Online photo sites - what is the point?
I am going to admit something right now. I just do not get the point of these online photo storage sites (such as flickr, zooomr). I have a 2.5g pro account at zooomr (which I got for being a blogger); but I have only uploaded less than 10 pictures to it. I just do not understand why I would want to take hundreds of my photos and upload them online. Let me see if I can list some points.
- Backup - I guess one reason would be for backup; but I already have these pictures backed up on 3 computers (mine, my sister’s laptop and my parent’s computer). So that idea does not appeal to me. Plus I can’t imagine how easy it would be to upload all the pictures and then retrieve them later on. In the case of Zooomr; I have to upload one at a time; and I would assume the download would also be one image at a time.
- Share with family This one does not make much sense to me. There are so many other ways to share pictures with friends. One would be to install a gallery on your webserver (like mine). Plus these photo sites do not really have a nice ‘gallery’ feel to it. Another excellent product for sharing photos is the Picasa web. Picasa makes it so easy to upload your pictures that even a novice can have it done in minutes. So again, flickr or zooomr do not really add anything; for me. I would much rather send a link to my Picasa album to my parents; than a flickr link.
- RSS feeds Both flickr and Zooomr offer RSS feeds. This allows you to get any photos that a user uploads via a RSS feed. This one sounds pretty good in theory; but most of the pictures that I take are my family pictures. Why would anyone want to subscribe to an RSS feed of that. And if I wanted anyone to see those pictures; I will just send them a link to the album.
Don’t get me wrong; I am not saying that these photo sharing sites suck or anything. I am just saying that I do not see the point (or the hype) that is associated with them. Maybe it just does not fit in with my usage model. I mean look how much Yahoo paid for flickr.. was it worth it? What do you guys think? Do you use any of these sites?
If you agree, then Digg it 
I find that taking photos, and making “upload to Flickr” part of my “workflow” has several advantages. First, it makes me be more critical of the photos I’m taking. I’m definitely an amateur, but I go through all the photos I take, and only post the “good” ones to Flickr.
Second, it helps me to blog more. When I take a photo, and upload it, I generally want to write about what it was, where I was at, what was happening, etc. It’s that little push to make me blog something I may not have otherwise. And blog posts with photos are more interesting, anyway.
Just my $0.02.
Josh.. does that mean that you always have your camera with you?
i use flickr and zooomr together for none of the above reasons…but both these photo upload are great coz of the tech such as tagging…i am able to find for eg. photos taken of wwdc from various person’s viewpoint…I’m able to use the pics uploaded for presentations…i’m able to make new contacts on flickr and share in the joy of watching their bunny grow up…i’m able to share my photos with others who sometimes use my photos for their sites or publications…it’s great to help…the list is endless…well flickr and zooomr…i guess it’s popular coz people love to connect to someone over the other side of the world..people just love to share
[...] Zooomr seriously rocks! Ok; in the past I talked about how I did not understand the whole point behind these online photo sharing sites. I guess that was before Zooomr launched their portals feature? What are portals you ask?? Well; let me just show you using a video I found on Zooomr. [...]