After thinking it over for a while I finally decided to sign up for a flickr photo sharing account this past weekend. You can see a selection of my pics over to the left. The company was recently purchased by Yahoo and as a result they were able to cut the cost of their Pro accounts in half. At $25 a year for unlimited space and a great user interface I just couldn’t resist. (The subliminal messages they embed in all their photos probably helped too. (Just kidding!))
There are lots of photo sharing sites out there and no one site can be everyone’s favorite. I didn’t get flickr’s interface at first but after I played with it a bit I really liked it. They’re using some clever techniques that I appreciate as a web designer: tags, edit-in-place fields, and a Flash implementation that’s actually useful.
One less obvious benefit of flickr is an amazingly active user community and a site design that encourages everyone to interact and share their work, rather than just tossing their photos into the online equivalent of that drawer full of pictures that no one ever sees. There are user created discussion groups and photo pools catering to almost every interest and style of photography you can think of. For example, I like abandoned places and B&W pictures, and I have a Canon digital SLR. Users can leave comments and notes, mark photos as favorites, and easily link to other pics they like.
If you’re not already established somewhere else I recommend you try a free account and see what you think. If you decide to try it, look me up add me a contact.
I can definitely see Google doing something similar soon. Thier photo cataloging app, Picasa, already has the tagging feature. Perhaps some better integration with Blogger is the answer.
I think you’re right. Considering their image search expertise I’m surprised they haven’t done more with Blogger and Picasa already. Maybe they’re working on something big.