Flickr quietly launched a new version of its slide show feature today. The new design forgoes the once small black box and takes over your entire browser window with full-sized photos that fade into one another. Also tweaked is the speed control, which has gone from a slow to fast slider to one-click options for slow, medium, and fast. Flickr decided to retool the slide show feature based on user feedback, as the previous version would restrict photos down to small size, even on large monitors or browsers set to full screen. The new version will simply resize itself to however big your browser window is.
Slide shows still retain some of the good qualities that made the original Flickr slide show visually appealing. Picture titles and commentary, as well as links back to the photographer, photo page, and an option to mark it as a favorite still remain. One change I personally don't like is the new viewer, which only shows seven thumbnails at a time. The old player displayed rows of 19, which was often enough to encompass an entire set. Interestingly enough, embedded versions of the slide shows are still presented this way, although that might change down the line. You can still scroll through to the next set of seven, but there was something magical about seeing a giant grid of thumbnails in one place.
One thing that's still missing is an easy way to embed Flickr slide shows in blogs or social networking profiles. It's possible if you know some coding, but for the casual user, there's not a simple "grab the embed code" link available. If you're interested in making some slick embeddable slide shows that are similar to this new look, give Slidez a spin.
The new slide show does full screen now and forgoes the once tiny photo display.
(Credit: CNET Networks)
MixerCast is a new Web based tool for creating sharable slide shows. It pulls media from several different popular Web services like flickr, YouTube, MySpace, and Getty images, and lets users customize the look and feel with basic design templates. The show can then be shared with others through a direct URL or embedded into several social networks.
I've played with a ton of these tools since I started on Webware, but this is one of the few that actually emulates the feel of a desktop application. In this case, it feels a lot like one of Apple's consumer applications from the iLife suite. You can pick various elements to drag and drop into the template, like photos, videos or even a map from Yahoo (which, by the way, I found to be a little buggy).
MixerCast is definitely aimed at the social networking crowd. A few of its themes and templates, including one that's a full-on Pepsi advertisement, forgo a slick, clean look as you can get with a competing, mixed-media sharing tool like SplashCast. It's still really simple to put together a rich slide show, and share it with others, which makes it worth a try.
I've embedded a MixerCast module below, with pictures from last night's Digg 1 million-user celebration here in San Francisco. More screen shots of the user interface are shown after the jump.
See also: RockYou
[via DownloadSquad, via GigaOm]
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Slidez is a new photo slide show tool for showing off photos on blogs, Web sites, and social networking profiles. Slidez pulls double duty as a hosting service and presentation tool, allowing users to upload and organize their photo library online. It's not a substitute for photo-hosting services like Flickr, Photobucket, or Yahoo Photos, but its embeddable slide shows are good-looking, and easy to put together.
Basic photo management is kept simple with a batch uploader that allows you to select multiple photos from your hard drive. As a test batch I uploaded 20 shots without a problem. Your photos reside in a master library, where they can be dragged into individual albums called "presentations." To re-order shots within a presentation, just drag and drop photos like you would in a software app like iPhoto or Picasa.
To share a photo show, just click the Share button. This will pull up options to send the URL to the show via e-mail, embed it as a slide show, or grab the XML feed for people to subscribe to using their favorite reader.
The slide show arena is a crowded space with services like Slide, RockYou, Vmix, Goodwidgets, Splashcast, and Badgr. Admittedly, most of those services have their sights on MySpace and other social networking sites. Slidez seems aimed at people who want to make and send a slide show without fuss and it manages to do a good job.
SplashCast, launched today at Demo 07, is a free service that allows users to combine all sorts of media into one master playlist. That playlist can then be embedded on Web sites and blogs or sent directly to friends and family with a simple URL. It's basically the online equivalent of a mix tape. It's similar to YouTube's playlist maker, but with SplashCast, you can also throw pictures, text, and audio into the mix.
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
What's really cool about SplashCast is that your already-shared media doesn't need to be uploaded again. Pulling videos or pictures from hosting sites such as YouTube, Revver, or Flickr requires no upload--you simply link your content, and SplashCast will get it for you. SplashCast can pull pictures from Flickr with just a username. You can also give it the tags, and it will pull out specific pictures.
SplashCast offers some advanced functionality for power users. You can choose slide show transition speeds, set the size of the embedded player, and even record your own voiceovers on top of the media. You can also add RSS feeds to any of your three channels, which will pull media from the source without you having to manually add it.
SplashCast is a really cool media-sharing tool. It requires no software, and the interface and its simplicity make it easy to add various types of content for sharing. When faced with a page of multiple embedded players for music, video, and pictures (I'm looking at you, MySpace), SplashCast provides a much smaller footprint for valuable screen real estate.
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