Flickr lets users post direct to Twitter

By Josh Lowensohn on 15 June 2009, 10:30am

After watching other photo hosts create simple tools for Twitter users to post pictures, Flickr has finally wised up and pushed out its own solution. By divining the popular photo service with access to your Twitter stream, you can now post individual shots direct from Flickr, complete with a fancy Flic.kr shortened URL.

Instead of adding a new button to do this, Flickr users simply set up Twitter as if they were adding another blog to post photos to. Clicking the 'blog this' button takes you to a page where you can type in the remaining 116 characters, and see the shortened Flickr URL that's added to the end of the tweet. You also get a special variation of your Flickr posting email address that directs emailed shots directly to your Twitter stream at the same time they're hosted on Flickr.

Flickr still has some way to go before it's integrated into third-party Twitter apps. Part of the problem is that most competing services, such as YFrog and TwitPic, don't require users to create accounts. In many cases they simply create them automatically based on Twitter credentials. Flickr, on the other hand, is a service you have to sign up for. We doubt it would be willing to lift that restriction just for Twitter users, but it would certainly be a great way to woo new ones.