DropShots: Like Flickr & YouTube, Only Private
It seems at times that you really couldn’t make this stuff up; I was just about to start preparing some slides to explain to a client how contacting sector specific bloggers can be a great way to drive links to a site, when I received an email from someone who referenced a post I wrote a while back as he thought it might mean that I’d be interested in a press release on a site that he represents. And as it happens, I am, (although I also feel that with serendipity like this, I really ought to spread the karma).
The site in question, DropShots, claims to be the next generation in video & photo sharing, which is quite a bold claim. In terms of image sharing Photobucket & Flickr have a pretty strong hold on the market in the UK at least (depending on whether you listen to Alexa or Hitwise, the actual top-site changes); and at the same time Slide has been making great in-roads through it’s canny use of widgets for Facebook & MySpace.
And when it comes to video, there really doesn’t seem to be any strong competition to YouTube. It’s recent announcement of stronger blocks on copyrighted content could mean that people get bored of it, but it could also mean that people start to use it more for home movies.
DropShots claims that it’s ease & speed of use are what will make it a strong contender in this crowded & competitive market, however I think that their USP may be something else entirely. In a stark contrast to Flickr or YouTube, DropShots is private. As it says on the homepage:
DropShots does not deposit your uploaded photos and videos into a public gallery and does not allow your page to be indexed and available to search engines.
Now personally, I don’t see this as a bonus, as I tend to give up whenever I receive a link to a friend or family-member’s photo gallery which requires registration. But as the recent fuss over the opening up of Facebook profiles to search engines and the ongoing debate about what sort of danger Google poses to users’ privacy, this could well be the thing that separates DropShots from the crowd. What it also means of course, is that it will make it a much harder community for marketers to penetrate and engage with.
They say they don’t put your media in a public gallery- But can other users still search by your username or tags to find your content?? I stick with whatever gives me full control- to keep things either completely private OR public. The only site I know of that does this reliably is Pixamo, where I can control who sees each file uploaded.
I enjoy Flickr but I’ll never use it for my private photos, I’d rather use 2pad .
I don’t want anybody to be able to see my family photos. I want to decide exactly who will get them and I want to personalize the comments according to each recipient. In this case she will not have problem with Virgin. Flickr is public 2Pad is Private
Then I use www.2pad.com.
hello, I have a concern about privacy at Dropshots. I wanted to see grandsons photos so i did a search under his name and go about 25 responses. I could open and view all these files . is this privacy? thanks, james Ryan
Hi all - thanks for the comments. We don’t have any affiliation with DropShots - I just thought it sounded interesting - I suggest that if you have any concerns over the service you drop them a line. http://www.dropshots.com/privacy.html