Comments on: AOL Pictures goes social and it’s not pretty

By: Christian

Christian — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 08:31:02 +0000

I think that is no problem!

By: senkara.com

senkara.com — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 18:12:13 +0000

pinemi.com…

cefana.com…

By: http://www.tickerhound.com

http://www.tickerhound.com — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 22:48:56 +0000

AOL Pictures goes social and its not pretty…

The new version of AOL Pictures came out of beta today and its thoroughly underwhelming….

By: Mike H

Mike H — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 14:34:04 +0000

I share photos with relatives via http://www.myfamily.com, which they all like and use regularly. The service is expensive, UI is awful, and has never been upgraded in the four years I’ve used it. I tried switching to flickr, but nobody seemed to like it and Yahoo Photos was too complicated for the grandparents. I’m not sure that AOL Photos will work much better, but it seems like family communities based on photo sharing is an underdeveloped niche. Perhaps AOL could have targeted that a little more.

By: AOL Customer Service

AOL Customer Service — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 18:52:31 +0000

Sean, we also told you that we would kill your dog if you told anybody else that we threatened to kill your dog. I am afraid you have forced our hand in this matter.

thanks for using AOL!

AOL Customer Service

By: 山丘突歐 » [整理] 國外免費網路相簿大集合

山丘突歐 » [整理] 國外免費網路相簿大集合 — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 04:16:20 +0000

[...] AOL Pictures 網路相簿: 有圖片上傳方式: 單張、AOL自行開發的Active X Mash-Up: … 山丘短評: 在截稿前才看到Tech Crunch 的介紹，稍微試用一下，才剛開始要上傳圖片就出現了些麻煩，上傳個一兩張照片試Sild Show，展現最陽春的秀圖方式，Mesh UP功能也沒做幾項，也難怪網友嘴巴不留情，請他顧好本業就好，別開發什麼網路應用了。確實，接下來山丘下介紹的幾個相簿比他早出，卻都比他好用很多。延伸閱讀:AOL Pictures goes social and it’s not pretty [...]

By: SuperTopher

SuperTopher — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 21:57:27 +0000

I love the comment that it wouldn’t be that bad if it wasn’t “made by AOL”. What does that mean? What does that tell us? It’s like saying “this is a great song, too bad it’s by ‘N Sync or I would like it”. I-G-N-O-R-A-N-T

The company is MOOT, or nearly.

AOL seems to be making an effort to be open, friendly, and fully webified. It’s a shame that we wont even look twice at a company that is trying to reinvent itself.

I use AOL Pictures. It’s reliable. It’s free. It’s unlimited. It only requires an AIM SN to upload…none to view a shared album. It’s fast. It’s easy. It’s perfect for it’s target audience….which, it does not take a brainiac to figure out is NOT THE FLICKR CROWD.

Sigh.

By: Eric S

Eric S — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 19:46:33 +0000

The fact is that AOL Pictures is a FREE service now. They will store ALL your pictures and allow anyone to download them in their FULL size. How many other services do this?

And better yet…they offer a stand-alone program for Mac OS X that lets you upload photos directly from iPhoto. Any services that offer winblows only support suck in my opinion. Offering support for only the worst OS is not a good idea IMO.

By: Frank Cefalu

Frank Cefalu — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 19:38:15 +0000

Murali, Just because we disagree with Marshall on a point doesnt going to mak ethe site go down the toliet. I usually like Marshall’s articles. On this one I just happen to differ in opinon. I think your comments are not constructive, nor does it even bring a new point of view to the table. Please remember Murali, Trolling is looked down upon.

By: Murali

Murali — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 18:55:01 +0000

It is sad that a reputed technology update site has such a biased review by people like Marshall Kirkpatrick. Hope Marshall isn’t the one running this site, because I would hate to see the site get ruined.

By: Marshall Kirkpatrick

Marshall Kirkpatrick — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 18:52:51 +0000

On tagging etc. is unsuited for AOL customers – they make a pretty big deal out of it in this release. I’m just saying that if they’re going to go after these popular features I don’t think they implemented them well.

By: Frank Cefalu

Frank Cefalu — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 18:09:31 +0000

Marshall, another note, teh design is standard of AOL Applications. If you already hate the design, I don’t think a review is viable of anew application they develop since you have biast opinion of the product already. You make it seem that AOLs design for the application is a stunning surprise.

By: Frank Cefalu

Frank Cefalu — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 18:06:58 +0000

Marshall, silly review. You evidently dont understand the market Flickr targets and the market AOL targets. The average user on AOL will get confused by the concept of tagging their picture. They won’t know what that means. OF course AOL designed it that way. Come on Man, you have to think why they made the application and for whom. If you assume everyone knows just as much information as you then you’ve never done userability studies as I have. THe knowledge we have about how the web works only compromises 2% – 5% of the population. Do not forget this.

AOL did a fantastic job period. I hate AOL but for the users they made this for its absolutly perfect. Why does every site have to be rated against Flickr? Whats the purpose? Because it’s Web 2.0? There isn’t even a base or preferred platform for Web 2.0 development yet, even that is still up in the air.

Thats like me saying oh, the gallery system at the senior system home is newly made, but it isn’t as good as the one 2 advanced developed for Sony Playstation. Senior Citzens some cannot even comprehend nor understand Instant Replay. This example is the same exact thing that is going on here, no matter how incredulous it sounds.

By: Alex Rudloff

Alex Rudloff — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 15:45:06 +0000

Don’t you think it shouldn’t offer more than flickr? Perhaps even less?

The goal isn’t to dominate web2.0. I’d imagine the goal is to make a product that is usable by the masses. Take certain features/concepts, water them down to make them “underwhelming”, offer a ton of storage and release/promote to their existing user base.

I havent played with it yet, but from what I hear, that seems to be the play they’re making.

This isn’t about “one uping” anyone, it’s about business.

By: AOL Pictures at note to self

AOL Pictures at note to self — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 14:07:05 +0000

[...] Techcrunch is bemoaning AOL Pictures relaunch. I think they are missing something though. [...]

By: Socialitis

Socialitis — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 13:58:47 +0000

I’ll Pass on AOL Pictures…

AOL Pictures came out of beta today and I feel the need to comment. There are several reasons why I will not be using AOL Pictures to store my photos online.

Folders – Folders are not as cool as tags and they will never be as cool as tags. AOL Pic…

By: Eric Date Andersen

Eric Date Andersen — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 13:51:14 +0000

I don’t think it’s too bad. It’s not up to par with my personal favorite flickr.com, but it’s getting there. Shame that it’s made by AOL tho.

By: Somewhat Frank

Somewhat Frank — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 12:40:49 +0000

AOL Pictures Launches With New Features…

AOL Pictures, the online photo site by AOL, launched today to offer a number of new features and a totally new look. AOL Pictures now allows users to share picture gallery photos openly on the web which is a huge…

By: landmine

landmine — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 11:53:35 +0000

Totally biased review…unlimited storage with full resolution is the best feature they are providing. Nobody has dared to do so. There are other “common man” features also which makes this a good service. Afterall not everybody on mother earth wants to “share, tag and comment” pictures. You need to understand that AOL is trying to become another yahoo or msn. Its hard but atleast they are trying. In their effort to do so, they have done pretty well with their software and services. Their client is free with lots of content like XM radio and videos.Their web e-mail is very nice (provides IMAP support too). They have given unlimited storage on XDrive. For their efforts and courage I would say “Well done, keep it up”

By: Allen

Allen — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 11:34:02 +0000

In my interview with Ted from Dogster last week, he talked about partnering with Yahoo! or AOL before partnering with Flickr. And why? Because these services are mainstream. Whether they suck or not, my mother will use aol photos before she uses flickr. Flickr is still in the geek arena and until they shed that, it will be hard for the average non-geek to use it.

http://www.cent...old-ceo-dogster

By: Albert Lai

Albert Lai — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 11:01:24 +0000

Thanks for the kind words about BubbleShare Marshall.

I’m rather surprised at how harsh your review was of AOL’s Photo efforts. While I agree with you that its not a heck of a lot of fun to use (when I was using the beta), its not all that bad. It does take on what some may consider a rather clunky approach (i.e. trying to mimic a traditional desktop user interface), its got a lot of interesting features that bring it above its print centric competitors over at Ofoto and Shutterfly (which also have their strengths).

Whats interesting is how quickly AOL’s new photo service was out moded by the new Yahoo Photos (the old Yahoo photos really blew, esp. up against the new AOL offering — the new yahoo photos on the flip side is pretty sweet).

Its funny you should mention the words “no fun to use” — I had just given a web2.0 presentation in Taipei (with your very own Mr. Arrington that covered this very topic. IMHO, there is other category of B2C consumer service that deserves to have “fun” prioritize ahead of all else.

We’ve worked really hard on making the photo sharing process fun at BubbleShare, I also think Flickr has done a neat job of doing so as well. I’ve yet to see too many other services that have really tried hard at putting much emphasis on making their services fun — and I often think its a “factor” that is often overlooked.

By: Chane Steiner

Chane Steiner — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 07:31:19 +0000

AOL sucks. Besides AIM, they really don’t even exist anymore and that’s what they get for selling dial-up for $23.95 a month.

By: Sean Percival

Sean Percival — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 06:34:59 +0000

I tried to delete my AOL pictures account but they keep charging me. I had to call 10 times. The last call they said they would kill my dog if I cancelled.

By: Ed Kohler

Ed Kohler — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 05:07:30 +0000

Why no mention of the unlimited storage of original photos? That’s impressive. And inline photo editing? That’s cool too.

By: Scott Agastin

Scott Agastin — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 03:54:54 +0000

I’ve been using Flickr for quite some time and while i think it’s a great site, no one I know uses it. As a matter of fact, most of my family and friends don’t even know what Flickr is (sorry, Yahoo). I take my hat off to AOL and anyone else for that matter for providing a way for people outside of Silicon Valley to participate in an online photo community.