Maybe Flickr is a diamond in the rough?

Well it seems that the din has died down a bit over the Yahoo/MS thing, but it still seems to be there when it comes to Flickr. There are people posting all sorts of defiant images before anyone knows what (if anything) will actually happen when the two elder Internet companies collide. But C|Net points out something interesting when it comes to the social space. Flickr is the only social networking site that seems to be really working between the two, combined with the chat clients that both have, there might be something there that the two could build on. If Flickr does die at the hands of MS, there are many other places that people could go – Picasa web could have possibilities if Google pays any attention to it and there is always pBase and other gallery sites. But none have that community feeling that Flickr seems to inspire, and (because I haven’t looked) they don’t have the “coolest thing” that Flickr has – Explore and it’s related Interestingness… maybe that is what MS might be after.