more ways to share...

I’ve told many of you about Picasa, the best program I have found for managing digital photos. Google bought Picasa, Inc. last July and (in the spirit of “do no evil”) made the application free to the world. Since then, I’ve been using Picasa to organize, edit, share (via e-mail and via Picasa’s instant messaging software, Hello), and upload my photos to photo printing services like Ofoto, Snapfish, and even to post pictures to this blog. Following the Picasa acquisition, there was a great deal of speculation on how the minds of Google would trick out Picasa with new features and useful services – look what Google did with Keyhole (now known as Google Earth). For software engineers, being bought by Google is like being selected for MTV’s “Pimp my Ride.” Yet with Picasa this has not been the case; Google seems to have missed the opportunity to Pimp that App.

In May, Yahoo acquired Ludicorp, the Vancouver based company behind Flickr. Think of Flickr as cross between Ofoto, Picasa, Blogger and Friendster. From the beginning, Flickr’s focus has been on making it easy to submit photos from as many sources as possible (cell phone, e-mail, web page, or camera) and share these photos online. Currently, Flickr does not offer photo printing (this is likely to change as Flickr is further integrated with Yahoo Photos). Two things set Flickr apart in my mind: the categorization of images using tags, and the Flickr API (application program interface) which allows people to create all kinds of neat programs using Flickr's data, like this and this (the strip of classcard photos at the top of this page is being driven off of Flickr).

I’ll be the first to admit that I get very excited about technology…but I rarely come across applications of technology that I think will change the world. Flickr is one such technology. For a recent example of the implications of this technology, visit the London Bombings Flickr pool. Before the mainstream media could even figure out what was going on, images from people on the ground (and in the tunnels) were appearing on Flickr.

The bottom line: Flickr is a killer app (so much so that I’d like to work with this group). Sign up for the service and shoot me an e-mail when you do so I can add you to my contacts. Flickr is what I’ll be using to share photos next year, and if you don’t have a login, no pics for you!

On a related note, I read about a newly launched site today called YouTube, which aims to be the Flickr of video. Several of you have asked me if such a video-sharing site exists…and until now, I knew of no other free service. Whether the Flickr model can successfully be applied to music or video is to be seen...