Yahoo over the weekend updated its Flickr for iOS app with hashtag support.
Users can now add a hashtag to a photo's title or description, and also run a search to find all photos tagged with that term. The addition comes amidst rumors that Facebook is planning to add hashtag support to its own social network.
The hashtag — one or more words strung together with no spaces behind a pound sign — gained in popularity in 2009, when Twitter began hyperlinking them to search results. Hashtags, which are often used to clarify or add context to a post (i.e. #sarcasm, #Samsung, #iPhone), have extended beyond Twitter to sites like Google+ and even Facebook-owned Instagram.
To celebrate its support for hashtags, Flickr launched a new weekly photo challenge called #FlickrFriday that will enable mobile photographers to get some notoriety for their shots. The photo-based social network will publish a new weekly theme every Friday, then users will have all weekend to take a photo based on the theme and tag it with #FlickrFriday. Flickr will then feature a selection of the best submissions on its blog the following week.
The Flickr iOS update also comes with the usual bug fixes. The app is available for free in the App Store now.
Meanwhile, Facebook is reportedly testing the use of hashtags to provide users with a library of posts about similar topics and events, The Wall Street Journal reported last week. Ideally, that would boost time spent on the site and the likelihood of users seeing more ads.
For more, see PCMag's full review of Flickr (for iPhone).
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