Overhauled Look & Enhanced Features Coming To Flickr Next Week

Last month, Flickr announced they were dropping a handful of features. Earlier this month Flickr laid off 12% of its entire staff.  Now BetaBeat is reporting that Flickr is undergoing a dramatic transformation that will be rolled out next week.  The excessive whitespace, small photos and excessive clicks will be replaced by larger photos assembled in a slick layout with the ability to gather more information directly from a gallery page:

These changes are being brought about by Markus Spiering, Flickr senior product manager.  Spiering has held this role for just under a year and is reportedly very happy to be making these changes to the popular photo site.  Not only is Spiering bringing Flickr have a new look, but new functionality as well.

A notable upgrade coming to the new version of Flickr is an improved uploader.  Instead of the archaic current uploader:

Flickr will be getting a new drag-and-drop uploader where users can drop in-new photos, edit them and post to their photostream  all in one fell swoop:

A new “mobile first” strategy was also mentioned which could help Flickr compete with the likes of Instagram, Google+ and Facebook (all of which have a strong mobile photo presence.)  Spiering stated that additional major changes will be coming in 2012 to continue to improve the product.  For more information see BetaBeat.

All images courtesy of BetaBeat.