* Sharpcast appears to be thriving
It seems that consumers can’t get enough of digital photography and in response, photo oriented Web services seem to be springing up just about every day. The problem is that so many of these are me-too services and it isn’t until they’ve been out in the world for a while that you can get any sense of how well they really fit into the marketplace.
It seems that consumers can’t get enough of digital photography, and in response photo oriented Web services seem to be springing up just about every day. The problem is that so many of these are me-too services and it isn’t until they’ve been out in the world for a while that you can get any sense of how well they really fit into the marketplace.
Back in February last year, one of these services, Sharpcast, was launched at DEMO to enthusiastic reviews. As much as many people would like to believe that a good DEMO launch ensures that the route to success is in the bag, the multiple forces of a rapidly changing marketplace, the problems of going live, and the technical issues of making a Web service actually work have scuttled many promising start-ups.
Now just over a year after their DEMO “coming out” Sharpcast appears to not only have survived but to also be successful and aggressively expanding their offerings.
What Sharpcast provides is a photo sharing and printing service, which includes uploaders for Windows (XP and Vista) and Mac (as an extension for iPhoto export only).
The Windows client side software also manages synchronization so that changes and additions to albums whether done on a PC or through the Web interface are propagated to all storage locations with remarkable speed. Best of all when you log in to an account on two different Windows machines the album contents are synchronized.
User albums can be viewed with any browser and you can select whether an album is public or private. Private albums can also be restricted, which requires the viewing user to have a Sharpcast account and be logged in. Viewing users are prevented from re-sharing your album (although they can, of course, download the pictures if they want). If you allow it, users can also add comments to pictures.
The client side software on Windows allows some basic editing such as cropping, contrast and brightness changes, red-eye removal and sharpening.
There is also support for mobile devices that use the Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system.
Sharpcast offers two levels of service: The Free Plan allows unlimited JPEG photos (maximum 1600 x 1200 pixels), a trial of the mobile edition for an unspecified time, along with printing and sharing of online albums for up to 30 days. The Premium Plan, $64.99 per year or $5.99 per month, allows for unlimited original size photos, unlimited storage, and the mobile edition is included.
A project that is in alpha testing now and due for release later this year called Hummingbird extends the synchronization facilities to any file type.
