Choosing an online photo sharing site

I’ll bet your community would be interested in visuals of your organization’s events, sharing them with friends and even participating in the experience by uploading their own photos.

I decided to explore various online photo sharing tools in this post.

Criteria for each tool I looked at:

 

1. Upload – Easy, fast, bulk upload tool, storage space, integration with iPhoto, mobile
2. Web interface – Easy to use, title, sort, tag, delete,  
3. Slideshows – Ability to create, clean format, flexibility 
4. Share – Ability to email, embed into a blog or other website 
5. Longevity – Will it be around in 5 years? 
6. Editing – Ability to crop, recolor, etc

I looked at the following free web tools:

1. Photobucket
2. Facebook
3. Google’s Picasa
4. Yahoo’s Flickr

 

All of them require sign-up.  The simplest versions are free with various paid upgrades, mostly for storage and advanced functionality.

 

Here’s a Photobucket album from a recent Memorial Day BBQ Leadership Prep fundraiser we hosted at our house (using VodPod and a little effort since WordPress wants its bloggers to use other slideshow sites.)

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about “Memorial Day BBQ Leadership Prep Fund…“, posted with vodpod

The slideshow format is clean and the pictures look great.  The web interface is a bit cluttered with ads and the editing toolbars.  I prefer cleaner navigation and simple design.

 

The Picasa slideshow wasn’t as clean but it works –

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about “Media Library ‹ Curious Frog — WordP…“, posted with vodpod

 

More visuals –

• I used Flickr to embed some slideshows on my Cooking Club Blog – Not bad but after 200 photos you have to upgrade to the paid service.
• I used Photobucket to embed a slideshow on the front page of my Block Association Blog – The sizing isn’t quite right.  I’ll have to look more how to correct that.
• I upload personal photos to Facebook but there is no embed capability.  Using Facebook would make sense only if your community exists on this site.  The mobile upload tool is easy to use from the iPhone. 

I’m not completely convinced by a particular tool yet.  Let’s do some research on what others use –

I’d be interested to hear if there are newer tools with added functionality and cleaner navigation than the ones I explored.

As a small organization trying to develop an online community, it might be best to start with a existing tool with which people are familiar. Plus, photos and thus your organization can be found online if the images are made public (which they can be on most of these sites) versus storing them privately.