Bytemarks
Album site also offers photo prints

By Burt Lum

More than a year ago, the Internet industry was still in its "pre-bubble" state of mind. The pre-bubble was a time when companies were in a state of bliss, still getting funded without a confirmed business model. In this pre-bubble euphoria, stock prices soared and Web sites were giving away their services to grow their market share. Reality struck when the money ran out and the bubble burst.

Back then I did a column on a couple of photo sites that offered free space for the creation of albums. These included Club Photo and PhotoPoint. The offer seemed to good to be true: unlimited file space for an unlimited amount of time.

That has all changed. In search of revenue, both sites now set limits on the free membership term length and space allotted for photos stored. Paid membership is the preferred option, and in the case of Photopoint.com, premiere membership will get you album space without the clutter of advertising banners.

So the search goes on. In my case, I'm not looking for a place to archive thousands of photos. Rather, I want a site that makes creating an album easy and free, and provides me the ability to print photos. Since getting a digital camera, I have found creating prints problematic. I was never big on getting prints of entire rolls of film. For the most part, they get viewed once and are never seen again. But there are times when a decent photo deserves a print for posterity.

So rather than wrestle the issue of whether or not to get a photo-quality color printer, I found a site that will do it all. Go check out Ofoto. They have an offer that may be just enough to warrant a try. As a new member you get 15 free 4-by-6 prints. And since Kodak owns Ofoto.com, the quality is guaranteed to be high. Once you sign up as a member, you can upload images and create an album right from your browser. From here, one click is all you need to get the perfect print. ;-)

Burt Lum, cyber-citizen and self-anointed tour guide to the Internet, is one click away at burt@brouhaha.net.