Oath sells Flickr to SmugMug in surprise acquisition

After years of languishing under Yahoo's (and, more recently, Oath's) ownership, Flickr has finally found a buyer.

Image hosting company SmugMug announced Friday that it'd acquired Flickr for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition, which was first reported by USA Today, comes as Yahoo's parent company, Oath, looks to slim down the company's holdings.

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On Twitter, SmugMug CEO Don MacAskill promised to "invest in Flickr's very bright future."

"If you use our products today, rest easy, they aren't going anywhere," SmugMug wrote in a message on its website. "The future is bright, but we'll only get there together."

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It's not the first time a new owner has promised to do right by the site that's managed to stay popular with photographers for more than a decade. Originally launched in 2004 by Caterina Fake and (current Slack CEO) Stewart Butterfield, Flickr was an early darling of the "social web." Before Facebook and Twitter became synonymous with "social media," Flickr was one of the most influential social platforms.

Faced with a staggering amount of growth, Fake and Butterfield sold the site to Yahoo in 2005 in a deal that was reported to be worth about $25 million. But despite promises to help Flickr grow and evolve, Yahoo mismanaged things pretty much from the get-go. (Gizmodo's 2012 story detailing the rise and fall of Flickr is still a great read on this.)

Then Marissa Mayer came along and pledged to make Flickr "awesome again." Yahoo once again began making serious investments in the service, unveiling redesigns and flashy features like a terabyte of free photo storage and image recognition abilities.

But even that wasn't enough. Though the service remained popular with a contingent of diehard fans, most people had long since turned to Instagram as their photo-sharing platform of choice.

Now, Flickr might just have another shot at relevance. Or, something close to it, anyway. "We will move heaven and earth to thrill you and photographers everywhere," MacAskill said. Now Flickr fans just have to hope he's able to do what Yahoo couldn't.

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