flickr or Zooomr, which one?

Let's start off right away.

As a preparation for going abroad, I have been looking into ways of sharing my pictures with the world. Since I am connected to people through two entirely different online communities (draugiem.lv for anyone who knows me in Latvia, and Facebook for anyone who is a student at Swarthmore College, or knows me in any other way and is on Facebook) I figured that it would be too bothersome to upload all the pictures on both sites. Besides, this option is complicated by the fact that draugiem.lv asks Ls0.35 ($0.78) for any 35 pictures. It might not seem much, but when you have the possibility of taking tens of photos every day, that just does not work well.

I have tested flickr for almost a month now. It certainly seems like a very nice option at first. The upload tool for Windows is easy to use, the site looks nice, I can submit my photos of Swarthmore's campus to a special group so that instead of idly sitting in my photostream, other people get a chance to see them, etc. I wasn't even worried about the 100MB upload limit for every month. But then, after uploading another batch, I was surprized by an apparent limit of 200 pictures and 3 sets. Flickr tried to convince me that these photos were not deleted, I just wouldn't be able to see them. Really? Well, if this is true, I might as well assume that the photos might be deleted. That would not work.

So I considered the option of getting a Pro account, but I can't imagine paying any amount of money for a service online. I have made it a promise not to give my money to anything online if there is a free alternative available. Thus, I have embarked on the quest of finding the best and freest service available. What I am looking for a service that is free and applies the smallest amount of limitations possible.

One such option is Zooomr. It claims to be unlimited and free, and seems to mirror some of the features of flickr. It does not, as of yet, have a standalone upload application, and a quick Googling revealed that due to this project being run by a small amount of people, there is always some amount of bugs that have not been worked out yet. I am willing to suspend my scepticism for some amount of time to see if this really is a better option than paying $25.

On an exit, here is the result of 3 hours of procrastination during the final (and, undeniably, the most stressful) week of classes. A composite of approximately 15 images, showing Swarthmore College's Parrish Hall in all its beauty.