Uploading from your mobile device? Nice!

You asked, we listened….You can now upload media to your TinyPic account from your mobile device!

If you’ve been to TinyPic in the last couple of days, you probably noticed the yellow caption at the top of the window that calls attention to the new service. But we thought it would be nice to explain the ins and outs of using your mobile device to upload media. If you don’t already have everything set up:

1. Sign into your TinyPic account.
2. Click Settings. Your Account Settings page displays.
3. Select Allow uploads via E-mail in the Uploads via E-mail field.
4. Enter your Mobile Number.
5. Click Save Changes. Your new settings are saved.

Now what? Well, there are two things you need to know. First, you can only upload from the e-mail address that is on your Account Settings. Second, you can only upload from the mobile number that is on your Account Settings. But that’s fine. They are your e-mail address and mobile number after all.

OK! You’re ready to go. You have media that you want to send from your mobile device. Find your media. Send it to m@tinypic.com. That’s it! Now, you can sign into your account and see the media you uploaded in your My Stuff page. The last item you upload is the first that displays in your My Stuff page.

How does TinyPic measure up?

What makes TinyPic better than the competition? Well, let’s take a look at features that many media storage sites have in common:

• Registration: Registration is often required, and it often comes with extra perks such as larger file uploads or the option to delete your media.
• Subscription: For a fee, many sites offer even more options than registration, like being able to FTP files or purchase merchandise.
• Searching: Many sites allow you to search for images (and maybe videos) by keyword.
• Ads: Without ads, free media hosting would likely not exist.

So, if that’s what most sites have in common, what makes TinyPic stand out from the crowd? Location, location, location! Not really…we aren’t selling real estate What really makes TinyPic stand out are the additional features that we offer, such as:

• Uploading without registration: Upload an image or video without registering. On TinyPic, when you choose to register, you do get access to more features (see Registration at TinyPic: What’s in it for me?), and you may find it convenient to have all your media in one spot.
• Language selection: View TinyPic in a language other than English. If you register, your selection is saved with your account.
• Full image editing: Upload images then fully edit them, including resizing, color correction, blemish removal, and many other options.
• Special effects: Add special effects to images you upload.
• Featured images and videos: Always see the latest images and videos.
• Media upload sizes: Whether you register or not, the same media upload sizes apply. (Hint: We’re pretty generous compared to our competition)

Plus, TinyPic is totally FREE! Given all that, and the ease of navigation on TinyPic, why would you consider another site?

Linking a video to Piczo.com

Piczo allows you to create a highly customized website around your photos, graphics, videos, music, and more, and there’s no need to learn HTML! The Page Editor lets you create new page elements on the fly and drag them into position. You can design sites with multiple pages and link your site to your friends’ sites, then interact with their site and their friends. If you want to, you can share your content with the rest of the Piczo community in the Piczo Zone. Check out Save the Green to see how spectacular a site built with Piczo can look!

Well, that’s all great, but you don’t know how to add a video to your Piczo website. It must be a complicated procedure, right? Nope. It’s not that complicated! Adding a video is a quick process, because you can use the videos you upload to TinyPic on your Piczo website. Nice. Upload to one place, link to many others :) What a time-saver!

To link a TinyPic video to your Piczo website:

1. Upload a video to TinyPic.
2. Copy the HTML for Websites embed code.
3. Log in to your Piczo site.
4. Go to the page where you want to put the video.
5. Open the new Tools menu, and drag the HTML BOX onto your page.
6. Paste the embed code you copied from TinyPic.
7. Click OK. Your video is linked from TinyPic and displays in your Piczo site. Kind of like this (note the video at the bottom right of this Piczo site):

Organize your stuff!

You can now create albums in your TinyPic account to organize your stuff! Of course you don’t have to organize your media. But sooner or later, you’ll find yourself scrolling through your account saying, “Darn it! Where are those flippin’ pictures?!” (Well, maybe you’ll be saying different things–wink, wink, nudge, nudge…) You’d never experience these moments of annoyance if you could find everything you wanted!

All the media you upload and the TinyFx you create are stored in Your Stuff page. Any media in Your Stuff can be added to albums. The most important thing to know about albums is that they are entirely separate (I’ll say it again: ENTIRELY SEPARATE) from your media. So, you can put media into an album, move it from one album to another, delete the album that the media is in, and at all times, you can still find that media item in Your Stuff page. Unless you specifically delete media, it remains in your account.

Items can only be in one album at a time. You can create an album from Your Albums or your Home page. After you create an album (or albums), you can move media into your album.

On Your Stuff page:

1. Click Organize to show the Organize bar and a checkbox on each image, video, and TinyFx.
2. Click the checkbox to select an item (you can select multiple items).
3. Select the album for the media using the Change Album… drop-down. Note you can also create a new album from the drop-down.
4. Click Update. A confirmation prompt displays.
5. Click OK. Your media is added to the album you selected. You can use these steps to move your media from one album to another, as well.
6. See Your Albums in the online help for more information.

THEN, you can share your album with your friends (unless your account is private–Check it out in your Settings), and people can subscribe to your album as an RSS feed! Note the RSS and URL code in the Tools section on the left, in the following image:

So you think you can dance.

What if you’re right? You could be the best dancer out there and NO ONE will know about your talent. Unless…there must be some way to call attention to your fabulous dance moves. Your electric slide (how old are you, anyway?), your spins, your snap dance…

You know, everyone can see how great (or bad!) you are when you upload your dance video to TinyPic. But there’s no rating system, you say. How will I REALLY know what people think of my stuff? Well, you’d just better join DanceJam.com — The largest dance floor on the planet!

DanceJam uses TinyPic to host the videos you upload. And DanceJam provides you with that little “je ne sais quoi” (I don’t know what—well, I do know what. It provides you with a RATING system.) You can enter your video in a battle. People can vote!! You can emerge victorious (or as a super loser…hard to say). And just like TinyPic, you can send a link to all your friends and relatives to share your battle (you might need the votes).

So get out there and dance! Invent your own, go for a known quantity, get a broom and pretend it’s a light-saber. It’s up to you to impress us all.

Improve your ratings! Impress people with your images! How? FotoFlexer on TinyPic!

Well, there are no ratings on TinyPic, so we can’t really help with that. However, you might still want to impress people with your images, and that is something TinyPic can help you with. The integration of FotoFlexer with TinyPic allows you to fully edit your images. Now, you can crop, rotate, and flip images. You can remove blemishes, smooth out wrinkles, add fun shapes, play with color effects, or add your face to a celebrity, gorilla, or astronaut, and much, much more!

Oh, you want the full list of editing options, not just “much, much more”? The FotoFlexer features on TinyPic as of May 2, 2008 are:

• Basic – Autofix, Fix red-eye, Crop, Resize, Rotate, Flip, Adjust, Contrast
• Effects – Over 20 effects. Try them all!
• Decorate – Shapes, Text, Draw, Erase, Fill, Grab Color, Speech, Thought, Insert-A-Face, Fun Cards, Borders, Poster
• Beautify – Smooth, Sharpen, Fix Blemishes, Smooth Wrinkles
• Distort – Twirl, Bulge, Pinch, Stretch, Squish
• Layers – Select, Select All, Duplicate, Opacity, Push Back, Pull Forward, Group, Ungroup, Merge
• Geeks – Smart Resize, Smart Recolor, Smart Cutout, Smart Scissors, Curves, Webcam

Plus, after you edit your image, it’s saved as a copy so you don’t overwrite your original!

How do you edit your images?

1. Sign in to your TinyPic account. (FotoFlexer is only available if you are a TinyPic member).
2. Click an image in your Home or Your Stuff page.
3. Click Edit in Your Toolbox. The image opens for editing in FotoFlexer.
4. Edit your image as you choose.
5. Click Save to save your edited image. Or, click Cancel if you don’t want to save your changes. Remember, your edited image DOES NOT replace your original.

What can you do with FotoFlexer?

The image below was created by:

1. Applying Pop Art (in the Effects tab).
2. Selecting Antique Frame in the Borders tool (in the Decorate tab) to add a frame.
3. Adding Text with a background using the Text tool (in the Decorate tab).

The image below was created by:

1. Using Smart Recolor (in the Geek tab) to recolor the hair blue (play the embedded help video to learn about this tool).
2. Applying Photo Corners in the Borders tool, (in the Decorate tab).

Does TinyPic listen to its users? Of course we do!

So I bet you are wondering what really prompted all the TinyPic web site changes (you know darn well that there’s no Botox ® for web sites—see TinyPic? Never heard of them.) What really happened is that we did a survey last December, on TinyPic.com, to see what features you wanted. Based on your responses, we updated the site!

The four “most asked for” features in the survey were (in order of importance):

• The ability to upload multiple images simultaneously.
• Simple editing tools.
• The ability to permanently save pictures.
• The ability to delete pictures.

However, to use these features, you need to register (a quick process…Join Now!). When you have an account, all four of the “most asked for” features are available when you sign in. (The last two features in the list are also available for the videos you upload.)

PLUS you can have a vanity URL :) Want to be http://tinypic.com/IMGR8? Set it up on your Settings page.

I know what your next question is. Why do I have to register to use these features? Well, there are two reasons. First, a multiple upload feature for users who aren’t registered is just an invitation for abuse. Imagine an unscrupulous person uploading all sorts of offensive images in bulk. That’s just a bad scenario. Second, by permanently saving images and videos in your account, TinyPic ensures that only you can delete your images and videos or edit your images. You certainly don’t want someone who’s mad at you touching your stuff!

Go ahead and register! We’re sure you’ll love the new functionality that comes with having a TinyPic account.

Registration at TinyPic: What’s in it for me?

What’s in it for you? Well…you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that you’ve made those of us at TinyPic do a little dance of joy! :) And if THAT mental image doesn’t make you want to register for an account, what will? If your mental image needs help:

Hmm. There are a few more reasons that you might want to give registration a chance.

First, joining TinyPic is FREE!

Second, those photos and videos you upload? Now you can easily find them and do stuff with them. When you sign in, the images and videos you upload and the TinyFx you create are all stored in your account. So it doesn’t matter if you lose the links to your stuff. We keep track of it for you.

Third, you have editing options! You can add, edit, and delete tags for your images and videos. You can use FotoFlexer to fully edit your photos within TinyPic, including resizing, adding effects, beautifying, revising the color, etc., AND you can now delete your photos and videos! Woo hoo! You can fix it if you are a little too zippy with the mouse-click.

Registration is quick. On the TinyPic web site:

1. Click Join today for free! at the top left. The Join Us Today page displays.
2. Enter your e-mail address.
3. Enter a password.
4. Enter your birthday.
5. Enter the code that displays.
6. Select the box to agree to the TinyPic Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
7. Click Join Now>>. Your account is created!

Remember! Sign in before you upload images and videos or create TinyFx. If you don’t sign in, TinyPic doesn’t know it’s you, and the things you do aren’t saved in your account.

TinyPic? Never heard of them.

Well, it’s about time that someone enlightened you. TinyPic is a web site where you can share images and videos with anyone; your friends, coworkers, families…and even those people you just aren’t that fond of.

TinyPic turns four this month (We’re either an Aries or a Taurus…we can’t decide). Since 2004, tinypic.com has been helping people just like you share images with the click of a mouse button. And now that TinyPic is four, we’ve decided that a blog is just the way to share our thoughts and new features with you.

For all those users who found TinyPic ages ago, we’re very happy you want to share your life with us. We love seeing your funny videos, prom pictures, glittery comment messages, and lately, all the cool TinyFx (images with special effects!) you create. Your pictures allow us to see what a diverse group of people you are, and we have a great time living vicariously via your media and seeing your vacations, sporting events, friends, and family. Plus, your images let us see who you are, whether you choose an avatar, icon, or a special quote (“‘Tis better to have loved and lost…”).

If you are a TinyPic regular, you’ll notice that on April 9, 2008, the web site you were used to changed. Because it’s our fourth birthday, we wanted to add some new functionality to the site—think of it as web site Botox® ;-) Even with our new functionality (registration and the new features that accompany being a registered user), TinyPic remains a FREE web site. You do NOT have to register to upload images or videos, and you can still use the images and videos you upload to TinyPic on your MySpace page, eBay, Orkut, scrapbooks, blogs, and message boards. Imagine how much more exciting readers will find your blog when you have an image that accompanies your topic!

Want to know more? Keep an eye on this blog for details about registration and making TinyFx, and visit the TinyPic Help on the tinypic.com web site.