BubbleShare: Better than Flickr

Here is a web app I just fell for: BubbleShare.

I just got back from holiday in Peru. I travelled with 14 people, trekked the Andes, saw Machu Picchu and generally had a great time.

The group is now reconnecting by email and I said I’d find a service where we could all share our photos. I had thought I would use Flickr, but I am loathing Flickr these days because:

1. You have to have a Yahoo account and the sign up process for that is a TOTAL PAIN. I was mad – like 90’s bad internet mad – by the time I got into my Flickr account.
2. You can only upload 20MB/month … I had 160MB to upload.

Then, Daniel and Levi reminded me about BubbleShare. As it turns out, I know Albert Lai who runs it (I’m so sorry it was not my first stop Albert…unforgivable…wasn’t thinking). Anyhow, BubbleShare is:

1. Way easier to use.
2. FREE.

[bubbleshare 63093]

I have some slight design/usability beefs with the service (mostly the heavy use of grey text, instead of black and the fact that the “Share Album” and “Share My Album” links do different things), but other than those, I had a wonderful experience.

Uploading over 100 images was a breeze – and I did not need to download anything to do it, which Flickr makes you do (though you may have to upgrade to Flash8). Inputting multiple email addresses and inviting the group to see my album were both a snap as well. In fact, all these things were so easy they seemed magical.

You don’t need to give up an email address to use BubbleShare, only if you want a lasting account and profile, and you can get started in less than 30 seconds. You can also make prints and photo albums of your images meaning BubbleShare is a nice example of a transitional service. What more could you ask for?

For photo sharing, BubbleShare gets two thumbs up. Check it out.