On one hand, this is the first thing in some time that I recall Flickr doing that is both smart and forward-thinking. 

On the other hand, it’s sort of sad that the once-dominant photos service has to try to ride on the wave of the hot, new photo-based service.

Betabeat’s Adrianne Jeffries is optimistic after sitting down with Flickr product head Markus Spiering and seeing a glimpse of what they’re working on. It sounds like it will be more of a gradual change over the year though, rather than one major revamp.

Three words not nearly mentioned enough: mobile, mobile, mobile. The only part of the story that mentions this says:

But Flickr is reorienting according to Yahoo’s “mobile first” strategy and the design is thoughtful and forward-looking.

That’s far too vague to be promising in any way. But Spiering was a mobile guy in his previous life within Yahoo, so maybe there’s some hope. 

It took just 5 weeks. The only one ahead of it? The iPhone 4.

By the way, numbers three and four? The iPhone 3G and the iPhone 3GS.

One Android phone did manage to beat the original iPhone though — the HTC EVO 4G, places a distant fifth. Let’s remember that the original iPhone is over 4 years old.

Wait, actually, looking at the data, Flickr isn’t even counting the original iPhone anymore. Maybe that’s because there are not a lot of pictures, but maybe not. 

Regardless, the EVO did beat the iPod touch. I think. It’s not clear if they count that in the “smartphone” category. 

It also boasts a 0.7 megapixel camera. Tough competition.

The most popular camera overall across all of Flickr? Still the iPhone 4. Soon to be dethroned by the iPhone 4S, no doubt. 

Let’s also remember that the Flickr numbers don’t include Instagram photos because those are stripped of the metadata by iOS. In other words, the iPhone isn’t just beating every other smartphone out there when it comes to picture taking, it’s likely destroying them. And probably most point & shoots as well. 

Nice new feature from Flickr. I’ve always been hesitant to tag photos at “home” due to the fact that everyone in the world can then see my home (not that most people would care — but still, a bit weird). Now it won’t be an issue. Well, if you still use Flickr, that is.

I’d fully support Joe Stump as CEO of Yahoo and all the moves he intends to make — even though I’m not sure Yahoo could afford Twitter or Square in its current weakened state, let alone both. 

Meanwhile, John Gruber, in linking to Stump’s post has a couple of questions. First, “How did Instagram eat Flickr’s lunch, for example?”

Here’s how (and why). 

Second, “What exactly has Carol Bartz even tried do while CEO of Yahoo?”

Her goal, as far as I can tell, has only been to improve Yahoo’s bottom line to bolster the company with Wall Street and make them a more attractive acquisition target. She’s not doing that by building new products or pushing new initiatives, she’s doing that the easier way: by slashing and burning. 

She seems to think she’s trimming the fat — and to some extent she is — but at the same time, she’s been trimming Yahoo’s soul as well. 

Everyone is now pissed off and calling for Bartz’s head because her strategy hasn’t paid off — at all. Wall Street still doesn’t love Yahoo, and it doesn’t look like any would-be acquirers do either. And consumers don’t love Yahoo because it seems like they haven’t done anything worth talking about in years. And they haven’t.

It’s hard to build great new products when someone has a knife in your side.

*Caveat being it has been the most popular camera for a long time. Flickr drastically undercounts pictures taken by phones — they estimate they accurately label about 2/3rds of all pictures with cameraphone “under-represented”.

The only thing that will dethrone the iPhone 4? The iPhone 5.

Also, what the hell is up with Android devices? Is it just because no single Android phone is as popular as the iPhone(s) that they are so low on these lists? Or is it something else?