Let me first explain that I am a huge fan of Flickr (I have over 7,000 photos on the service), but since I heard Thomas Hawk is joining Zooomr I have decided to give it a try.  Brian was visiting Mike Arrington when Kristopher Tate was showing off his new photo site called Zooomr.  Brian was knocked out!  Mike wrote about it in a post titled, “Flickr on Steroids.“  But I was unconvinced, I never bothered to set up an account because Flickr isn’t broken for me – it is great!

That all changed when I saw Brian’s post that Thomas Hawk (one of my favorite photographers on Flickr) is joining the Zooomer team.  Holy Bat-pictures!  Why is he joining Zooomr?  Is Zooomr important?  Isn’t it just a Flickr clone?  Hm…  I better find out more.  Usually, once I settle on a platform there is a huge amount of inertia keeping as a user.  Unless something is broken or there is a huge advantage to switching I will stick it out.  I still haven’t set up a Zooomr account, but my interest has been piqued by Thomas Hawk’s action.

I am sure I am not alone in my surprise.  Isn’t it interesting how a single, influential person like Thomas Hawk can make a business relevant?

Thomas Hawk, flickrmaven to the max, is going to work for Zooomr. I got a demo of Zooomr from 17 year old phenom Kris earlier this year. I’m at the beach, so I don’t have time to fully grok Hawk’s move, but you check it out and explain it to me when I come in from the sun.

Postscript:  I also see that my pals Chris & Tara are hating on a TechCrunch post, which also has some back & forth from the genius Stewart B. as well.  Folks, in the words of the man, Can’t we all just get along?  It’s photosharing, not the Gaza Strip.