Top Photo Sharing Sites

Original Post 11.29.2008

So much has changed with the web and mainstream adoption of sites and tools for the everyday online user. A ton of people are taking advantage of photo sharing and video sharing sites to host and share their pictures and vids. The whole problem with hosting a large amount of space on a personal blog or site to share your memories has quickly shifted away to free solutions that are easy to use and are gaining wide spread adoption.
 
My boys at Disneyworld in 2008
 
Here is my year end 2008 list of best of photo sharing sites:
 

Share your pictures through photo messages, online photo albums, custom prints and gifts.

Snappages

Fully flash built interface with 3D slideshows and an image editor.

Fotki

Free unlimited photo hosting for blogs, 9 cent prints, and photo contests.

Shutterfly

Free unlimited storage, 12 cent prints, as well as calendars and photo books.

PBase

One of the oldest and most trusted of these sites, PBase is not free, but has a really nice gallery and excellent community.

Flickr

Arguably the most popular and widely used photo sharing site these days, a free and unlimited Pro option with geotagging and 15 cent prints. was originally conceived in 2002 as a video game-screenshot sharing web site, but it quickly blossomed into a full-fledged photo sharing site with a bustling community. The now Yahoo-owned site offers free accounts with limitations placed on photo uploads and other features, while the $25/year Pro account promises unlimited uploads, storage, and sets. Flickr, like many of the others, also recently added video sharing to their repertoire.

Smugmug

Unlimited photos, unlimited storage, but no free account if you want to share with others. mugMug is a premium photo sharing web site with an emphasis on professional photography. That’s not to say that the site’s not also perfect for the weekend photographer, as its attractive and user-friendly interface is tempting for any level of photog. The biggest hurdle for new SmugMug users is that the site has no free account (though there is a 14-day free trial), and the minimum price for an account is $40/year. However, SmugMug users—many of whom are former Flickr die-hards (there’s even an import tool called Smugglr)—seem very pleased with their choice

Exposure Manager

Nice site with a focus on branding and sales. Unlimited storage and uploads, with an FTP option.

PrintRoom

Geared toward serious shooters and pros, PrintRoom lets you create a web storefront for your photos.

PhotoBucket

This one has been catching on, and offers 1GB storage on their free account, and 5GB on their pro with unmetered bandwidth. Once upon a time, Photobucket was a favorite among internet users looking to quickly host an image and share it online at sites like eBay and MySpace or on blogs and message boards. While that’s still true, Photobucket has added several features to keep users coming back to the site for managing photo albums and videos

Picasa

Web Albums are the online counterpart to Google’s popular, Windows- and Linux-only desktop photo organization software, Picasa. Despite its late entry to the photo sharing game in mid-2006, Picasa Web Album’s seamless integration with Picasa and Google accounts quickly gained the service a large following. A free account with Picasa Web Albums gives you 1GB of free storage space, and you can buy extra storage that’s shared with your Gmail account for anywhere between $20/year for 10GB to $500/year for 400GB.

Facebook

This one is mainly a community site but so many people are using this now and the picture and video sharing is extremely easy to use to it also gets a 2008 year end nod for photo sharing.

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