* Online scrapbooking service is a work of near genius
I must admit to a rather curmudgeonly nature. My wife says it is because I am English and thus predisposed to sarcasm, ire, and irritability (there is something in that – the U.K.’s weather could turn Carol Brady into an axe murderer). Even so, I find the relentless happiness of online marketing wearing to say the least.
Why is it that every company has a team, wishes that you “have fun,” “share,” and wants you to “express yourself” or experience something they claim is “the ultimate”? Combine that over-the-top jocularity with an English temperament and it is a wonder that I’m not an axe murder (there is, however, still time).
Today’s subject, an online scrapbooking service called Scrapblog, is yet another offender in this area suggesting, as it does on the home page, that “Scrapblog is all about expressing yourself. Come in and have some fun. Then share what you create with family, friends or the world.” Yech.
Be that as it may, Scrapblog, which was launched April 1 (and is not a joke) is actually a brilliant idea. No, I’ll go further – it is actually a work of near genius!
Scrapblog uses a Flash-based interface so that you can build (you guessed it) scrapbooks. You can import photos from your PC, Photobucket, Yahoo! Photos, Flickr, and Webshots. You can move photos around on the page as well as resize them; rotate them; crop them to specific frame shapes; add drop shadows and reflections; perform some basic photo editing (for example, red eye removal); change their Z-order on the page; and even give them old-fashioned photo corners.
You can also use predefined layout templates; add page backgrounds; place “stickers”; add text and balloons; use shapes and even include videos; and you can set how scrapbook pages transition
When you are ready, you can publish either privately or to the world and viewers of your opus can leave comments. You can even post your scrapbook to a blog or send all photos to your Flickr account as an album. On top of all that each scrapbook has its own URL along with an associated RSS feed so that friends and family can track when your scrapbook changes.
It appears that a lot of the scrapbook assembly process occurs client-side which can, if your processor is slow or permanently overloaded as mine is, take considerable time.
A feature that the Scrapblog developers are working on is the ability to print scrapbooks. They plan to offer free downloads of 900 pixel by 600 pixel JPEG images (effectively 72 dpi resolution) and provide a high resolution on-demand printing service. Export into PowerPoint format is also planned and high resolution, 300 dpi PDF downloads may also be supported in the future.
Scrapblog is currently free and there are no plans to change that. There’s also no limit on the number or size of scrapbooks you create and the company has very cleverly made it so that you can create a scrapbook without registration – it isn’t until you try to save it that you need to register (other Web application developers take note: Hook ‘em before you try to reel ‘em in).
The scrapbooking industry is huge. The last study on the topic that I could find, the “2004 Scrapbooking In America” survey determined there was over 26 million households and 32.1 million scrapbookers in the U.S., and per household spending on scrapbooking was $96.76 annually and annual industry sales were estimated at $2.551 billion!
Scrapblog should be able to tap into that market because the combination of easy layout and formatting combined with digital photography, blogging, print on demand, and sharing will, I believe, prove to be compelling to many real-world scrapbookers out there.
Scrapblog is the result of two years of self-funded development and has just closed their A series round with an investment from Longworth Ventura Partners. I suspect that one of the Internet’s 800 pound gorillas will snap Scrapblog up for some ungodly sum in the near future.
My only problem with Scrapblog is my crankiness over its damn jollity. Then again, with what I predict will be a bright future for Scrapblog perhaps entitles it to be upbeat.
