AllThingsD » Gallery

Mining Facebook to Make a Real Photo Album

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 17 May 2011 22:34:52 +0000

As kids, we’re taught to share and share alike, and nowhere is this more clear than on Facebook, where some 600 million users share private details about their lives—and a lot of that sharing involves photos. People who once shared digital albums via photo-sharing websites now simply post those on Facebook for friends to see.

[ See post to watch video ]

This week, I tested an effort by photo-sharing sites to win back users’ attention: by importing photos from none other than Facebook, itself. With your permission, these sites access your Facebook page’s photos, as well as the pages of any friends who share their Facebook photos with you, and use these images to make photo albums—for online or for the coffee table.

I tested Shutterfly Inc.’s new Custom Path for making photo books, which produced a handsome book but didn’t link as smoothly as it should with Facebook. I also tried a beautiful new website called ZangZing that grabs and organizes images from a variety of social networks to create digital albums.

Shutterfly’s Custom Path lets users make pages their own by adding stickers and images.

There are ups and downs to using photos from Facebook in this manner. The major advantage is you can access several people’s photos rather than relying on just your own photos to create an album or project. This means if you forgot a camera at your parents’ 40th anniversary party, you may be able to use a friend’s photos to create a digital album or a photo book. And because photos shared on Facebook are often captured using smartphones and shared nowhere else but Facebook, they are then unique memories of the event.

On the negative side, Facebook downsizes photos before storing them on its website, so the quality isn’t that of the original digital file. This factors in when creating photo books. I planned to make a large photo book but had to choose a smaller one because the photos were too low resolution to be used as large, full-bleed images spread across a page; images from Facebook couldn’t be larger than 4-by-6-inches. If the photos imported from Facebook were captured on smartphones, the quality is already lower than that of a digital camera, though smartphone-camera technology is improving steadily.

I checked in with Google’s Picasa, Kodak Gallery, and Yahoo’s Flickr services to see if they were considering the idea of importing photos from Facebook. Each of these photo-sharing services already shares its albums out to Facebook—table stakes in the social-networking world. Of the three, only Kodak disclosed imminent plans to import photos from Facebook to its Kodak Gallery website; it will start this in late June. Kodak already lets people use in-store kiosks, like those in Target stores, to import images to albums from Facebook.

The end result is an album book.

Shutterfly’s Custom Path photo-book-making process automatically places photos onto book pages while allowing the book’s creator to tweak and adjust the book to a high degree. The books come in five options ranging from $13 for a 5-by-5-inch softcover book to $55 for a 12-by-12-inch hardcover book. Prices are currently marked at 20 percent off; adding pages will increase the price. I chose a 20-page, 8-by-8-inch book with a padded photo cover that cost $28 by the time I was finished with it (prices for this size book start at $20).

I skimmed through nine categories of book styles and several options within each category before deciding to create a photo-filled wedding guest book. Photos for the book can be added from one’s computer, a Shutterfly account, other people’s shared Shutterfly photos or Facebook. I chose photos from all of these sources and they dropped into a digital bin, showing me what I already had in the book so as not to grab the same photo twice from two sources.

I used Facebook Connect, a one-click option to enable my Shutterfly account to access my Facebook content and that of my friends, but it took me several tries to see the photos from Facebook. Shutterfly couldn’t replicate my problem and a spokeswoman thought it might be an issue with Facebook. It was fixed later in the day, but photos from Facebook still seemed sluggish to display on the screen.

Custom Path is easy to use but not easy enough. Text boxes are difficult to maneuver, and while some items can be taken away when you press Delete, others must be dragged off the screen. But once I figured out how to customize images and added stickers on pages, I could really make the page my own—not just another cookie-cutter pattern from Shutterfly.

ZangZing is a sharing site with a clean and easy-to-use user interface. It’s focused on the idea of creating digital albums by getting photos from all sorts of sources, including Facebook, Flickr, Instagram, Kodak Gallery, Picasa Web, Shutterfly, Photobucket, SmugMug or your own PC. I created albums with photos from five sources, and I enjoyed watching the elegant animations that illustrated the step of adding an image to an album. One click will add all photos from an album, or individual ones can be selected, and the images appear in a tray at the bottom of the screen. The site walks users through six steps to build an album, making the procedure feel transparent and uncomplicated.

The simplest part of using ZangZing was setting an album’s privacy permissions. I selected from Public, Hidden (anyone who knows the link to the album can see it), or Password. Too often, the process of sharing a digital photo album feels nerve-wracking because it’s hard to know if it will be shared with hundreds of people or too difficult for anyone to view. ZangZing’s emphasis on clarity shines here and throughout this sharing site.

Thanks to Shutterfly, ZangZing and other sites, creating a book or album to share doesn’t need to be restricted to your own photos. Rather than putting everything into your social networks, these sites let you take something out.

Write to Katherine Boehret at katherine.boehret@wsj.com

Cooliris Raises $9.6M, Gets Social With Mobile Photo-Sharing App

Liz Gannes — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 10:00:10 +0000

Cooliris, which makes tools to help people consume media on the Web and various devices, is changing focus with a new flagship product that’s about sharing photos rather than browsing through them.

The company has a not-too-shabby 35 million downloads to date of its Wall product, and is the default media gallery for Google’s Android. But now it’s venturing out into the oh-so-hot mobile media-sharing space (see: Instagram, Path, Picplz) with a photo app called LiveShare–for iPhone, Android, Windows Phone 7 and the Web–that’s focused on groups.

Cooliris is also announcing today that it’s raised $9.6 million in Series C funding from investors including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (which also recently backed Path), Deutsche Telekom’s T-Venture, DAG Ventures and the Westly Group. The five-year-old Palo Alto-based company has now raised a total of $28.6 million and employs 45 people.

Cooliris’s new LiveShare app helps users create photo streams for a particular event or group of people. Everyone who is invited to a stream can share photos, taken on a phone or elsewhere. Cooliris CEO Soujanya Bhumkar said that he thinks this “hyperpersonalized” approach fits with how people think about sharing: With respect to the four aspects of space, time, interests and relationships.

What does that actually mean? While Path pushes users to identify their closest 50 friends for intimate sharing of personal photos and videos, LiveShare gives users the option of sharing with whoever is appropriate for any context.

There are many alternatives to LiveShare, especially for Apple’s iOS platform. Will users want to install yet another app because of its particular set of nifty features and the flexibility of its sharing options? Perhaps not, but people seem to increasingly utilize tools to segment their online identities, so LiveShare could become part of that trend.

There’s also competition from the social Web giant Facebook, which provides a similar way to filter its Web site based on designated friend groups (though it has not disclosed how popular the product is with users). LiveShare, like many social apps, gets its friend network information from users plugging into Facebook.

But Cooliris isn’t starting from scratch with this product. For instance, the company is making use of its existing relationship with Google, so LiveShare will be incorporated into Android’s Gallery. But with nearly $30 million raised, expectations for LiveShare will be very, very high.

Google at the Gallery: Turning Search Results Into Works of Art

Peter Kafka — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 11:30:44 +0000

Most people see Google’s image search as a quick way to find a picture. Ken Solomon sees art.

Literally.

Solomon is a Brooklyn-based artist who has spent the past couple years working on stuff with a digital bent. One recent strain: Recreating the contents of a Web browser, such as Google results pages and Facebook profiles, using watercolor on paper.

This sounds odd but looks cool, at least to my eye. And I definitely enjoy the practical joke at work here: Solomon creates an image by appropriating Google’s (GOOG) appropriation of other people’s images.

Is that art? Well, Solomon has a show opening at a Chelsea gallery tonight, so some people think so. You can see some examples of his work at the bottom of this page, but they may make a bit more sense when you hear him explain what he’s up to in this video:

[ See post to watch video ]

Google's Nexus One–Now With Multitouch

John Paczkowski — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:04:34 +0000

Apple and Google both issued updates to their respective super-smartphones today, Apple (AAPL) rolling out iPhone OS 3.1.3, Google (GOOG) an unnumbered point release to the Nexus One’s software.

The new iPhone release is a bit of a yawner, resolving an issue that caused some third-party applications to have difficulty launching, improving the accuracy of reported battery level on the iPhone 3G S and fixing some security issues.

The Nexus One update is quite a bit meatier. It adds Google Goggles to the All Apps menu, improves 3G connectivity (or promises to) and, significantly, enables multitouch in the phone’s Browser, Gallery and Maps applications. Seems the Nexus One dev team got over whatever aversion it had to pinch-to-zoom.

This update is being rolled out gradually, so some Nexus One owners may not see it until later this week.

The Apple iPad Event Slideshow

John Paczkowski — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 23:53:32 +0000

Here’s All Things Digital’s photo slideshow from Apple (AAPL) iPad event in San Francisco on January 27, 2010. Click here for a larger slideshow.

Tablet Schmablet: How About a Mud PC?

Peter Kafka — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 10:00:46 +0000

The Wondertablet the guys at Gizmodo showed off last night looks cool. But you can’t actually touch one right now unless you know someone very connected at Microsoft (MSFT).

You know what you can touch? Today? How about a PC you control by shoving your hands in a box full of mud?

Seriously. All you have to do is get yourself to New York’s Nolita neighborhood and drop by Gizmodo’s annual gallery show, chock full of cool, weird and often gloriously useless gadgetry.

Among other geegaws on display: An automated pancake maker, some spark-emitting and dangerous-looking Tesla coils, a “Star Trek” tricorder and a videogame that dispenses beer. And, of course, an array of Apple (AAPL) paraphernalia, including some arts-and-craftsy iPhone cases.

The free show, which runs through Sunday, is mostly a labor of love on the part of head gadgeteer Brian Lam. But I gather it’s now making some money, via sponsorships, for Gawker Media’s Nick Denton. (And if that’s the case, I hope Denton uses some of that money to make sure there’s enough power and air conditioning at next year’s gallery. Also maybe some cots for his charges.)

Lam gave me a mini-tour yesterday afternoon, which I filmed with a Flip camcorder. If want to to see for yourself (it’s much less shaky that way), drop by the gallery at 267 Elizabeth Street.

[ See post to watch video ]

5 Days of Technical Problems? MobileMe Really is "Exchange for the Rest of Us"

John Paczkowski — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 14:40:17 +0000

After five days without comment, Apple today acknowledged that the rollout of its MobileMe suite of Internet services was, in the company’s own words, “a lot rockier than we had hoped.” In a message to MobileMe subscribers, Apple (AAPL) apologized for the service’s troubled debut and its lack of “true push” capabilities and offered them a 30-day subscription extension to allay any hard feelings.

We have recently completed the transition from .Mac to MobileMe. Unfortunately, it was a lot rockier than we had hoped.

Although core services such as Mail, iDisk, Sync, Back to My Mac, and Gallery went relatively smoothly, the new MobileMe web applications had lots of problems initially. Fortunately we have worked through those problems and the web apps are now up and running.

Another snag we have run into is our use of the word “push” in describing everything under the MobileMe umbrella. While all email, contact or calendar changes on the iPhone and the web apps are immediately synced to and from the MobileMe “cloud,” changes made on a PC or Mac take up to 15 minutes to sync with the cloud and your other devices. So even though things are indeed instantly pushed to and from your iPhone and the web apps today, we are going to stop using the word “push” until it is near-instant on PCs and Macs, too.

We want to apologize to our loyal customers and express our appreciation for their patience by giving all current subscribers an automatic 30-day extension to their MobileMe subscription free of charge. Your extension will be reflected in your account settings within the next few weeks.

We hope you enjoy your new suite of web applications at me.com, in addition to keeping your iPhone and iPod touch wirelessly in sync with these new web applications and your Mac or PC.”

Thank you,

The MobileMe Team

5 Days of Technical Problems? MobileMe Really is "Exchange for the Rest of Us"

John Paczkowski — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 14:40:17 +0000

We have recently completed the transition from .Mac to MobileMe. Unfortunately, it was a lot rockier than we had hoped.

Although core services such as Mail, iDisk, Sync, Back to My Mac, and Gallery went relatively smoothly, the new MobileMe web applications had lots of problems initially. Fortunately we have worked through those problems and the web apps are now up and running.

Another snag we have run into is our use of the word “push” in describing everything under the MobileMe umbrella. While all email, contact or calendar changes on the iPhone and the web apps are immediately synced to and from the MobileMe “cloud,” changes made on a PC or Mac take up to 15 minutes to sync with the cloud and your other devices. So even though things are indeed instantly pushed to and from your iPhone and the web apps today, we are going to stop using the word “push” until it is near-instant on PCs and Macs, too.

We want to apologize to our loyal customers and express our appreciation for their patience by giving all current subscribers an automatic 30-day extension to their MobileMe subscription free of charge. Your extension will be reflected in your account settings within the next few weeks.

We hope you enjoy your new suite of web applications at me.com, in addition to keeping your iPhone and iPod touch wirelessly in sync with these new web applications and your Mac or PC.”

Thank you,

The MobileMe Team