an essay

How Can? - User Overview

It's Free, It's Almost Easy
Anyone can start their own fotola (plural fotolae) by following the sign up link at the bottom of this document. But to get the most out of the machine, you need to know a few things.

Entries, Links, and Favorites
Images that you upload or import into your fotola are known as entries. You can edit information about an entry, such as its title, but you cannot upload a different photo. You can delete any of your entries at any time.

You can also add links to other people's entries (or even to your own). When you add a link, a thumbnail of the linked-image appears to the right of your entry. In this way, you can create mini-galleries of related, complimentary images.

As you surf around Fotola.com (and we all hope you do!), you will find other members whose work you really like or link to often. They may even be people you know in "real life," You can keep track of their fotolae by adding them to your favorites.

Messages and News
Images are powerful, and their ability to communicate transcends culture and language. But sometimes you need words to communicate.

Anyone is invited to leave a text message on any fotola entry. Comments, questions, or in-depth psychoanalysis are all welcome. Don't be shy about leaving messages on images that move you: it's fun for authors to get feedback.

News is a way to keep up with your friends, tell the community a little bit more about yourself, or just keep a traditional weblog alongside your fancy imageblog. As with image entries, you can edit or delete your news entries at any time. News is automatically archived after 10 entries.

Free vs. Premium Fotolae
Fotola.com is free to use, but it's not free for us to develop and operate, so we have two kinds of fotolae: free and premium. A premium fotola costs $5 will cost $6 (USD) for six months. The first 100 All fotolas existing at the end of beta testing will be upgraded to premium status for free. Not all premium features are available yet.

Free fotolae are limited to three new images a day and only basic customization of color schemes.

Besides accepting unlimited entries, a premium fotola enjoys the following advanced features:
  • Custom stylesheets
  • Post via email
  • Publish to your own weblog
  • High-resolution image storage
  • Crop and resize tools
Try Fotola.com for free. If you like it, keep using it for free. But if you want it to do more, a premium fotola is less than will be $1 per month. I promise not to squander it on Superbowl ads.

The Sign Up Link:

As promised, here's where you sign up:
Create your very own fotola!

[Note on changes above: After looking at bandwith and CPU costs for the site during testing, I had to increase our projected price to $1/mo. Similar sites charge $5 or more per month, so this is still a great deal. There will be extra charges for bandwidth if you choose to make your photos available to external sites (that is, if you plan to use Fotola.com for image hosting, you may be charged a reasonable rate for the bandwidth incurred.) -- cs, 2003-06-09]

By csnyder on March 20, 2003 at 12:04am

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