Skip to Content

Free TUAW iPhone app -- try it now!
AOL Tech

photo-sharing posts

Filed under: Photo, iPhone, web 2.0

Flickr releases slick new iPhone app

So Yahoo has finally given the iPhone a hearty high five for being the most popular camera on Flickr and produced a native Flickr app.

There's not a heck of a lot to it, but you probably wouldn't expect there to be, really. After all, you're probably on Flickr to either upload and share photos or look at what other people have submitted. The app does both of those things pretty well.

For added sizzle, if you leave Flickr idle on your iPhone, a nice slideshow of Creative Commons licensed images will pan and zoom around your screen.

Searches return 40 thumbnails, and about 16 fit on the iPhone's screen at once. Tap one to zoom and and view details like tags, the number of views, and where and when images where taken.

Comments load inline below the image and you can, of course, tap the talk bubble icon to add your own thoughts.

Viewing your contact's items is an even better experience, with buttons provided to display set and tag views as well as their favorite images. The initial display can also be swapped between thumbnails only or image with titles and view/comment stats.

If speed is your thing, stick to the Flickr mobile web interface in Safari. It's definitely speedier.

However, if you prefer a more dynamic visual experience, then download Flickr from the App Store [App Store Link].

Filed under: Internet, Security, Web services, web 2.0

SmugMug doesn't seem to understand the meaning of privacy

SmugMug privacy
The folks at Google Blogoscoped have uncovered what appears to be a pretty glaring privacy hole in online photo sharing site SmugMug. Like many online photo sharing services, SmugMug allows users to mark images as public or private. If your images are private they won't show up on your profile page and other users are only supposed to be able to find them if you send them a special URL, which is not password protected.

Sure, a password would make the page more secure, but it would also make it more inconvenient for your friends, family, and colleagues to see your vacation photos. But as long as there's no easy way for the general public to find your photos, they're still secure from prying eyes, right?

Maybe not. The problem is that SmugMug gives images a predictable URL string, starting with http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/1000. All you have to do is change the number and you'll start to find photo album after photo album, whether they're market public or private.

As Google Blogoscope's Philipp Lenssen points out, the solution could be as simple as using a random string of characters. But the CEO of SmugMug replied in an email to Lenssen that the system wasn't built for randomized strings, and changing it now would be expensive. And you know what? If most SmugMug users remain blissfully unaware that their "private" images might be publicly accessible then maybe it's not wroth the time and money to fix the flaw. But we kind of think SmugMug and any other company that claims to offer users some level of privacy should really be willing to improve their system when flaws are pointed out.

Filed under: Business, Design, Developer, Internet, Photo, E-mail, Web services, Social Software, web 2.0

Flickr Slide-ing in New Zealand

Flickr Slide-ing in resultsSlide.com has been getting some much deserved respect in the photo sharing sector this year, beating out Flickr with their unique photo offering amongst Kiwi users.

Slide grew by 228% between the beginning of May and the end of September this year, stepping over the popular Flickr in New Zealand. Slide lets its users upload images from social networks, photo sharing sites and desktops to create custom slideshows with sounds, themes and effects to share amongst friends.

Flickr dropped to third place in New Zealand with a 13.73% market share, and PhotoBucket took second place with 15%. Social networks are driving the new found interest in Slide, with 59.18% of users coming from Facebook App widgets, and 21% from Bebo.

Flickr still keeps users interest, with the average user staying for 9mins, 3mins longer than Slide viewers. As for worldwide users, Flickr is zooming along with over 10 million registered users, and 27 million unique visitors worldwide. Slide however, has been rocking the widget world and managed to serve over 117 million widgets worldwide in April 2007.

Featured Time Waster

Graveyard Shift - zombie-busting Time Waster

With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet. They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...

View more Time Wasters

Featured Galleries

Defective by Design, London: Protest Pictures
Microsoft Security Essentials
Chromium Pre-Alpha on CrunchBang Linux
Safari 4 Beta
10 Firefox themes that don't suck
IE8 RC1
Download Squad at the Crunchies After-Party
Download Squad at the Crunchies
WordPress 2.7
Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals
Windows 7 Hands On
Comodo Internet Security
Android First-look: Amazon.com MP3 Store
Android First-look: Twitroid
Google Reader Android
Android Hands-On
Twine 1.0
Photoshop Express Beta
Mozilla Birthday Cake
Palm stuff
Adobe Lightroom 1.1

 


Follow us on Twitter!

Flickr Pool

www.flickr.com

More Tech Coverage

AOL Radio

Joystiq

TUAW

Daily Finance

Autoblog

Urlesque

Engadget

WoW

Switched.com

FanHouse