same thing happend to me. i don’t know who got my password, but one day it just changed - and i can’t get it back. i think the date of my birth is wrong in the profile (it’s roughly 7 years old) and i’m at loss as to what to do now.