Top 10 Photo Sharing Sites On The Web
Searching the web for the best online photo sharing sites can seem tough going at times and it’s easy to get sidetracked by the latest offering or the next best social networking site. But if you’re planning to use digital photo sharing as a way to sell your art then the right list of photo sharing sites is vital.
Here’s our guide to the best online photo sharing sites.
Photo sharing and the resulting online photo albums you create, allow you to share your personal treasured pictures with family and friends, through the Internet. Cyber photo albums that can be viewed by a select few or the entire world can be uploaded, adjusted stored and retrieved in just a few clicks. Catering to professionals and people who like to keep in touch, photo sharing has become another growing, social media, Internet communications tool. It’s easy, fun, convenient, safe and more.
The criteria for our top 10 selection is based on the number of photographs stored in the site, the number of users and consideration for features, ease of use, community and Help should you need it. Our top 10 List may not be your top 10 list but it’s a great place to start! Read on.
There are about 70 well known International Photo sharing sites worldwide attracting general as well as specific audiences. Some like GazoPa Bloom offers a flower sharing, service, ImageHosting.com is the top ranked keyword in Google, Image exchange offers free uncensored hosting with no registration required and the list goes on. Like the song Alice’s Restaurant, “you can get anything you want” when shopping for your favourite photo sharing site.
The genesis of photo sharing originated in the mid 90’s as an on line photo finishing marketplace. Yahoo, Flickr, SmugMug and Webshots to name a few were pioneers in that industry. It didn’t take long for a plethora of players to join that group taking basic print ordering to a whole new level of communication.
Typically, as the industry grew, so to did the capability, features and ease of use for the various sites that came into being within the next 10 years. Now days, technology allows you to use your camera phone, take a digital photograph and with the built in applications, upload directly to your favourite photo sharing site or attach the image to an email and send it along, all in a matter of moments. For those of us old enough to remember being closeted in a small room with a red light, several trays of smelly liquid and a pair of tongs, praying that your Ilford paper would reveal that perfect picture of your child’s first steps, as they say, “We’ve come a long way baby.”
Even today’s small photo sharing sites with only a few million images, provide simple easy to use tools for emailing, uploading, storing, manipulating, sharing your pictures and video. As much as the roots for this industry was built around ordering prints, now it is about ordering pictures. When added to the social media landscape, photo sharing has become a huge global industry with many players. All this in such a short time.
Being a chartered member of the dinosaur class, my first camera was a Brownie Hawkeye and used 120 film. I don’t think it had a focus mechanism. Today, I use a 14.4 mega pixel DSLR and two zoom lenses and store my images on Mobypicture because I like the name. Some dinosaurs have come a long way baby. Thank God for technology.
And our top 10 photo sharing winners are:
- Photobucket
- Flickr
- Webshots
- Fotki
- Care2Connect
- dotPhoto
- Avanquest SendPhotos
- SmugMug
- MyPhotoAlbum
- Kodak EasyShare Gallery
Why?
Lets take a look at what is considered to be the most popular of these sites, Photobucket. 7 Billion pics and growing with an easy to use, versatile service that allows for lots of customization. You get about 10,000 photos worth of space with your free account-more than enough for most shutterbugs and even the avid photographer. Seriously, many stock photo houses don’t have 10,000 images in their libraries.
Feature laden, Photobucket lets you share, organize, manage and control all your images with just your friends or the whole world as an audience. Posting on MySpace, Facebook and all your favourite sites, like everything else, is easy. Ebay sellers and Craiglisters will especially like the ease of posting to these sites when selling a product on the net.
As it happens social newshounds can have their “15 minutes of fame” with instant images recorded on their cell phones easily uploaded for family and friends
Photobucket! Try it. I think you’ll like it.
In the middle of the pack of our top 10 photo sharing sites is Fotki. More than 1 million people use Fotki for sharing, printing, blogging and selling their images.
Like our number 1 choice, Photobucket, premium memberships allow for unlimited storage but you cant upload video or form private groups. Good things include single or batch uploads, obtaining images from other sites, sending pics to a cell phone or attaching photos to your emails.
This site has a special feature that allows you to create an “on line journal where you can write comments about your photo to share with many or keep private as in “one to one” if you so choose. Another option is the “safe filter” that limits access to images you might deem objectionable. Turn it on or off as you choose.
For Premium members, selling your work is a “snap” when using Fotki’s built in tools.. (Couldn’t resist. No more I promise.) Set a price, the buyer clicks on the menu item “Allow Downloading of Originals” and “Allow Printing of Photos” and there is even a shopping cart feature that allows you to save multiple images for purchase.
Easy to navigate and use, easy to set up an account, a comprehensive “help” page and customer contact by email or telephone. In the UK and US there is a toll free number for even more convenience. How can you go wrong? Give Fotki a try. It’s a reasonably priced premium service with lots of valuable features.
The last site in our top 10 list is KodakEasyShareGallery. Here you can store, share and protect your memories and take advantage of some nifty features. Start your own free gallery by entering your first name and then your email address. Done! Now you are ready to upload. How easy is that? A guest book lets your audience sign in and write comments especially fun when sharing with family and friends.
Unlimited storage is a feature that allows you to keep images for 12 months in the system. from the date of your first upload into your account. The caveat is the requirement to make at least one purchase from the “Gallery within that year.
Being user friendly it is really easy to upload but compared to other services, somewhat limited. A detailed “Help” menu makes for fast access to problem solving and if that still baffles you, then an email sent gets a prompt and friendly response.
KodakEasyShare is really an easy, basic, no frills, inexpensive service.
So there you have it…
Sell MY Art’s top 10 list of photosharing sites.
From fully loaded and feature laden to simple and real easy. Take a tour of one or two of the sites mentioned above and let me know what you think of our list of the best online photo sharing sites.
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