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My criteria:<\/U><\/STRONG><\/P> After years of running my own server off my DSL line at home I finally came to the realization that it would be cheaper to pay a web hosting service and my site would be tremendously faster. Outsourcing had one big negative: I no longer had unlimited photo storage (and I love to upload photos). <\/P> Here’s what I needed from a photo sharing service:<\/P> I also was hoping for the following features:<\/P> The added bonus:<\/STRONG><\/U><\/P> I harp on this a lot… BACK UP YOUR CRAP!!!!!<\/P> By picking a photosharing site with unlimited storage you are protecting yourself from the inevitable time when your computer will crash. Think about it: you don’t have negatives anymore. If your computer crashes, you will loose all your pictures. That’s a terrible risk to take with your best memories.<\/P> The site:<\/U><\/STRONG><\/P> Well, there isn’t just one site, there are three. The one that will work best for you will depend upon your personality, preferences and, quite likely, your friends. For ease of selection I have arbitrarily divided the world into three groups:<\/P> The best social site:<\/U><\/STRONG><\/P> The coolest features in Flickr<\/A> revolve around tagging and sharing of pictures. You can add comments to friend’s pictures and even annotate specific regions of a picture (this is great for labeling people in a picture or pointing out that a friend’s fly is open). A strong social bent makes this service perfect for the high school\/college crowd, at $25 a year for unlimited pictures (upload bandwidth is throttled) Flickr<\/A> is also the least expensive (so it won’t cut to deep into Pablo’s beer budget).<\/P> The best everyman site:<\/STRONG><\/U><\/P> My absolute favorite feature of Phanfare<\/A> is how quickly a gallery is uploaded and posted to your site. The trick is they use the desktop application to resize the picture before it\u2019s uploaded to the web site, and later they upload the full-sized image in the background. Phanfare<\/A> also has the best support for videos and the largest range of image formats. For $50 a year you get unlimited storage and a fast, easy interface.<\/P> The best power-user site:<\/STRONG><\/U><\/P> I love the annotation features in Flickr<\/A> and the ease of use of Phanfare<\/A>… but when push came to shove I really wanted to have more customization than either of the two other services offered. Smugmug<\/A> is also great for professional photographers as it allows users with a pro account to completely re-brand the site and charge for prints of their pictures. Adding more wood to the fire was Smugmug’s exposed APIs that allow third-party developers to expand the Smugmug<\/A> functionality. There are three plans, all with unlimited storage: $39.95, $59.95 and $149.95 (note: use this coupon code and get $5 off – btqOt6mLHMm4Y).<\/P> Top Feature comparison:<\/U><\/STRONG><\/P>
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![\"\"](\"http:\/\/pictures.little.org\/photos\/44937633-Ti.jpg\")
Editor’s choice for 2004 & 2005<\/P>![\"\"](\"http:\/\/pictures.little.org\/photos\/44937640-Ti.gif\")
Top rated site for 2005<\/P><\/TD><\/TR>