Finally, Somebody Gets It!

I was delighted to read this post on Flickr's blog about their acquisition by Yahoo. Finally, an FAQ with personality, self-deprecating humor, informality, and a true grasp of what's in the mind of it's readers! All giant companies should take note. Let's hope and pray Flickr can continue fighting the good fight.

You're not going to become a bunch of suits?

No, no, no! The precious DNA we've got -- that of the Ludicrew -- is on side and revving up for building Flickr. Having the team building out the team's vision for Flickr has been stressed as our number one priority, and keeping us around -- in spite of our wiseassery, tomfoolery and tendency to hoot spontaneously -- is crucial for preserving the Flickrness that is Flickr. They're not going to replace any of us with suits, nor induce us to wear them. Lapel? I don't know what you mean.

Are you going to become Yahoo Photos?

No. Yahoo Photos will get a lot of Flickr features, and there are alot of other areas around Yahoo that will also be Flickrized where Flickrization would be good. Yahoo Photos and Flickr have different kinds of users with different needs, and will remain separate for the foreseeable future. Flickr would also suffer from a sudden deluge of LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! omg! so we're going to grow it carefully.

Now, just for kicks, contrast this with the yawn-inducing language used to describe another acquisition announced this morning -- IAC's purchase of Ask Jeeves:

Ask Jeeves is one of four world-class search technology providers, with approximately 42 million U.S. unique monthly users,* and is one of the largest generators of online advertising in the world.

IAC operates more than 40 specialized consumer brands in the travel, retailing, ticketing, personals, media, financial services, real estate and teleservices industries. IAC's businesses are leaders in their respective categories and collectively reach 44 million U.S. unique users monthly.* IAC enables billions of dollars in consumer-direct transactions for products and services sourced from more than 140,000 merchant partners, suppliers, vendors, venues, lenders, and real estate brokerages.

Granted, one is the acquiree's FAQ, and the other is the acquiror's press release, but there isn't anything about the acquisition on Ask Jeeves' site ... and that is another communications sin entirely.