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Did you know that you can download images to your mobile phone using Photobucket? That’s right! Photobucket can send your favorite image as an MMS directly to your cell phone.
It's kind of like adding a ringtone to your phone but instead of an audio clip, it's an image from your Photobucket account that can be made into background wallpaper on your phone! This service is currently only available in the US at this time and we're working to support more service providers and mobile phone models.
Your mobile device must be Internet/WAP enabled with SMS.
$0.99 charge US per use for the Make Mobile service.
A brief FAQ with some images is after the jump. Check it out if you want to know how to take your favorite Photobucket images and customize them before sending them to your mobile phone.
Does everybody know you can create cool slideshows and widgets with your photobucket pictures. All you need to do is click the ![Widgets](http://pic.photobucket.com/album/bucket_features.gif")
button in your album. You can then share them with friends, put on your MySpace or blog, etc. Here are some examples...
slideshow:
strip:
collage:
stamp:
Things have been pretty busy in the world of Photobucket and we've worked to make a number of significant changes that we hope will really support our users. That's not an easy job with around 22 million users, trust us.
But still! Wow!
Some cool stuff that we hope you'll like.
First off, you should notice that the upload images function is quite different when you log in to your Photobucket account.
This is not only a cosmetic change but a functional one that we hope will make our users pretty happy.
Uploading images or videos is not only faster, but there are a lot more controls associated with how images will be resized.
Don't forget to check it out after you sign in to your Photobucket account.
The next big change involves how we organize Bucket Features. Widgets.
That's right! Bucket Features are now Photobucket's Widgets.
Organized in a way that makes it easier to create image slideshows, collages, stamps or strips in a variety of sizes.
As always, we're including the tools to make it easier to share and embed these Photobucket widgets into almost any webpage. It works with Myspace, Xanga, Blogger, Blogspot, Piczo, GaiaOnline, and the list goes on and on and on.
Some additional changes include tweaks to our Search functionality, Make Mobile functions, and ability to skin the Photobucket Video Player with your very own images. We think that's pretty pimp.
We hope you'll try the new features out. Send us your feedback and let us know what you think!
Additional information on our the widgets and how it works after the jump.
Continue reading "Just when you thought things were getting quiet here" »
VC-Backed Ad-Driven IPOs Likely to Take Off in 2007
Paul Kedrosky, Seeking Alpha
The summer of 2006 will be seen as the trough for venture-backed IPOs. There are three factors at work:
1. The capital markets finally need new blood: Existing tech companies are doing poorly, long-buzzed turnarounds in old favorites like JDS have fizzled, and a combination of defections and acquisitions has shrunk the pool of public companies.
2. A new generation of tech companies is generating meaningful revenues, and not getting the valuations it would like in private markets.
3. Venture capitalists have capitulated on IPOs, and don't even bother trying anymore. Given a tiny opening, and they'll get one in the next twelve months, they'll unload their entire portfolios.
In 2007 look for IPOs from ad-driven companies like YouTube, Photobucket, and others, much to the chagrin of grizzled skeptics out there.
Here is a graph of some data I looked at earlier today that helped convince me we're set to see an IPO upswing:
The Web Photo Sharing Site Faceoff
Written by Alex Iskold and edited by
Richard MacManus.
In this post we profile the red hot photo sharing space, where the blogosphere darling
Flickr is actually trailing in the mass market. Back
in June, Hitwise posted their online photo market
statistics
huge market lead at #1 and Flickr at #6. A lot of Photobucket's lead is due to its high
usage in MySpace pages - 56% of Photobucket's
traffic is from MySpace, according to Hitwise. So marketing and being part of a large ecosystem are crucial. But also important is having simple and easy to use features. So
we present here a feature-by-feature comparison and also highlight areas where particular
services stand out from the pack.
In the table below (which incidentally we did using Zoho Sheet, Zoho's online spreadsheet) we list companies from the Hitwise article as well as some additional 'web 2.0' photo sharing players.
Note that for Alexa rank we highlighted the top 5 scores - Flickr, Photobucket, Webshots, Kodakgallery, Pbase.
|
|
Pros |
Cons |
Flickr (owned by Yahoo!) |
innovative, tons of cool features, drag and drop, sharing, RSS, badges, clustering |
difficult to use for non tech savvy |
simple, limited functionality, badges | perhaps too simple, annoying ads, no sharing and social web features | |
professional interface, targeting main stream |
no sharing and social web features |
|
simple, has all the basic functions, each album has unique URL | no sharing and social web features | |
Pbase (not in the same space) | stunning professional photography, gallery-based implementation, simple | no sharing and social web features |
Picasa (not in the same space yet - owned by | hard to say because it is not apples to apples, but editing photos is nice | basically not (yet) in the same space, not really web-based |
music associated with albums, lots of badge options | unbearably annoying ads during sign up, clubs instead of groups, does not seem | |
professional interface, targeting mainstream | no sharing and social web features | |
Slide (not in the same space) | runs on top of Flickr, Photobucket, etc. plugs into MySpace, blogs, etc. Fills nice | focused on making slideshows (it's a limitation, if you want to consider this service |
professional interface, a lot of album options, well thought through | not free | |
professional interface, targeting mainstream | no sharing and social web features | |
|
has lots of social web photo features |
ads, somewhat clunky, no tags (at least we could not find them) |
|
conceptually interesting, some innovative UI, uses OpenID for login. | confirmation image gives you instant headache; no geography-only tag | |
very well designed, has the most social web features |
somewhat slow, lacks printing ability |
Where's Yahoo! Photos? We excluded Yahoo! Photos from this comparison because we did not have access to the new Yahoo! Photos beta, so we felt it would be unfair to review it based on the old site.
The browser twist The social browser Flock
has delivered two direct integrations with Flickr and Photobucket. What is interesting
(and also somewhat confusing) is that Flock has made a special version to be distributed
to Photobucket users. It is difficult to say what impact this deal has had on the photo
sharing market so far, but it is likely that browser integration is going to play a major
role in the future.
Firstly, we do not have a single online photo market. There is still a clear mainstream market led by KodakGallery and Yahoo! Photos. This market is basically focused on upload/album/print capabilities - and has little to none social aspects.
On the other hand, Flickr is a clear leader in the social photo sharing market. It has unmatched features, usability and community.
However the overall leader in the photo sharing market in general, and a good mix between mainstream and social web, is Photobucket. They have been able to add just enough social features, without getting too complex or fancy, to convert a lot of people from traditional photo sharing sites.
How is it all going to end up and who is going to win in this market? Time will tell, but it is likely we will end up having fewer players - and those that stick around will have a blend of features from the current mainstream and 'social web' camps. As for the bloggers' favorite, Flickr, the road to mainstream acceptance for Flickr is paved with tough competition and the need to simplify.
