Click and share for pictures
For many users, a digital camera is the photographic equivalent of a roach motel. Pictures go in, but they don't come out, at least not as handily or attractively as the prints you get from film cameras. Digicams do give you files that you can look at right away on the device's tiny screen or print from a computer. You can also E-mail the picture files to others, but usually you can attach only a few images per message.
So how can you really show off that entire album of pictures from your vacation to Maui? Photo-sharing Web sites have become an attractive option. Two new services, Photosite and Smugmug , let you turn digital pictures into amusing slide shows your friends around the world can view on the Web.
These two sites join the established digital photo-sharing sites that include Ofoto, Snapfish, and Shutterfly. The sites let you upload and post pictures to the Internet for free, with the hope that your friends will want copies of the snapshots so much they'll buy prints from the Web sites starting at 30 cents apiece.
Along with selling your snapshots, Photosite and Smugmug use the Web to add extra flair to your picture presentation. Photosite, for example, allows you to create an online slide show, complete with decorative frames around each picture and captions you write. The Photosite service is free for as many as 150 photos, but some users will want to upgrade to the $5-per-month "plus" package for up to 1,000 photos or the $8 "deluxe" package for an unlimited number of photos along with your own Web page.
Mountain View, Calif.-based Smugmug also offers a high-end photo sharing service, for a price ranging from $29 to $99 a year. The service allows you to post an unlimited number of pictures, but, oddly, limits the number of pictures your visitors can view per month. That won't affect you, however, unless you plan to share more than 30,000 to 120,000 pictures per month--and really, can you or your guests do that much clicking?
Smugmug automatically uploads full-resolution copies of your images. That takes longer than Photosite's service and could be a problem if you have a dial-up Internet connection, though it's relatively fast for those with broadband. The big advantage is that your users can download high-resolution files to print on their own printers at no cost. Also, by offering unlimited storage and full resolution, Smugmug can be part of your backup storage strategy, with copies of all your photos stored on their server. Just think: You'll never need to worry about losing those favorite family snapshots.
Cellphone blogging: can you see me now?
The trick with those popular camera phones is getting the picture to another person. Cellphone companies do allow you to send pictures via E-mail, but that process can be a bit tricky to do, especially if you have to type in the E-mail address on the phone handset.
But there are ways to liberate those pictures inside your phone. TextAmerica offers a free MoBlog service that lets anyone instantly post camera phone pictures to their own Web page on the company's servers. Once you register for an account, the company gives you a secret E-mail account to send photos to. Enter that listing in your phone's address book and, each time you take a picture you wish to share, you can E-mail it to the server and have it appear on your site. My site (which isn't actually much to look at) is larrymagid.textamerica.com . -Larry Magid
This story appears in the May 17, 2004 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.