photosharing

Facebook Announces Major New Search Features for Unearthing Photos

Facebook summoned a group of tech journalists to its Menlo Park headquarters this morning to unveil the latest products its legions of programmers have been hard at work building. The major announcement was a new search engine called "Graph Search," which will allow users to run extremely powerful search queries on the social networks database of 1 billion members, 1 trillion social connections, and 240 billion photos.

Dropbox Updates Android App for Fast and Painless Album Sharing

Dropbox has been making major moves toward being a series photo-sharing service as of late, and its latest Android app update moves the service one step closer in that direction. The new feature allows users to quickly and easily share entire collections of photographs with friends and family.

Facebook Launches Snapchat-like ‘Poke’ App For Sending Self-Destructing Pics

Last week we ran a story about temporary photo and video sharing app Snapchat's recent explosion onto the market and how, sexting jokes aside, venture capitalists the world over are clawing to get a piece of the action. A few days later we found out that Facebook was about to rain all over Snapchat's parade by using Snapchat's idea to create its own app.

Today, that second story came true, as Facebook has just introduced the all-new 'Poke' app -- a photo, text, and video sharing application, complete with the same 10 second maximum time limit made famous by Snapchat.

Dropbox Acquires Snapjoy, Gearing Up for Cloud Photo Sharing War

In the world of cloud data storage, Dropbox is one of the 800lb gorillas fighting for your files. In recent days, it has been making big moves to become more of a player in photo storage and sharing. After all, everyone needs a safe place to keep their digital images, right?

The company's latest play came today in the form of an acquisition: Dropbox has acquired fellow cloud-storage company Snapjoy -- a business based around aggregating photos from around the web and from your various devices.

Instagram Takes Step Toward Profitability by Updating Its ToS, Causes Grumbling

Earlier this month, Facebook stated that it's working on strategies for monetizing Instagram. Now we're starting to see the gears in the money-making machine warming up.

Instagram announced an update to its Terms of Service and Privacy Policy documents today, with changes that will take effect on January 16, 2013. While it's understandable that any service's terms must change if rolls out a new business model, many users aren't pleased with what some of the updated sections say.

Facebook to Launch a Snapchat-like App for Sharing Short-lived Photos

Now that filtered smartphone photos have taken over the photo sharing world, many people -- especially investors -- are wondering: what's next? One possible answer may be temporary photo sharing.

Just last week we reported that Snapchat had raised $10 million to continue pioneering the frontier. Now, a report has emerged that Facebook is working on its own mobile app that offers exactly the same thing.

Temporary-Photo Sharing App Snapchat Raising $10M+, Valued at $70M

If you haven't heard of the photo sharing app Snapchat yet then you probably will soon. The app -- which blew up earlier this year and is about to secure a boatload of venture capital -- is built around an incredibly simple concept: you don't always want to share photos on a permanent basis.

With Snapchat you can share a photo with a friend just like you would with any other sharing app, but instead of that person now having your photo forever, the photo comes with a "self-destruct" time limit à la Mission Impossible.

Facebook Says It Will Monetize Instagram. Would You Like an Ad with that Filter?

Ever since Facebook acquired Instagram for a ridiculous sum of money earlier this year, people have been expecting the social media goliath to ruin it in one way or another. That's because while the small team behind Instagram may have been happy with just the fame part of fame and fortune, a company like Facebook is used to getting both.

Admittedly, so far the downsides of the acquisition have been few and far between. Instagram is growing like gangbusters and it seems Facebook is trying to stay hands off when it comes to its handling of the service. Really the only downside has been the removal of Twitter integration. But, of course, the meddling has to start sometime, and according to Business Insider that moment isn't far off.

Twitter Officially Launches Retro Photo Filters for Its Mobile App

Well that was fast... Just hours after Instagram launched a major update to its popular photo sharing app, Twitter dropped a bomb on the industry by finally unveiling its own long-awaited and recently-leaked retro filters. The move brings it into direct competition with what Instagram offers -- the two services virtually offer the same product now, except Instagram is solely focused on images while Twitter lets you Tweet text as well.

Instagram Updates iOS App with Sleeker Look, Faster Speed, and New Filter

Instagram officially ended Twitter's ability to display embedded Instagram photos this past weekend. Twitter users aren't pleased, but Instagram is now trying to divert their attention away from what they no longer have to what they do. The company announced a major update to the iOS version of the app today, which includes a sleeker look, faster speed, and a brand new filter for Instagrammers to play with.

Eye-Fi Unveils Circ, a Cloud Photo Service with Unlimited Free Storage

We reported in the middle of last month that Eye-Fi was planning to launch a new cloud-based photo sharing service with the name Circ. That day has arrived: the wireless SD card maker has officially launched the service into private beta. Unlike other cloud services, which cap storage space for free accounts -- 5GB is a popular limit -- Circ doesn't. Rather than limit free accounts by storage, Circ is based on the number of devices used. A free account lets you sync 2 devices, while a $50/year paid account allows up to 20.

Nokia Launches Magical Slideshow App PhotoBeamer for Lumia Phones

Earlier this year, we shared an amazing iPhone app by imaging company Scalado called PhotoBeamer. The app allows you to quickly run a slideshow of your Camera Roll photos on any device that can load the PhotoBeamer website, simply by pointing your phone at that display. One month later, Nokia acquired Scalado and began folding the small company's projects into its own software. Now, Nokia has launched a repackaged version of PhotoBeamer exclusively for its Lumia phones.

Facebook Rolls Out Photo Sync Feature for Android and iOS

Today Facebook finally launched the photo sync feature that it has been privately testing for smartphones over the past couple of months. The feature is built into the social network's official mobile app for Android and iOS, and makes it easier to automatically sync your phone photos to the Facebook cloud.

Google Turns Times Square in NYC Into a Photo Gallery for Everyone’s Pictures

If you've always wanted your photography prominently displayed in New York City's Times Square, Google can help make it happen -- as long as you're okay with adding some text to your picture and participating in a marketing effort. To show that its new line of Chromebook laptops is designed for all kinds of users, the Mountain View-based company has launched a new campaign called For Everyone. It's a giant photo gallery that invites the world to upload photos that answer the question, "who are Chromebooks for?"

Interactive Photos Can Now Be Shared Directly on Twitter

Twitter has introduced the ability to share interactive photographs directly through the microblogging social network. Images that have a rich content layer added on via services like Stipple and ThingLink can be displayed in-line through Twitter's website with all their extra goodness intact.

Eye-Fi May Soon Launch Its Own Cloud Photo Sharing Service Called Circ

It seems like we're saying this every week, but the cloud photo storage industry is becoming more and more packed. Heck, even AT&T launched its own service called Locker earlier this month. The next entrant to the arena looks like it will be a photography company we didn't expect: wireless SD card maker Eye-Fi.

MyShoebox Launches Free and Unlimited Cloud Storage for Photos

MyShoebox is a new photo storage and sharing service that has been making a splash after launching a little over a week ago. Its offering is easy to describe: free and unlimited cloud storage for photos that can then be viewed from anywhere. Think of it as a Dropbox dedicated to preserving and enjoying photos.

SmugMug Brings the Ability to Price and Sell Prints Back to All Pro Accounts

Subscription-based photo-sharing service SmugMug caused a lot of grumbling back in August by effectively raising raising prices by 67% for Pro members who wanted to retain all of their existing features. Members who didn't want to pay double their membership costs could stay at the same rate but lose their ability to price and sell prints. The story and reaction was strikingly similar to Netflix's poorly-received pricing change enacted earlier this year.

Flickr Now Displays Basic EXIF Info More Prominently on Photo Pages

Flickr has quietly rolled out a great incremental update to its photo-sharing service. Individual photo pages now display a number of EXIF details under a new section labeled "Additional Info", found in the column to the right. With a quick glance, you'll be able to see the shutter speed, aperture, ISO, and focal length that a photographer was using when he or she snapped any photo.

Obamas’ Hug Becomes the Most “Liked” Facebook Photo of All Time

Barack Obama broke online photo-sharing records this week after winning Tuesday's presidential election. When his victory became evident, Obama shared the above photograph on his Facebook timeline with the simple caption, "Four more years." That photograph quickly attracted "likes" faster than any other image shared through the social networking service. When it hit more than 2.1 million likes shortly after midnight Wednesday morning, Facebook announced that it had become the most-liked Facebook photo of all time.

Instagram Launches Web Profiles, Looks Much More Like a Social Network

This morning Instagram made a huge splash in the social networking scene by launching its own web profiles for viewing users' photographs through a web browser. Each profile shares a user's photographs, profile info, and pretty much everything the mobile view has. The service just became a lot more Facebook-like.

Twitter to Introduce Instagram-style Retro Photo Filters

It's no secret that Twitter was interested in acquiring Instagram before Facebook swooped in and snatched it up. Now, instead of running the popular photo-sharing app, Twitter is waging war against it. Twitter cut off Instagram's API access for the app's "Find Your Friends" feature a few months ago, but that was just the beginning. The next major bombshell announcement is coming soon: photo filters.

Apple Reportedly Acquires Photo Sharing App Color

Well, that's quite a turn of events. Yesterday we reported that photo sharing app Color had denied rumors that the service would soon be shutting down. Based on the app's lack of users, we said that Color would need to find some traction -- and find it soon -- for the $41 million invested in it to pay off. Turns out they won't be needing a miracle after all, because they've reportedly already found one: the app will reportedly be acquired by Apple.

Rumor Says Overfunded Photo App Color to Shut Down, Company Says “Nope”

People say money can't buy happiness. Turns out there's another thing it can't buy: photo sharers. Despite raising a staggering $41 million in funding before even launching, the photo sharing app Color has been struggling to find users. Even after major pivots that changed the service's DNA, the app only has less than half a million active users.

There was a good deal of buzz in the tech world today after Ricardo Bilton of VentureBeat reported that the app has been slated for closure.

Shutterfly Gobbles Up Another Camera Company Photo Sharing Site

Shutterfly is making a habit of gobbling up photo sharing services that camera companies no longer want to run. Less than half a year after acquiring Kodak Gallery from Kodak for a meager $23.8 million, Shutterfly has now taken another photo site off the hands of a company very similar to Kodak: Fujifilm. The Japanese imaging company has agreed to dump its photo sharing and printing business SeeHere into Shutterfly's lap, shutting down the service on November 8, 2012.

JPEGMini to Launch Beamr: Speedy and Stylish Full-Res Mobile Photo Sharing

Since launching last year, JPEGMini has become a popular web-based option for trimming the file size of JPEG images without compromising their appearance. The web app magically shrinks photos by up to 5x while keeping the quality relatively unchanged. In May of this year, the company repackaged the technology for Macs as a simple space-saving app. Its next frontier? Mobile photo sharing and iOS.

Why Photographers Should Embrace, Not Scorn, Tools Like Instagram

It's seems like many photo enthusiasts are hating on Instagram and retro-filtered photos these days, but not photographer Richard Koci Hernandez. He has written a piece for CNN titled "Photographers, embrace Instagram," in which he explains why he thinks that "Smartphones have ushered in a golden age for photography."

Colorful Explosions That Show How Viral Photos Spread on Facebook

Want to see what it looks like for a photo to go viral on Facebook? Check out these visualizations by San Francisco-based studio Stamen Design, which took three of the most shared images on the social networking service -- Marvin the Martian (visualized above), Famous Failures, and Ab Fab London, all shared by George Takei -- and created a visualization using the data from the hundreds of thousands of shares.