Photo site Tabblo made a number of upgrades today to their service that now combines a wiki ethos with a design tool based on general rules of good layout. Tabblo isn’t a traditional photo sharing site; instead of competing with sites you’re probably familiar with, Tabblo makes it easy to import your photos from places like Flickr (and iPhoto or Picasa) and then lets you arrange those photos with text to make large collage-like posters, called Tabblos, to print.
As of today, Tabblo designers can give permission to other users to not just view and comment on a Tabblo, but to make their own changes to it as well. A sports team Tabblo could be customized by each parent, for example, to easily put their child’s picture in the center of the poster but maintain the same design as the whole team’s posters. It’s like a wiki for visual design, with the original templates preserved.
The template design function in Tabblo is quite usable. It’s in DHTML, not ajax or flash, there’s a zoom, pan and crop function and several other ways you can alter the presentation. It’s interesting to try out and see how the real-time size transformation happens for example. Fidelity to original dimensions is generally good, but not in all cases (my dog there got a bit elongated to fit into the Tabblo). All of this could still produce some very ugly layout but the site offers another service to help. They’ve come up with a list of good design rules and created a button to suggest alternate designs for your Tabblo. You can click through as many suggestions as you’d like and now can go back and undo as many as you’d like as well. Similar to the way fully free-form writing and other types of media creation is being tempered through forms of external, expert control in places like Wikipedia - Tabblo offers total design control to users but also provides some guidance if desired.
The end results are very nice looking sets of images. Accounts at Tabblo are free and the company derives revenue from printing Tabblos as posters and soon as cards and photo books. The posters are really the best format for the site’s products.
There may be far fewer people who want to print posters of their photos arranged nicely with text than there are people who want to put their photos online for sharing, but just like OneTrueMedia is monetizing DVDs burned from photos and video and any number of sites are making self publishing of books easy - it may well be that Tabblo’s goal of being “the print button for the internet” is a viable one. Whether or not that’s the case - it sure is fun to use.
Comments
So, is more of a web based photo editor (that helps create collages) with collaboration feature. How difficult would it be for flickr to build this feature but most importantly how do they plan to make money?
Printing, and the collage thing is easier said than done. These guys use the commercial Flickr API.
this is probably the most worthless thing i’ve ever seen.
Arjun - it seems like companies are just pumping out crap to get somethin gout there to say they were in the “2.0″ bubble… which may end up being a bubble of some good stuf but mostly CRAP!
I think Tabblo is onto something. Noone else seems to be putting words and text together. PLus, the editor is fun to use. Can be sluggish, but the pages look good.
You guys, check out http://www.imagekind.com. We (Curious Office) launched it 4 weeks ago and we already have over 300,000 artists submissions. It’s basically “cafe press” except for (wall) art.
I love the site! It’s easy to navigate and the design is greatt: clean, with lots of whitespace. Compared to the other sites, like Ofoto (which is bland and basic), Tabblo is inventive and it doesn’t take a week and a half to register, either.
Hey all,
So disclosure: I work at Tabblo. To the guy who says it is a piece of crap– sorry to hear it. I’d love for you to send me your login so I can see where you had the bad experience creating a tabblo. We’re happy to try and fix it for you if we can.
And to the “this is just a dot release for flickr guy,” I don’t know that I agree with you– though I would have twelve months ago when we got started. Back then the plan was to get something out the door quickly and emphasize the composition experience for the digital scrapbooking/story-telling folks. However, what we’ve learned over the last year is that there are a lot of tricky things to getting this mode of editing online/offline creations right and that the devil is in the details. Flickr gets a lot of stuff right– but this isn’t really their focus– combining photos, words, and world-class design templates in the context of a community and for the purpose of story-telling. It is ours– and let me tell you, as the former VP of engineering at a company that did something very similar but in the fat-client space for the likes of Apple, Adobe, and Microsoft– what we do everyday is really short of only magic, and it’s because of how good the team is and how committed we are to the mission of building the best online editor for this sort of thing.
Finally to the business model trolls: we make all our money by turning bits into very compelling atoms. I don’t mean 4×6 silver halide prints, but posters, books, calendars, cards, stickables, and a number of other products we’re not talking about yet. We also intend to start offering a premium subscription soon for some of our die-hard users soon, and are in the middle of defining that with the users themselves.
I love tabblo! I have found it to be a personally satisfying and fun way to share photos with my family and friends. I love the ease of use that it affords through its various plug-ins (I use the picasa one) and I have found the team members to be extremely polite and responsive to feature requests. They have also fixed any problems that may arise at lightning speed. The people I have encountered on the Tabblo website are great and I’ve been able to very quickly make friends (something that I’ve never found very easy to do on other websites). The templates and ability to include copy in a Tabblo are fantastic tools and I have received so many positive comments from friends and family about my tabblo creations. I am not an accomplished photographer nor a designer but because of the way Tabblo is set up I am able to create aesthetically pleasing collections of images as a result of using the features that Tabblo offers. It is really quite easy to use and easily modified to fit one’s preferences and the end result is visually striking. I also love being able to include my tabblos on my blog. They make my blog much more visually interesting. I’m excited at the prospect of being able to order a book of my Tabblos. I think it will make a wonderful family heirloom, family photos and history, complete in one sharp-looking package. I can’t say enough positive things about Tabblo. If you haven’t tried it out, you really should before you jump to any conclusions. Why not try it. There’s nothing to lose a lot to be gained.
I’m a tabblo aficionado. Within a week a had created 50 tabblos … reason being that I finally found an easy, hassle-free tool to put my pics in a nice format for my friends and family. You do not need to be an accomplished photographer or use expensive equipment to make your tabblos look good. All it takes is a bit of playing around with the editing tools. I am living overseas, and it is always nice to share pics + stories with your family and friends and tabblo gives you this option. I also like the fact that you can publish your tabblos to your blog and flickr account. Another reason why I like tabblo is the forum. You always get instant reactions from other tabblo users on your creations and exchange tips and hints on how to optimize your tabblos. It’s an awesome tool. I love it!
Name: What blows? Tabblo! Seriously, I hope they didn’t pay much for that brand. We can only thank that they didn’t call themselves tabsuk.
Technology: Coded in python with liberal use of numerous libraries. Very nice work, and a good example of clean programming.
Concept: Yet another photosharing site? I really wouldn’t want to bother spending the inordinate time it takes to fumble together a collage on this site considering the high likelihood that Tabblo will soon “blo” the way of the wild goose. It’d be better to wait until Flickr (or any other major photo sharing site) copies the collage feature of tabblo.
Hah, I liked the comment to us “business model trolls.” Attaboy Antonio! You put us in our place with that one. Us trolls and our pesky “wanting to make money” and that darn “don’t like waiting in the unemployment line after my angel funding runs out because I bought Aeron chairs” attitude.
“dHTML, not ajax” DHTML is javascript too!
Hi! I just came across this…I use Tabblo REGULARLY…and LOVE it!!!
I agree with Antonio (up there) who said you should retry it. Shame you didn’t give Tabblo the “5 thumbs up if I had them” review….it is misleading to the readers of Techcrunch.
And, “Skeptic” (above) I was suprised at your comment…it seems to reveal more of YOUR INNER FEELINGS/WORKINGS than what commenter Antonio stated….I didn’t get any negative vibe from what he wrote. Hmm…..maybe you told on yourself. (hehe)
Anyhow, I was happy to come across a review on here of Tabblo being a very enthusiastic user…but disappointed in the review. I would ask EVERY reader to GO and sign up (free) at Tabblo…EXPERIENCE THE ENTIRE DEAL….
from the VERY HANDS ON and beyond friendly faces of the “staff” (I dunno what you call them, but you know what I mean)….(sidenote: to me THAT is very important to be using something that you know the staff is so entirely passionate about….but unlike other sites, you see their smiling faces (sincere) and have their email addresses (drop them a line ANYTIME….and,eeeks…get a friendly response back as if you are old friends. They make comments on your Tabblo’s. Now, that is COOL! This is “family”…and like family, you have a SUGGESTION on how to grow Tabblo….they listen with a smile and thank you…love it! )…you just FEEL “we are family” in the air…..there is such a POSITIVE VIBE (which means a lot to me, personally) there….I have made some cool friends……
The layouts are GREAT as is, but I noticed they are continously surprising me by rolling NEW stuff out constantly…. I LOVE THAT…it means: it only gets better….and here I am pretty happy with it now LOL.
As far as your concerns about how they are going to make money….I am just the end user…I don’t care HOW they make money if it’s not going into my pocket….just keep me happy. LOL. Businesses are there to make money…God bless them one and all….make money….don’t make money….whatever.
All I can say is that I dont’ know about your experience, but I’ give it another try…..and, to other readers of Techcruch :-)…..TRY TABBLO….I swear, and I have no stock or any interest in this company…I am ONLY an END USER…..TRY TABBLO…I swear, you’ll LOVE it. It’s free….stoll over.
So many uses for these Tabblo layouts, so little time.
Ie: Next time you go to a party, “photoblog” it on Tabblo…..you can display it scene by scene…with captions or block text….review it!! Or, just make a very cool layout display to share with friends….make THEM a STAR for a day! lol. I dunno…I just find so many possibilities…heck, I have Tabblo’d my trip to Starbucks!!!! (LOL…I swear, it came out great, but I may be subjective on that one LOL but it got plenty of nice comments ;-P )
Okay….sorry for this book….I guess I am just a passionate user who wanted to encourage your readers to TRY IT, YOU’LL LIKE IT…because in al l honesty, I believe they will….there are all sorts of users, too: from professional photogs, to GREAT amatuers, to goofballs like myself who just have PLAIN OL’ FUN…. I don’t think you will be disappointed at all. I swear. (And, when you are there, stop by and say hi to me…so I can say: I TOLD YOU SO! LOL j/k). Don’t miss out due to this “blah” (in my opinion) review.
KELLY in TEXAS
Hmmmm…. target market observation - based on the comments the girls like it, the guys don’t. Are you listening Tabblo? Make it pink and pretty and forget the grumpy, sarcastic boys.
so many web online photo editor exist already.
check these out:
http://editor.cellsea.com
http://pxn8.com
http://snapshot.com
I love it. They got it just right and boy do they listen to customers! I downloaded the picassa add-in and had my stuff up in minutes. I’ve tried Flickr, ofoto (now Kodak) and picassa (to Hello/Blogger)and this is way way better.
Chris
See my tabblo http://www.tabblo.com/studio/stories/view/107972/
This isn’t a an online photo editor. People who think this are misinformed and really need to go try the site for themselves.
Tabblo fills a fantastic niche in the only photo sharing space that no one has filled up to this point. They’ve managed to take something (creating collages) which is a very artistic and creative medium and digitized it in a way which still provides much of the same experience and end-result as the manual process of doing it in ‘real life’. This will never be big amongst those who simply wish to view a Flickr slideshow the day after a party, but will be HUGE amongst those of us who choose to tell stories with our photos when the visual impact of photos together (and sometimes with words) is so much more powerful than a slideshow with captions.
To the detractors submitting comments here: I’m sorry, but you just don’t get it.
I would have to side with Arjun. Who the hell wants to print collages? Is this the 70s?
Mark: Don’t be so condesending….oh, puh-leez….
When you wrote the statement above you were only poster 15…and, you can TELL that not all of the posters have used Tabblo…but just read a “blah review” and gave it a looksee over.
There are so many men (yes, Mark, MEN) using Tabblo….have you checked the user listings? They don’t do GIRLEY things either nor would they appreciate your portraying Tabblo as pink and flowery. I think in this Techcrunch, that is a horrible way to review something.
Truly interested parties: TRY, I think you’ll like it.
Want to keep Techcrunch feedback “real” then get REAL USER FEEDBACK.
You make wonderful deep target market observations, Mark. Good job…. but don’t give up your day job. ;-P
I am another person who absolutely loves Tabblo. Kelly and Jill are just two of the wonderful people I have gotten to know through this site. It is a fantastic way to share stories with others through the use of pictures. It is easy to use and so much fun. Whenever I take pictures I think about how I am going to set them up as a Tabblo. It has become a daily part of my life. Antonio and the gang at Tabblo do everyhting they can to make us happy. We ask and they listen. And they make things happen. I have really enjoying getting to know people all around the world, both MEN AND WOMEN. It really feels like a family. Everyone should give it a try. If there are a few bugs along the way, well, that happens with new programs. Be patient, it will be worth your time. I know you will like being a part of the Tabblo family!
Thanks Nick, it helps when you’re a web developer by trade
Very interesting site, read it all
Grear site!
Very interesting site, read it all
Dear Gentlemen: I would be grateful if anyone could tell me what the rank of Cfn. stands for.. in the Canadian Infantry Corps tfd. R.C.E.M.E. in WWII. Thank-you.
Howdy Folks. I was wondering if anyone had any details on the Eastern re-union that is being held in Moncton in 2007. Cheers, Dan
Grear site!
Tabblo is really a very nice way to share photos with our friends and family. The templates and ability to include copy in a Tabblo are fantastic tools and you do not need to be an accomplished photographer or use expensive equipment to make your tabblos look good.
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