Yahoo has announced a new image search. Images are now also pulled from Flickr, the photo sharing service owned by Yahoo since 2005.
The new image search allows you to find photos that are available for re-use using the Creative Commons licensing terms using a standard Yahoo Images search. The feature is available now on Yahoo Image search across all platforms – desktop or mobile. Simply look for the “Any Usage Rights” label along the left sidebar and select “Labeled for Reuse.”
The images below show how the search results change when you select re-use images.
A Yahoo image search for [hockey]:
A Yahoo image search for [hockey] labeled for reuse:
Just like in other image searches, you can click any of the thumbnail images to view a larger version of the image. The page containing the larger image also shows the title of the image and the Creative Commons license for that image.
Icons under the image allow you to view a slideshow of the images in your search result, tweet the image or view the image owner’s Flickr username with a link directly to the owner’s Flickr photostream
For years, Flickr has been a source for locating images for many bloggers and other online publishers. In the announcement, Yahoo noted that image search contains “tens of millions of photos … courtesy of the amazing photographers in the Flickr community.” Integrating Flickr results back into Yahoo Image Search gives us a peek into CEO Marissa Mayer’s intentions on rebuilding Yahoo both as a search engine and a brand.
Creative commons is a license by which many Flickr users have chosen to offer their images. There are six primary license types. Some allow commercial use. Others allow images to by modified or distributed, while others do not. Flickr has an entire page dedicated to the various Creative Commons licensing used on Flickr.