Picturesurf, a new Wordpress plugin that allows bloggers to quickly build photo galleries, has launched to the public. Instead of having to waste time cropping and resizing thumbnail photos (and then embedding them into annoying HTML tables), Picturesurf allows users to simply select and upload a number of photos from their desktop, which are then automatically resized and arranged in standard CSS. The plugin is available in the WordPress plugin directory, or you can grab it at the Picturesurf homepage, which also includes directions.
Founder Alan Rutledge says that while there are other galleries available for bloggers, Picturesurf is primarily targeting large blogs looking to “convert their images into cash”. Because the gallery can place ads alongside each image (as opposed to just seeing a blank page using embedded .png or .jpg files), bloggers can more effectively monetize their images while saving users from having to constantly hit the ‘back’ button.
The plugin is also optimized for SEO purposes, and will work with RSS feed readers (typically galleries using Flash or Javascript don’t work in RSS readers). And because these images link back to the blog itself, Rutledge says that it could help bloggers more effectively monetize their RSS feeds.
While this is the first time the plugin has been publicly announced, Picturesurf has been quietly available for some time and has been integrated into over 3,000 blogs. Rutledge reports that on average, bloggers are seeing ad impressions double using the plugin as opposed to their standard thumbnail galleries (users are also clicking more images because of the increased convenience).
We’ve been trying out the plugin on some of our image-heavy blogs (including CrunchGear), and have been pleased with how easy it is to create the galleries – it sure beats doing them by hand, as we used to.
We should note that Picturesurf isn’t Rutledge’s first startup venture – while a student at Berkeley he and three other students built a small mobile startup that was acquired by iLike.
great stuff… must have plugin.. I actually really like the integration and the user interface.
If they can remove the annoying “Free Photo Gallery by Picturesurf” link underneath, I’d be on board with this!
Well done Alan !!
That is very useful. Might try it…
Great Job Alan! Great product, great execution!
congrats, Alan. you’ve done a great job with this.
Its simply great, good job
Looks pretty cool…
I’ve used other WordPress plugins that pull photos from Flickr and create image galleries from them before.
Picturesurf seems to be a nice solution so that you don’t have to upload photos to a photo sharing service before you put them on your blog. But if ads and ad revenue are a major part of this plugin then it probably isn’t the best solution for the average blogger unless they are trying to monetize their photo galleries.
@Jason
There is an option for AJAX image popups for those that aren’t big fans of having separate pages for each image
The gallery uses whatever template you already have, so you only benefit from the increase in impressions if you already have ads in your template.
-Alan (from Picturesurf)
Who isn’t wanting to make a buck in this economy?
I’d love to try it out if the plugin was compatible with WP 2.7. Hopefully there will be an update soon!
I see one flaw… this plugin will prevent you from editing any existing theme or other plugin in your control panel. I was trying to edit the sidebar of my theme, but i was not able to. Once i deactivated this plugin it all worked out.
@Akmal
Drop me a line at alan [at] picturesurf.org and I’ll take a look at it.
Awesome. But they currently support only Wordpress. But still, awesome.
I know, link this to Typepad and I am on board.
What’s the advantage of this over native Wordpress image galleries which also provide thumbnails/crops?
Also, you can edit image.php to display ads next to each image displayed without a need for any plugin.
I’ve been doing this since WP 2.5:
http://www.kine...-japanese-idol/
I run my own blog, on my own server, on my own domain. Why on earth would I install a plugin which uploads my images elsewhere? If that’s what it does – I can’t even tell without installing it. And then puts ads for their service on my own domain?
You’ve got to be kidding. There are plenty of gallery plugins for WP and any other blogging platform. They are all free. Anyone using hosted blogging software will look to them for image galleries. Not to mention flickr, photobucket, et al.
I don’t see the point. If it’s free, ie no ads, great, I’d try it out. But trying to “monetize” a photo gallery plugin? Give me a break.
@Sho
Just want to clear up any confusions about the plugin:
1) All image are hosted on your WordPress blog (you were looking at the WebPage gallery creation tool that allows you to add a gallery to a non-blog site)
2) Picturesurf Gallery does not put ads on your site; it merely increases the number of pageviews you get (similar to the galleries you see on gizmodo) which will increase your ad impressions if you have display ads.
Looks like we’re not doing a great job of communicating this effectively.
Hope this helps.
You still haven’t answered the advantages of the plugin over the native Wordpress image capabilties? Nor the ability to do exactly the same by just modifying image.php which is much more flexible than a plugin.
Excellent. I’m going to install it now. I hope it has Watermarking support.
@Hemanth
It currently does not have Watermarking. Would love to hear what other requests you have (definitely drop us a line.)
good idea
Congrats Alan!!! You have made your company and all it’s investors who took a chance on you seem like geniuses today!
good stuff alan, keep it coming…
Its pretty good stuff for bloggers and photo gallery lovers.
I’ve installed Wordpress plugin, uploaded images and then nothing…
Second step just said “Images that you add will appear here”…
I re-uploaded images and it’s didn’t seem to help.
Gleb
I am facing the same issue. Any solution?
So this crops and scales with CSS? That means that blogs might contain lots of large images which increase load times.
YetAnotherPhotoBlog helps with cropping and resizing images as well as caching them for faster download times.
So I love the idea and it looks like a great plug-in, but it isn’t working for a lot of people right now. I downloaded it a day or two ago and get this error in the interface (which doesn’t load at all, same problem other seem to be having):
Fatal error: Call to undefined function: json_encode() in /home/mms001/public_html/blog/wp-content/plugins/picturesurf-gallery/gallery.php on line 294
If it works in the near future, this will probably be the gallery I go with . . . but errors like that are over my head :p
love it!
This sounds like a really cool plug-in. I wonder if it would work with the type of deep zoom technology companies like Vertigo are working on. Here’s what I mean: http://www.digi...munity_800.aspx
Congrats on the publicity Alan! Looks great.
You should also try out this image gallery
http://www.imagevat.com
Why are so many people complaining that this awesome plugin has a link to it’s creator’s website built into it? It is a FREE plugin…. and not only that…. it is a really cool plugin. I have no problem at all with picturesurf adding a link in THEIR plugin.