Blog.Photobucket.com

Announcing Enhancements to Group Albums

Number One Photo and Video Sharing Site Photobucket Enhances Group Albums

Mobile Uploads and Comprehensive Search Functionality Now Available

Photobucket (http://www.photobucket.com), the leading standalone photo and video-sharing site, today announced the addition of new features to the already popular Group Albums. Group Albums (http://photobucket.com/groupalbums) allow multiple users to upload their photos and videos to one shared photo and video album, with an administrator of the Group providing optional review and approval functions.

With this new release, users can add more detail to describe their group album and are now able to search all public Group Albums. In addition, each Group Album now has a unique email address, enabling users to upload photos directly from their mobile phones to the Group Album. Photobucket also highlights Group Albums with the most activity, contributors, and newest content, as well as Groups in categories such as Fashion, Schools, Music, Entertainment and more. These new features enhance the previous offerings of personalized vanity URLs, custom privacy settings, broad sharing capabilities and more.

Since its debut in May, over one-hundred thousand Group Albums have been created, ranging from weddings to family gatherings to rock bands. This popular feature helped drive record traffic to the site resulting in its largest traffic month ever in the U.S.  With more than 24 million unique visitors in June (according to comScore Media Metrix), Photobucket continues to be the No. 1 photo site in the U.S. 

For one band, Forever the Sickest Kids (FTSK), their Group Album on Photobucket (http://photobucket.com/ftsk) now features over 4,100 images that have been uploaded by fans and Photobucket users around the world.  Lead singer Jonathan Cook says, “The Photobucket pictures that have been submitted by FTSK fans are so good that I have put my personal digital camera away and now rely on the posse to submit pics that I can show my family back at home from each city and use for my personal MySpace page! FTSK PWNS ALL!” 

Other popular group albums include the Fotoflexer Image Editor’s Best Edited Images which include almost 2,000 photos that have been edited with Photobucket’s built-in, free editing tool powered by FotoFlexer.  (http://photobucket.com/fotoflexer). Users are encouraged to upload their favorite edited photos and images in the Fotoflexer Group Album provide an insight into how typical Photobucket users customize and personalize their photos and images on the site. 

Photobucket Announces iPhone Application for Apple App Store

Photobucket Announces iPhone Application for Apple App Store

Web’s Top Standalone Photo Site Makes Photo Sharing One Click Away For iPhone Users

San Francisco, Calif. – July 10, 2008 -- Photobucket (http://www.photobucket.com), the world's leading standalone photo and video-sharing site, today announced that its new application developed exclusively for the iPhone will be available July 10 from the Apple App Store.  Photobucket for the iPhone grants users full access to their Photobucket accounts directly from their iPhone, enabling one-click photo uploads, as well as full viewing options for albums and other Photobucket content. 

“Photobucket is thrilled to have an application available at the launch of the new Apple App Store, and to extend the Photobucket experience to users of the iPhone and iPod touch,” said Alex Welch, President, Photobucket.  “Photobucket provides an easy way for consumers to store and share photos on the Internet, and this new application allows us to deliver that same, industry-leading experience wirelessly to iPhone users.”

The new Photobucket application is available for download for $4.99 starting July 10 from the Apple App Store at www.itunes.com/appstore/

About Photobucket
Photobucket is one of the Web’s most popular sites, with more than 44 million unique users worldwide* linking billions of personal photos, graphics, slideshows and videos daily to hundreds of thousands of Web sites, including Bebo, Blogger, Craigslist, eBay, Facebook, Friendster, hi5, MySpace, Orkut, Xanga and many others. In addition to linking content, Photobucket users share their personal digital media by email, instant messaging, and mobile devices. Every day, more than 10 million personal photos, graphics and videos are uploaded to Photobucket for sharing with family, friends and the online world. The company actively moderates content to create a safe environment for its users, partners and advertisers. Photobucket has offices in San Francisco, California and Denver, Colorado and is located online at http://www.photobucket.com.  For the latest feature announcements and news, please visit the Photobucket blog at http://blog.photobucket.com.

*comScore Media Metrix, May 2008

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Media Contact: 
Talia Yates
Fox Interactive Media
310-969-7145
talia.yates@fox.com

Photobucket Launches Group Albums

Contact:
Chris Ulbrich
LEWIS PR for Photobucket
415-992-4400
Photobucket@lewispr.com

Photobucket LAUNCHES Group Albums

New Group Albums Allow Multiple People to Easily Contribute to, View and Share Photos and Videos All in One Place

New Feature Sponsored by Sony; Also Hosts Wedding-Themed Group Album

SAN FRANCISCO, May 14, 2008 – Leading photo and video-sharing site Photobucket (http://www.photobucket.com) today announced the launch of Group Albums, giving people an entirely new way to create and share photos and video collections. Group Albums provide multiple users with an easy way to store, share and view digital media – including photos and videos – in one convenient profile on the popular Photobucket site. Sony is the exclusive launch sponsor of the Group Albums feature.

“Photobucket is already a place where millions of people record their lives, and there are so many important occasions that we share with others – from weddings to sporting events, graduations, concerts – you name it,” said Alex Welch, president, Photobucket. “Somehow with all the convenience of digital photos, it still proved complicated for people to share photos and video of a single event in one place, so we made it our goal to fix that.”

Welch continued: “Group Albums are designed to offer a simple way for colleagues, friends and families to collaborate on creating photos and video collections where the entire group can contribute, access and enjoy them.”

After creating a Group Album on the Photobucket site, Group Album owners can invite other members and choose whether to password-protect the albums, as well as having the option to moderate each group if desired. Owners can also give Group Albums easy-to-remember “vanity” URLs, such as http://photobucket.com/smithwedding.

Members of Group Albums can transfer photos, images and videos from their other Photobucket albums, from Web URLs and from their camera’s Flash memory or computer’s hard drive. As with all Photobucket content, media in Group Albums can be posted on blogs, social networking profiles and all kinds of Web sites. Users can also share Group Albums content by sending links in email or instant messages.

Photobucket API opens new applications

Photobucket API powers NEW applications for self-expression
World's Leading Web Site for Photos and Videos  Opens Up to Software Developers

Initial Developers Including Adobe, AOL, FotoFlexer, Intercasting, RockYou, Slide and Snapvine Create New Ways to Illustrate Users’ Lives

PALO ALTO, Calif., April 22, 2008 – Photobucket (http://www.photobucket.com), the world's leading standalone photo and video-sharing site, today announced the broad release of the site’s application programming interface (API), which will empower Web developers around the world to build new applications based on Photobucket’s popular digital media sharing technology. The API and supporting materials will be available starting today from the new developer section on the Photobucket site (http://developer.photobucket.com).

The release of the Photobucket API enables developers to give users access to their photos and videos from places beyond Photobucket.com, including other Web sites, Web applications, desktop applications, browser plug-ins, mobile phones, home-entertainment systems, digital photo frames and cameras.

“We are excited to invite a world of talented developers to extend our photo and video platform and tap into the tremendous creativity and passion of our users,” said Alex Welch, president, Photobucket. “Photobucket pioneered the ability for people to link and share photos and videos -- whether on blogs, social networks or auction sites -- and the broad release of our API makes it possible to create entirely new media experiences on the Web and on devices of all kinds.”

Developers can use the API to create applications that will enable users to:

•    Securely log into Photobucket accounts
•    Create, edit and access albums
•    Upload new content to their albums (photos, images and videos)
•    Share content from albums via email
•    Search through publicly available content on Photobucket
•    Access and update metadata (titles, descriptions, tags, etc.)

Photobucket offers creative possibilities for developers of every kind – whether for personal or commercial pursuits. For anyone looking to get started immediately, Photobucket provides a non-commercial API option with open registration. For developers with an approved business plan for their application, Photobucket offers a commercial API opportunity with unlimited traffic and bandwidth. Developers can register for either option at the Photobucket developer site launched today.   

Initial developers, including Adobe, AOL, FotoFlexer, Intercasting, RockYou, Slide and Snapvine, will join Photobucket at its booth this week at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco to demonstrate a wide variety of applications they have created using Photobucket’s API.

Many more applications are featured in an Application Gallery launched today on the Photobucket Web site, including offerings from Blurb, Eye-Fi, Flektor and TiVo Inc. In addition to being a showcase for developers’ products, the Application Gallery makes it easy for Photobucket users to find and download applications and discover devices that support the API. Users can bookmark and share their favorite applications on their Photobucket profile, allowing other Photobucket users to try them out as well. To view the Photobucket Application Gallery, visit: http://gallery.photobucket.com.

For downloads and additional information, visit: http://developer.photobucket.com.

Photobucket Launches Image Editing Solution Powered by FotoFlexer

Contact:
Bryan Pope
LEWIS PR for Photobucket
415-992-4400
photobucket@lewispr.com

Photobucket Launches Image Editing Solution Powered by FotoFlexer

Advanced image-editing solution will enhance self-expression through customization of online photos

New feature to be sponsored by Toyota

ALTO, Calif., March 6, 2008 – Photobucket, one of the top destinations for managing personal media, today announced the launch of built-in image editing, powered by FotoFlexer, one of the most advanced Web-based image editing solutions. The image editor enables Photobucket users to edit and add effects to their photos. The two companies aim to make it easy for Photobucket’s nearly 40 million monthly users around the world* to personalize and share images on the Web. Starting today, the entire photo-editing feature set is free to all Photobucket users and provides another vehicle for self-expression online.

FotoFlexer’s features are seamlessly integrated with Photobucket, enabling all users – regardless of skill level – easily to edit their images online, within their existing Photobucket albums.

Photobucket users upload up to ten million images to Photobucket every day, and the site currently hosts almost five billion images and videos. Photobucket users can share their images and videos via email, IM or mobile phone, as well as post them on their blog or social network profile.

Toyota is the charter sponsor of the new feature on behalf of the all-new 2009 Corolla. For a limited time, Toyota is putting a smile on the face of Photobucket users by providing digital “stickers” inspired by the Corolla Dream Estate at www.toyota.com/corolla. Funny stickers like chefs’ hats, French maids’ aprons and bow ties let users create their own staff in honor of the new Corolla, a champagne car on a beer budget.

The integration between Photobucket and FotoFlexer includes editing features customized and designed specifically for the Photobucket community such as:

• Basic image editing – Photos can be re-sized, rotated, flipped, cropped,    duplicated and corrected with red-eye reduction.
• Color effect options – Images can be modified with color effects such as sepia, grayscale, blueprint and many more.
• Decorate – Photos can be completely altered into different shapes colors and have designs added, with the ability to turn them into greeting cards.   
• Beautify – Blemishes can be fixed, and wrinkles smoothed.
• Distort – All photo proportions can be distorted in various ways, such as stretching or bulging.
• Hi-resolution mode – Images can be edited in their highest resolution, providing professional-quality image editing for professional-grade images.
• Smart scissors – An object can be cut out of its background with just a few clicks.
• Enhanced border system – Border width can be automatically adjusted with a simple click and drag.
• Preferences system – The image-editing tool can store users’ preferences and most common image-editing needs.

After completing edits, users can either create a new copy or replace the existing photo. Users can then share the photos, include them in remixes or slideshows to share with friends and family or order custom photo prints, t-shirts, calendars or other gear from the Photobucket site.

“FotoFlexer is the perfect complement to Photobucket’s existing features, as it provides a way for our users to do more with their personal media online,” said Alex Welch, President of Photobucket. “This has been the most requested feature from our users, and we believe the FotoFlexer image editor enables them to complete the lifecycle for managing online photos – putting the final finishing touches and personalizing their photos before sharing them.”

“Collaborating with Photobucket allows us to bring our advanced, free tools to its huge user-base, who are always hungry for new ways to manage their photos,” said Sharam Shirazi, CEO of FotoFlexer. “FotoFlexer allows people to inject their personalities into photos, which is extremely important to Photobucket users who post, link and share their photos both online and offline. We are excited about this opportunity to integrate with Photobucket and we look forward to seeing what its users create.”

Photobucket users can log on and start editing today at: http://www.photobucket.com

Samples of photos, which have been customized by the image editor on Photobucket, can be found here: http://effects.photobucket.com/ 

Photobucket Launches Mobile Web Experience

Photobucket Goes Beyond the Desktop:
Leading Photo Site Launches Mobile Web Experience

Photobucket Mobile Recreates the Site’s Web-based
Uploading, Browsing and Searching Capabilities

PALO ALTO, Calif., January 15, 2008 – Photobucket, one of the Web’s most popular hubs for managing personal media, today announced the launch of Photobucket Mobile, giving its millions of users access to Photobucket features on web-enabled mobile devices. Users can access Photobucket Mobile by visiting http://m.photobucket.com on their mobile device.

Through Photobucket Mobile, users can:

• Browse existing personal and public Photobucket content directly from mobile devices
• Upload photos and videos to Photobucket from mobile devices
• Share photos and graphics with individuals via email from mobile devices
• Search Photobucket’s billions of photos and graphics
• View a variety of featured photos and images every day from the Photobucket Mobile Home page

The demand for Photobucket Mobile has steadily increased among its user base. An internal survey of thousands of Photobucket users conducted by Fox Interactive Media’s Research and Strategy Solutions in August 2007 found that 80 percent have a camera phone, 36 percent use the camera in their mobile phone every day and more than half (52 percent) have access to the Internet from their mobile phone.

“The growing demand for Photobucket Mobile proved to us that now was the perfect time to unveil a fully-functional mobile platform,” said Alex Welch, President of Photobucket. “Photobucket Mobile offers a great destination for our avid users to upload, search and share their digital media, wherever they are. As photo sharing continues to move beyond the desktop, our users look to share their digital life moments instantly. Recreating the Photobucket experience on a mobile platform is a critical part of meeting this need.”

MySpace launches Photobucket integration into the MySpace Comments Editor

MySpace today launched a really useful Photobucket integration into their ever-popular Comments Editor on MySpace.com.

Here's how it works:

• Login to your MySpace profile and go post a comment on a friends profile.
• In the comments editor, click on “Add Image from Photobucket”, and you can log directly into your Photobucket album -- all without leaving MySpace.
• Browse your Photobucket album to find the image you want to post; click on the one you like and click the “Add image to comment” button.
• All without leaving MySpace!

You can also search on Photobucket for the perfect image to post to the comments area of your MySpace profile.

• Login to your MySpace profile and go post a comment on a friends profile.
• In the comments editor, click on “Add Image from Photobucket”, then search for whatever you like.
• Click on the image you want to add to the comment and click the “Add image to comment” button.
• This search box gives you instant access to the billions of images on Photobucket.

We're pretty excited about this, because we know how many of you love MySpace. We know you like to access Photobucket's Find Stuff area to get all the best icons to decorate your profile.

This terrific integration will just make it all that much easier.


About Photobucket's Media Plug-in

Back in June of 2007, we launched Media Plug-in 2.0 that integrated search directly our free image and video hosting plug-in. The Media Plug-in offers an easy way for developers of Web sites to tap into Photobucket's vast collection of media assets.  The Myspace team has used Photobucket's Media Plug-in to do this integration. Other sites have integrated the Media Plug-in too. You can see it, for example, at Slide and RockYou.

The Media Plug-in is freely available to any Web site developer wishing to leverage the power of Photobucket.  For details on how to get access to this free code, go to: http://photobucket.com/mediaplugin.

There is a simple wizard that allows a developer to pick up the code required to add the Media Plug-in to their site.

Announcing Photobucket on TiVo® HD

We're so excited about this announcement. We're all huge TiVo® fans over here at Photobucket, and now you can view all your Photobucket pics right on your TV screen through TiVo.

TiVo announced today the launch of their photo service, with Photobucket as an important part of that launch.  Go here on the TiVo site for more details: http://tivo.com/photobucket.

See your own Photobucket photos on your TV

Anyone who owns a TiVo Series3™ and TiVo HD box will be able to login to their Photobucket albums and see all their photos in high resolution. It's a great way for you to share your photos with friends and families from the comfort of your living room couch. We've tried it out ourselves at Photobucket, and it really works!

See your friends' Photobucket photos on your TV

And if your family members have TiVo Series3 or TiVo HD, tell them your username on Photobucket and they'll be able to see your public photos too. It's a great way to have far distant friends and families enjoy your photos -- including those who don't always get to see your photos on their computer.

Search Photobucket's huge library of photos

And finally, you can enter a search term into the TiVo using their famous 'peanut shaped' remote, and bring up whatever results come back from Photobucket's billions of photos. Endless hours of amusement. Guaranteed.

Special offer just for Photobucket

So if this is the service that tips you over to get a TiVo, they've put together a special offer just for Photobucket users. Go to http://www.tivo.com/photobucketoffer for all the details. This special offer is administered only by TiVo, so they'll be able to give you all the help you need.

Go here to read more about this announcement on the TiVo site: http://tivo.com/photobucket.

Go here to read our FAQs on the Photobucket site:

http://photobucket.com/faq?catID=58&catSelected=f&topicID=591

Photobucket Transforms Online Photo Sharing With Photo Tagging for Sharing Across Social Networks

Leading Photo Site First to Offer Linked Tagging – Enhances Image Search and Discovery

PALO ALTO, Calif., November 8, 2007 – Photobucket (http://www.photobucket.com), one of the Web’s most popular hubs for managing personal media, today launched a new breed of photo tagging, giving users the unique ability to share tagged and linked photos across social networks and the Web. Photobucket tagging enables users to tag up to 20 names and links within a single photo, before sharing them online by posting them on personal profile pages, blogs and other sites.

When tagged photos are displayed on Photobucket, embedded onto other sites, or shared by email, viewers of those photos can see the tags, click on links, and also find more images with the same tags on Photobucket’s site. For example, a photo of a school or college group can link each person to individual social network profiles. Alternatively, a photo of landscapes or travel scenes could link to relevant Wikipedia pages or travelogues, giving viewers added insight into the photo’s subject matter.

Photobucket Hosts Online Celebrity Look-a-Like Contest

Photobucket Hosts Online Celebrity Look-a-Like Contest

Best Entries to be Included in Official Online Music Video for New Ludacris Single, “Celebrity Chick”

PALO ALTO, Calif., September 11, 2007 – Photobucket, the Web’s most popular creative hub, today launched a “Celebrity Chick” Look-a-Like contest in conjunction with Disturbing Tha Peace (DTP) Records to promote the music label’s latest single, “Celebrity Chick.” Starting on September 10, participants are encouraged to log-in to their Photobucket accounts and submit photos and / or videos of themselves, indicating what female celebrity they think they look like. The winner will be selected based on creativity, originality and resemblance to the “celebrity chick” they’ve imitated.

The winning look-a-like will receive a spot in the Photobucket / “Celebrity Chick” "remix" fan music video. The grand-prize winner will also receive a Disturbing Tha Peace (DTP) Records prize pack including t-shirts, posters and an autographed CD.

The “Celebrity Chick” single, featuring Ludacris, Chingy, Steph Jones and Small World, is part of a compilation album, “Strength in Numbers,” which will be released later this year. The single will also be available on Photobucket for users to create remixes of their photos and videos with music from the popular single.

“I’m really excited about this single because it is Chingy’s re-introduction to the world as a member of DTP and it also allows two of my very talented new artists, Steph Jones and Smallworld, a chance to shine,” said Ludacris. “I love feeding off the energy of my fans, so I’m excited to see what they bring out for Photobucket’s ‘Celebrity Chick’ Look-a-Like contest.”

“Teens are all about using digital media to inject a real sense of personality into online activities,” said Alex Welch, President of Photobucket. “This is the latest example of entertainment brands using new sponsorship models to reach key social networking demographics. This contest is a great way for DTP Records to interact with this highly engaged audience.”

The contest will run on http://celebritychick.photobucket.com from September 10 to October 1, 2007 and the “Celebrity Chick” winner will be announced the week of October 8th.