At a pun-filled press conference in Manhattan this afternoon, Marissa Mayer brushed aside this weekend's big acquisition to focus on Yahoo's other brand that "dropped the e." After a quick pat on the back and an announcement that the company would be opening an East Coast office in the old New York Times building in Times Square, Mayer told the crowd that her company had pledged to "make Flickr awesome again."

For starters, Flickr has more or less removed any space restrictions by giving every user 1 terabyte of space, or about 537,731 high resolution photos. In addition to the massive amount of storage space, Yahoo also gave the site design a refresh to bring it more in line with Facebook's move to bigger, more-image heavy layouts. Each user's photostream is now a seamless, full-bleed roll of photos. Like Facebook, individual pages now carry a cover image in the header.

Updated layouts aside, slideshows now get a slick, Ken Burns-y effect (just add your own soundtrack).

Flickr Pro is going away now that every user has so much available storage, but the interface will now be ad-supported. There will be an ad-free model for anyone willing to shell out $49.99 per year and people who already spent 25 bucks on a recent Pro account get to use the service ad-free for now. Should you somehow manage to fill your terabyte of data, you can buy a second terabyte for $500 per year.

Along with the press event, Yahoo will be aggressively 11 of the largest billboards in Times Square. For the next few weeks, any time someone takes a step out into Times Square, it will feel like they're immersed in Flickr photos.

Previously: Yahoo Officially Announces $1.1 Billion Tumblr Acquisition, "Promises Not To Screw It Up"
Yahoo Will Buy 'Hipster Blogging Platform' Tumblr For $1.1 Billion
[Flickr Announcement]