It’s interesting to see king of the fast food jungle McDonald’s showing up sponsoring the latest group on Flickr. The group, “Show Us What You’re Made Of,” sponsored by “McDonald’s Quality,” would appear to be the latest attempt by corporate America at making inroads into the vast world of social media. I’m not sure how much money Flickr/Yahoo is making on the deal, but I’d assume that they are making at least some as the group says it’s “sponsored” and Flickr has a clear policy against people using Flickr for commercial purposes. - Thomas Hawk

McDonald's isn't the first corporation to sponsor a group on flickr. Nikon has been at it for awhile now: http://www.flickr.com/groups... - Rob LaRosa

yes, Nikon did a deal a few years back where they gave Nikon cameras to some Flickr photographers (and not others) and had them take photos and published them as part of a special promotion for their brand. - Thomas Hawk

Interesting that they both have the same language in their grab for rights to use member photos. It's not an agreement I'd choose to accept. - William Beem

"Show us what you're made of"? McD's is made of process cheese, the cheapest dairy cow beef we can get away with, the least flavourful lettuce and tomato science can yet produce, and potatoes given an artificial beef tallow flavor... You'd think getting people to think 'what are they made of' would be a losing idea for McD's. - Andrew C (✓)

their Shamrock shakes are cool. - Thomas Hawk

yet another way for flickr to get ads in front of pro members, while getting around the ad-free browsing promise of the terms of service. a big part of flickr's appeal to me initially was that for a yearly subscription fee i wouldn't have to face any of this junk, and engage other people in a commercial free space. you can't even PAY to avoid advertising .. *sigh* - hobvias sudoneighm

and all this talk of rights-grabbing misses the point. these companies probably don't care particularly much about using flickr photos on some ad-site they've created. that's largely a pretense. the actual advertisement is the group itself, and the targets for the advertisement are the photographers and their friends. this McDonald's group just does away with the pretense of using the photos off-site, that's all. - hobvias sudoneighm

Must resist temptation to not McTroll... Must resist. :D - Wirehead