FocalPower…the blog

Every year for for Christmas, my siblings and I usually get a family present for my parents. This year my brother headed up the present project and bough my parents a digital picture frame. Next came the scurry to gather together a bunch of photos from all the kid’s families to pre-load on the picture frame.

So this morning he calls me to see what photos he could download from my website for the picture frame. Funny how these things always happen at the last minute…but since I have a large collection of images on my personal photography website, I figured it shouldn’t be a problem to grant him access to download some originals.

Wrong.

Once again, my frustration shot up with the lack of flexibility of current photo hosting services that are available. This frustration started about two years ago and was the driving force behind starting FocalPower. In this particular instance, why was it that all of the photos that I have uploaded to my hosting service are locked into a single organizational system and doesn’t allow me to get them to those who need them?

My photos are organized for public display as my photographic portfolio to showcase my work as well as allow print purchases. However, I couldn’t grant my brother access to download a high resolution version of the images he wanted to for my parent’s Christmas present! If I granted him access, I gave it to the entire world. So I had to spend a couple hours redoing a lot of work that I already did. What a waste of my time!

At FocalPower, we think this is wrong. Once you do the work processing and uploading your photos, your photo hosting system should be flexible enough for you to meet all your sharing needs. Not just the basic needs of most systems today. The needs of the sophisticated photographer, the advanced enthusiast and the professional.

The FocalPower elves (i.e., Dave and I) are working on addressing just this problem…and a few others…professional grade photo hosting.

The FocalPower photo hosting system (being delivered in a closed alpha just after the Holidays) will prevent me from having to redo all my work. Once the photos are uploaded, they can be organized in different ways for different audiences. One organization for public display on my photography website; auto determined high resolution viewing of my images for maximum impact while maintaining my photographic brand. And when I need to grant special access to photos (like for my brother, or say a client), I can create a second organization without having to upload my photos again…a wonderful time saver. Within a couple of minutes, I will be able to create another organization system to meet any need that may arise in the future.

So, while us elves finish the final touches for the closed alpha, the FocalPower team hopes everyone enjoys a relaxing Holidays! After taking a short break for the holiday’s ourselves, we’ll be delivering a shiny new photo hosting system to our Alpha Users!

Happy Holidays from the FocalPower Elves!

Tags: Alpha Release, Holiday Wishes, Photo Hosting

This entry was posted on Monday, December 24th, 2007 at 4:15 pm and is filed under Photography Issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.