Flickr

We live in an era of ubiquitous digital photography, and yet there are still few satisfactory solutions for storing, organizing and sharing your photos. One of the best is a one-stop Web site known as Flickr. The site allows you upload your photos (including those from your camphone), tag them by keywords, organize them into sets and set access restrictions, if so desired. But the true genius of Flickr lies with its community features. Once your pictures are online, your friends with Flickr accounts can comment on the pictures, add notes on top of the photo and even mark them as “favorites” for later viewing. People can then create public or private communities or “groups” which allow for bulletin board type discussions and a communal pool of photos. The basics of the site are free, but for a $25 yearly fee, paying Flickrites can gain more monthly bandwidth, unlimited sets and permanent archiving of their hi-res originals. It’s not often I come across a Web site that makes me part with my hard-earned scratch, but this is one.