Online Photo Sharing

Online photo sharing made simple when mastering the right services
By Cathy Salustri Internet photo sharing is so popular that you may be overwhelmed by the sheer abundance of online photo sharing websites. For business purposes, you want to find a straightforward online photo site that you can use to share photos without a drastic learning curve or too many superfluous features.

While you don't want your web site photo site to have feature bloat, you do need to make sure that whichever Internet photo sharing service you select does what you need it to. But how do you know which online photo site has the features you need? And if you're not entirely comfortable with photo uploading and sharing in general, how do you even know which features you want from an online photo share service? To create an effective web page photo page, consider the following points:

1. Features of different online photo sharing services

2. How the web photo upload site works

3. Ways viewers can access the web photo site

Browse Internet photo upload sites

Investigate different web photo services. Click around the site and look at different web albums on each site. Look at how the site works, how hard you have to work to get to an album and how easy it is to get comfortable with the flow of the website. Remember, if you don't start off with a web site photo page that's easy to navigate then it probably won't get easier.
Try:  Start out by browsing through two web site photo sharing services that fall on opposite ends of the spectrum: the Google-created, full-featured Picasa and the no-frills Simple Photo Share. You can look at Where In The World for one example of Picasa's abilities or view the demo at Simple Photo Share to see how straightforward its web site-photo site abilities are. From there check out Photobucket, Shutterfly and Snapfish.

Check into how each website photo upload service works

After browsing the different online photo share web services you should have a clear idea of which features you want in an online photo service. Now you need to see which of those Internet photo upload sites work best for you.
Try:  Try and get an idea of how each service works for the person uploading photos to the site. Look for tutorials or videos to explain how to use the service. Adina Pearson has a video tutorial that explains how to upload and edit photos on her online photo sharing web service, DoodleKisses. Apple's MobileMe accounts include a powerful web page photo site. MobileMe comes with a bevy of training videos as well.

Consider what website photo sharing options each service offers

Some Internet photo sharing services (like Picasa) allow anyone to download full-size versions of photos while others want users to register or pay for online photo access. Consider your audience: how accessible do you want to make photos?
Try:  Look at how easy it will be for the people who will ultimately view and use your photos to do so. For example, Photobucket has tutorials on how to buy merchandise so that users can get help easily and quickly. Yahoo!'s online photo share service, Flickr, has a searchable help forum that lets people get answers easily. Make sure that no matter which online photo share service you choose the people viewing and using your business' photos can get help if they need it.

• More and more web hosting packages include web gallery capabilities, although they vary greatly in usability. Talk to your company's web designer to see which options your web hosting package includes but make certain to evaluate them as critically as you would any web photo site.