JumpstartMyPC.com has decided to bring FollowFriday to our blog. Read on and, if you are so inclined, add these “interesting people” to your own list.

FollowFriday – Round 17

Summer is here and, with any luck, you’ll be vacationing soon. Family trips to Disney World, national parks and beach resorts (assuming they aren’t located on the Gulf of Mexico) are in full swing. In order to remember these amazing trips, or simply gloat to family and friends, we break out our cameras and snap away. The only question now is what to do with those digital images once you get home.

Pictures aren’t developed anymore. They are uploaded. They aren’t placed in albums, but in folders (conveniently titled albums). You don’t invite people over to look at your photos, you send them a link.

I forget which comedian said it, but I thought this line was great (and please forgive me, as I am going strictly from memory here). “In my day, looking at someones vacation pictures was considered punishment. Now people do it for fun!”

Flickr is the first name that comes to mind when I think about storing pictures online. I can’t tell you why, considering I just opened my first Flickr account recently, but the name is synonymous with online digital photo storage.

Upload your pictures, tag them, write a description, place them in sets… The list of options goes on and on. If you want, you can use Facebook Connect to automatically add those same pictures to your Facebook profile as they are uploaded. The only real downfall to Flickr, that I can find, is that you can’t order physical prints, but then again, who does that?

Twitter: http://twitter.com/flickr
Web Site: http://www.flickr.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/flickr

Flickr is on Twitter - Now That's a Mouthful

Shutterfly as been my go-to photo sharing site for many years now. I started using it because I wanted to print out my digital pictures and, as time went on, Shutterfly added features and morphed into a real tool for storing and sharing digital images with friends and family.

One of the best features of Shutterfly, in my humble opinion, is the ability to create Share Sites. Share Sites are like individual web sites that you can edit to contain photos, calendars, weather and other individual components with simple drag-and-drop functionality. You can create a Share Site for your family vacation, an big event, a wedding, etc. or simply dump all of your pictures there.

Web Site: http://www.shutterfly.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/shutterfly
Twitter: http://twitter.com/Shutterfly

Shutterfly for Sharing and Printing

Snapfish is another of the many business arms of HP and a very similar service to Shutterfly.  You can upload, store, edit, share photos and order prints from their site.  The site looks a bit outdated to me (when compared to Shutterfly) but they have all of the functionality and great deals to offer a great service to their customers.

In researching the difference between all of these photo-sharing sites, I stumbled onto one interesting piece of information.   Snapfish offers a service called PictureMover that allows users to connect their digital camera and upload images directly to the SnapFish web site.  I have never tried this myself, but this seems like a great selling point for inexperienced PC users who are afraid of trying an online service.

Web Site: http://www.snapfish.com/snapfish/welcome
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/snapfish
Twitter: http://twitter.com/snapfishbyhp

Snapfish is not Just for Fishermen

Try out one or all three of the sites we recommended today and check back next Friday for more great #FollowFriday recommendations. Don’t forget, if you want to share this article with friends or family, all you have to do is click on the ShareThis button below.

Although this movement was originated in Europe, and now encompasses 500 events in 60 countries all over the world, it doesn’t seem to have caught on in the US. I’m not sure why, but I know that this is something we definitely need to start teaching our children, teens and well…. everyone.  New technologies, like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, cell phone cameras, Flip video cameras, etc. have turned us all into publishers of information.  Thanks to these technologies, a photo or video can be taken, posted and shared to hundreds, even thousands of people, in minutes.  More recent technologies, like “tagging,” make it even easier to find and share photos of friends and family.

As we mentioned in our Social Media Credit Score articles, these photos and videos might remain posted for the duration of one’s life.  How will this media affect the life of a young man or woman as they attend college, search for a job/career, date, etc?  Could a photo or video, taken by a friend at a party, have an impact on a young man years later?  Just look at the lives of those who have already been affected, like Michael Phelps.  He lost the respect of others, endorsements, time, and millions of dollars because of one photo.

Tips

• Use the privacy settings offered by social networking services!

• Select friends online that you can trust!

• Publish your own photos after thinking carefully about the potential consequences!

• Don’t publish pictures of your friends without their permission!

Resources

Official Web Site of Safer Internet Day 2010

List of all events planned across the world (PDF) – sadly, there were no events in the US mentioned

Use this article, and the rest of the day, to make friends and family aware of this great movement.  Share the information on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace or in any other venue that you think it might be helpful.  Together, we can educate those who are not aware of the consequences of their actions.