Swedish Pixamid Beats Color In Photo Sharing
The company that brought us Color, the photo sharing app for the iPhone, received $41 million in funding some time ago and we questioned if this was another sign of a tech bubble emerging. Color is essentially a photo sharing app that apparently got its launch all wrong. There's another photo sharing app coming from Sweden called Pixamid that seems to work in a somewhat similar way to Color, but the approach is completely different and I could easily argue that it will most likely beat Color at its own game. Pixamid leverages the users' existing accounts and builds on top of these - enabling smarter photo sharing. Pixamid is available for free in the App Store.
Furtiv Joins Photo App Craze With Fotogram
Furtiv is a Finnish mobile app developer that has just launched a photography app called Fotogram. The app is very similar to Hipstamatic, created for the iPhone. In essence, you're able to assign a set of filters for your photos. We haven't seen too many photo apps coming out from this region so Fotogram is a nice addition to the pack. The app is currently only available for the Symbian platform on Nokia phones. The company has also launched quite a few other plugins that enable users to upload their images and videos to photo sharing services online.
Expono Improves On Flickr
Expono is a Norwegian company, working in the field of photo sharing. This is an industry that hasn't had too many newcomers since Flickr has gained ground among the early adopters. Expono, however, has some very neat features compared to Flickr as well as some short comings too. Nevertheless, it is a service worth giving a try. The service is being built by a small five team combo in Oslo, Norway. The company was founded already back in 2007.
PiX’n'Pals Introduces New Collaborative Photo Sharing
PiX ‘n’ PaLs, a new Finnish startup, offers web based application to create collaborative photo galleries around shared events. This is a new take on the ever popular photo sharing since it brings events into the center of photo sharing activity.
The idea is to document your life together with your friends in a collaborative way. Your life, or “The Story of Your Life” as the company calls it, consists of events that you have participated in. An event can be for example a wedding, a party, a vacation or any important happening in your life. Any user can create a new event and invite the people who participated, so that everyone can post their photos and memories to the same place.
Users can also be invited to events as viewers with limited rights. This can be used when you want to show an event to a friend who was not present at the event himself. PiX ‘n’ PaLs attempts to add value, above and beyond your regular photo sharing service, with its collaborative approach in documenting your events.
Another interesting feature in PiX ‘n’ PaLs is the possibility to use of all the content others have posted and select the best events and photos and tell people your version of the story. You can publish your version on your profile page, for everyone to see, and supposedly even share it on other social networking websites.This in effect makes it possible to have a photo gallery even if you don't own a camera or have never taken a single photo.
The service layout is rather rough, but the user interface seems to make sense and the service works as it should. But since we are talking about a photo sharing service, aesthetics play a major role. Thus, it would make a lot of sense to put some extra effort to bring to layout up to standards.
Some new features that PiX ‘n’ PaLs are developing currently include:
- Development of the photos when right partner will be found
- Videos
- Integrating maps into the service
I haven't had a change to see anyone add photos to my event yet, so not sure whether that really works, but the idea is good and I can see myself using the service for ArcticEvenings. Only thing that really bothers me are the advertisements that seems to be everywhere.
The service is developed by Disruptive Media Ltd, which in effect consists of two guys, namely Frans Ekman and Jarl Törnroos. The company was founded in August 2007 and the first version of PiX ‘n’ PaLs came out already in the middle of September 2007.
The guys told me that the project was more like a hobby for almost a year and did not evolve much since both of the founders had full time jobs elsewhere; hence, all the hacking had to take place during nights and weekends. But now both concentrate full time on the company. I'm eager to see what will happen now that the guys got their priorities right. The founders also revealed that there is a bigger idea developing in the background, but they are taking it a step at a time.
