Library clips

Thought I’d share my research on finding the right photo blog/stream for me.

That most important features I’m looking for is a mobile version, email upload, and auto-tweeting…plus a community interaction would be good, and another thing is a simple experience and look, just like Google, Twitter or del.icio.us.

Auto-tweets is essential as the service I use may not have my community, I can get my stream to auto-tweet so my Twitter community can click to Twitxr to see the content.
It’s a pity Twitter doesn’t show thumbnails of images like del.icio.us, it doesn’t have to host images, all it would do is show thumbnails (that goes for video as well).

Email upload is probably the most important feature as it’s so quick and easy to snap and send.

NOTE: There are loads of mobile social networks that allow you to have an image collection as part of it’s many features, but I’m looking for a service that is more focused on a photo stream/blog.

I’m listing a few features, but it’s not a complete analysis, most of these services have tags, rss, private mode, widgets, msgs, groups, etc…and I need not mention they are all social networks.

Twitxr - most like Twitter, more of a blog feel than a social network
- images
- no video
- no audio
- replies
- location
- mobile site (even iPhone)
- email upload
- no MMS
- auto-tweets (an more like Flickr and Facebook)

Radar - more of a blog feel than a social network, it’s differing feature is that it’s private
- images
- video
- no audio
- comments
- email upload
- mobile site
- MMS
- very private
- no auto-tweets

NowThen - more of a blog feel than a social network, only issue I had was you have to give your phone number to join up, I guess part of the reason is the email upload address is not unique.
- images
- no video
- no audio
- comments
- email upload
- mobile site
- MMS
- no auto-tweets

Tumblr - a micro-blog network, but I’m already using Tumblr for something else…and for some reason my email attachment won’t upload (Sony-Ericsson k610i)
- text
- images
- video (via vimeo)
- audio
- comments (via disqus)
- MMS/SMS
- email upload
- mobile site
- auto-tweets

Mobypicture - looks most like a blog, but I couldn’t see a stream view
- images
- video
- ringtones
- comments
- MMS
- email upload
- auto-tweets (actually this re-blogs to heaps of services)

Mobicue - nice and clean social network
- images
- video
- text
- comments
- email upload
- MMS/SMS
- mobile site (also download version)
- no auto-tweets

I really like the simplicity of these 6 services, they are all worth using.

Radar may be a bit too private for my use, and MobyPicture didn’t have a streamed enough feel.

Tumblr, Mobicue and NowThen are excellent, but Twitxr just seems to take the cake at the moment, maybe because it’s most like Twitter, and has the most simple interface…only thing now is to get my network going.

One thing I’m weary of with Twitxr is that it hasn’t been round for long, I’m not sure of it’s future, look what happened to Yappd.
This is a problem with web 2.0 services these days, it’s so easy for people to create apps (it took Twitxr 2 people in 3 weeks), they are flying at you left right and centre, and most of them are clones that won’t last long, or really just small projects…so you gotta choose wisely.
From the creators website:
“As far as data is concerned we are getting around 5000 uniques per day 2 weeks afer the launch. The cost of developing Twitxr was around $10K and it will cost us around $1K per month to maintain.”

Only thing with Twitxr is it doesn’t have audio bytes or video, this is something I may want to use oneday…

In saying all this, I could just email posts to a blog platform like Blogger, but I do like the potential of a community within the network environment.

My current photo micro-blog - Twitxr/johnt

More

I’ll just briefly list these services

VisualTwitter - images…more a fun service

Hictu - a mixed-media Twitter clone

Utterz - too feature rich, too daunting to work it all out, they just weren’t intuitive enough, but maybe the younger market like all the bells and whistles.
- multi-media streams (even mashup into multi-media clips)
- even ring a number to leave an audio byte or to listen and comment
- lots more, go check it out if you dare

Yodio - similar to Utterz, it’s more about mixed-media mashup clips

Soup.io - a Tumblr clone

[ADDED 8/03/08: I forgot to include Zannel
- text
- images
- video
- comments
- SMS
- email upload
- mobile site
- auto-tweet]