9/13 Which online photo sharing websites do you guys prefer?
\_ shutterfly. -tom
\_ http://www.csua.berkeley.edu/~login
\_ snapfish.
\_ Decide what you need. Here's the service summary on the 3 major
sites:
snapfish: uses Kodak paper and machines, lowest prices, but
ships from east coast so it takes a little longer
to get prints sent here, maybe an extra 2-3 days.
ofoto: owned by kodak but uses fuji equipment, etc. slightly
more expensive but you'll get your pics a day or two
sooner because they're printing locally,
shutterfly: same idea as ofoto except they're still a dotcom
and dont have large company backing them so they
have to charge more and they could go under and
take your pictures with them at any time. i
believe they use a variety of smaller development
firms, thus the higher prices since they don't get
the same kind of bulk rates snapfish and ofoto can.
If you're not printing and only want the free online storage
and the ability to share, it doesn't really matter. Bits are
bits, yes?
\_ ofoto requires your visitors to log on to view your
pictures, so it does really matter. -tom
\_ if they didn't then deep linking directly to photos
would allow rampant abuse of storage and bandwidth for
non-customer uses. It isn't 1998 anymore. They need
to control costs and make profit or die.
\_ that is easy enough to prevent without making someone
need to have an account. Just check the referal.
\_ See my comment about 1998. If they can get you to
sign up, you're more likely to continue using the
service. If you won't signup, what do they need
you for anyway?
\_ I'm just pointing out that your first argument
was flawed. As to the second, well, there are
two options I can go with that don't require
a visitor to sign in. All other things being
equal guess which choice is better?
\_ We have a different idea of what constitutes
abuse. To me if you're not a paying customer
or bringing in other paying customers yet
you're sucking bandwidth and storage, you're
useless to the company. True, it's only
really abuse if they allow it to happen and
in this case they're not. Additionally,
they're taking steps to try to get more
paying customers which is a good thing for
any business. We're splitting hairs at this
point. Since the accounts are free, it's
all pretty much the same in that regard.
There's probably a csuamotd/csuamotd account
on all three already. :-)
\_ no, because if I'm using the service I'm
also probably paying for prints and the
like. The point is by making people
need to log in to see my pictures I'm
going to go with one of the other two
and when I want to get prints I'll
get them from the company where I've
put my photos. Bandwidth and storage is
still pretty damn cheap compared to other
costs and it is pretty easy to catch the
serious abuses. (Say just give every
use a dl/day limit). |