Blog.Photobucket.com

Photobucket welcomes Yahoo! Photos users

Starting today, users will be able to migrate their photos from Yahoo! Photos - scheduled to close shop this fall - to Photobucket in just a few quick and easy steps. Support tips and answers to your most common questions on this migration are available here from Yahoo!

Photobucket is an ideal migration choice for many users because our services are free and allow you to easily link, blog, and share your photos and albums with your friends and family all over the world.  Additionally, we you can prints, mugs, tees, and other gifts from your photos.  New and existing users can even order CD and DVD backups of entire account through Photobucket.

The process is simple.  Just log into your Yahoo photos account and you'll be stepped through the process.

We look forward to welcoming your photos into the Photobucket family!

LOLCats invade Photobucket

Photobucket folks will find it fun to upload, caption, create, and share their very own LOL Cat pictures with our new affiliate Icanhascheezburger.com

What is a lolcat? Quite simply, it's a cat picture with a caption that makes you laugh out loud.

The fine folks at ICHC have built The Cheezburger Factory which lets users upload images, add captions, submit, share, vote, and link Lolcat images across the web.  The resulting lolcat images are hosted by Photobucket and available to the millions of users who upload, search, and share their lives at photobucket.com daily. To view the current collection of user generated LolCats hosted at Photobucket, check out the official IcanHasCheezburger album. RSS feeds are available for this album as well.

Translation: Cheezburger n Tofuburger haz built cheezburger factory so u can makes lolcats and putz on any websites.  I has mah bukkit and who haz their bukkits can haz cheezburger lolcats anytime.  Want! Moar!  I'm in ur RSS, feedin' your kittehs.

A brief intro on how the cheezburger factory works is illustrated below.

Translation:No needz invisible manual to be learning how. Just readz.

 

Photobucket users go pub crawling!

We’ve partnered with the Internet’s first online pub, CherryTAP.  Not only will users be able to plug in images, videos, or slideshows into their profiles on CherryTAP, they can also import these items directly into their Cherry Stash (a visual library of bookmarks) to share with the community:

With the launch of the Internet’s first Happy Hour in February of this year, CherryTAP is quickly becoming a popular destination for the 18 and over crowd with almost 900,000 members to date.

Photobucket adding some Snap!

Want to add some snap to your blog or website that shows off your Photobucket album in a fun new way? Check out our latest partnership with Snap that makes it easier than ever to preview your media to your site visitors. 

Simply adding a small snip of Javascript to your site makes links to your photos and graphics come alive.

What used to be an ordinary link now has a nifty thumbnail "SnapShot" that lets people browse through your Photobucket album.

Here's an shot of how it works.

But it's really best to see it in action.

(mouse over the link to see how it works!)

For more details, read our full press release.

Avatars Invade Photobucket

We've partnered with the leading avatar site, Meez, to allow you to create, customize and share your 3D ID right from your Photobucket album.  We know you are all creative, social and fun loving so we've partnered up Meez. You can make clever, funny, and expressive avatars to share with the world right from within Photobucket!

How? Look for this button in your Photobucket album to get started!

The Meez 3D avatars can be customized and animated in a thousand ways -- face, nose, lips, hair, clothing, pets, costumes, backgrounds -- too many ways to list here! Safe to say, we had a blast playing with them at Photobucket.

Once you've created your Meez, you'll be able to save them directly to your Photobucket album. Then, share them with family, friends and the online world, just like you share all your pictures, videos, slideshows, and remixes.  For details, check out this tutorial.

Click "More" below for the full walkthrough and press release.

Videos working on MySpace again!

Hi all,

Following discussions with MySpace, we’re pleased to announce that all Photobucket videos and remixes are enabled once more on MySpace with immediate effect. Both our companies are committed to putting our users first.

Moving forward, we’ve established open lines of communication and procedures with MySpace to prevent a sudden block of Photobucket content in the future. We want our users to be able to share their content and understand it must be within the framework of MySpace’s Terms of Service for it to appear on the site.

Thanks for all your patience. And we really appreciate all the feedback we've received. We've read it all. Happy sharing!

Alex/CEO
Photobucket

Livejournal Integration of Photobucket!

For those of you who use Livejournal, you'll now find that it's easier than ever to access your Photobucket album when you're drafting your post! Read more about it at Livejournal.

While writing up your latest blog entry, click on the  "Insert Image"  link (in either the Rich Text or the HTML update page), then select the Photobucket tab. Log in with your Photobucket username and password, and you'll be able to grab your photos, graphics, or videos and drop them right into your post.

 

Mandy Moore Video Remix Contest!

Contest announcement! Want to have Mandy Moore sing at your high school graduation this year? We're working with Mandy to promote her new hit single "Extraordinary" with a video remix contest that lets high school students showcase their schools, their stories, and their "extraordinary" lives to win a free performance by Mandy Moore!

This promotion is geared at the graduating class of 2007 and is in conjunction with our friends at MyYearbook.com

It's easy to enter:

1. Go to MyYearbook.com to read about the contest, and see if your high school is eligible.
2. Create a Photobucket Remix Video using your own videos and images.
   • Use the Mandy Moore Remix bin of images and videos to add Mandy images if you wish
   • Add Mandy Moore's hit "Extraordinary" as your remix video's soundtrack.
   • We encourage you to be creative and have fun with showing how your school is "Extraordinary" and why you should win!
3. Publish and submit your entry at MyYearbook.com.
   • Use Photobucket's built-in linking to copy and paste a link to your remix into the contest entry page.
4. View and Vote for your favorite videos.  If you create a great video, you'll want all your classmates to vote for your creation!

Voting starts from May 1st - May 10th with the official winner being selected by Mandy Moore herself. 

Winners will be announced on May 15th.  See the latest entries here.

Detailed information and FAQ can be found at http://www.photobucket.com/mandymoore and on the Contest Details page.

Photobucket Doubles Bandwidth Connections to Cogent Communications

Cogent Communications Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: CCOI) announced today that Photobucket has doubled its bandwidth connections with Cogent. Photobucket, the online personal media company where over 37 million people create, manage and share their personal digital media, continues to experience explosive growth. The site is adding over 85,000 new users each day, which is resulting in significantly increased IP traffic demands.

Cogent has been Photobucket's primary provider of Internet bandwidth since 2005 and continues to support Photobucket's goal of reliable performance and uptime for their users. Part of that experience is making sure there is always enough capacity to handle traffic growth. This has resulted in several capacity upgrades for Photobucket and Cogent over the years, to keep in line with this continued user growth.

"We turned to Cogent for their pricing, we stay with Cogent for the quality and performance of their network combined with their superior customer support," said Darren Crystal, CTO and Co-Founder of Photobucket. "Our users are the trendsetters when it comes to social media -- their demands continue to grow as they upload more images, videos and remixed content. We are relying on Cogent to help us keep pace with the resulting bandwidth demand."

"Social networking is on the rise and so is the popularity of integrating media formats such as photos, graphics and video which all drive increased demand for bandwidth. Cogent is perfectly positioned to handle this bandwidth explosion by having ample capacity at the most attractive pricing in the industry," said Dave Schaeffer, CEO Cogent Communications. "Photobucket exemplifies how Web applications are able to advance and keep pace with user demands, with the availability of more and more bandwidth."

Photobucket is the Web's largest personal media site, with more than 37 million users. Photobucket's users store their photos, videos, remixes and images on Photobucket, and link from Photobucket to all their online profiles, personal Web sites and blogs. It serves over one billion content calls a day to the MySpace community alone. In the January 2007 ComScore rankings, Photobucket is the #6 most popular entertainment site in the US, and #35 most popular Web site overall.

About Cogent Communications

Cogent Communications (Nasdaq: CCOI) is a multinational, Tier 1 facilities-based ISP ranked by Ovum-RHK as the largest provider of Ethernet services in the United States. Cogent is also ranked as the 56th fastest growing company in North America on Deloitte's Technology Fast 500 List for 2006. Cogent specializes in providing businesses with high speed Internet access and point-to-point transport services. Cogent's facilities-based, all-optical IP network backbone spans 14 countries and provides IP services in approximately 90 markets located in North America and Europe.

Since Cogent's inception, Cogent has unleashed the benefits of IP technology, building one of the largest and highest capacity IP networks in existence. This network enables Cogent to offer large bandwidth connections at highly competitive prices. Cogent also has the ability to offer superior customer support through end-to-end operation of the network, enabling Cogent to control all aspects of service delivery and network monitoring.

Cogent Communications is headquartered at 1015 31st Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20007. For more information, visit http://www.cogentco.com. Cogent Communications can be reached in the United States at +1-202-295-4200 or via email at info@cogentco.com.

Information in this release may involve expectations, beliefs, plans, intentions or strategies regarding the future. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties. All forward-looking statements included in this release are based upon information available to Cogent Communications Group, Inc. as of the date of the release, and we assume no obligation to update any such forward-looking statement. The statements in this release are not guarantees of future performance and actual results could differ materially from our current expectations. Numerous factors could cause or contribute to such differences. Some of the factors and risks associated with our business are discussed in Cogent's registration statements filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and in its other reports filed from time to time with the SEC.

Web site: http://www.cogentco.com

Pump Audio and Photobucket Deliver Legal Music for Online Video Creations

Pump Audio and Photobucket Deliver Legal Music for Online Video Creations

Tens of millions of consumers gain access to copyright-cleared independent music to synchronize with their personal media on the Internet

Hudson Valley, NY – March 6, 2007 – Pump Audio, the leading provider of quality independent music to content creators globally, today announced that it has reached an agreement with Photobucket to provide copyright-cleared, independent music to the tens of millions of Photobucket users who create and share remixes of their photos and videos using the Adobe® web-based video remix technology integrated on Photobucket’s site. Photobucket users can now easily add music from Pump Audio to their mashups.

Photobucket is the online personal media company where over 35 million people create, manage and share their personal digital media, and is the third largest video hosting site behind YouTube and MySpace. Pump Audio provides a proven, legal music solution with original songs perfectly suited for synchronizing to online productions. Photobucket has licensed hundreds of songs across dozens of genres from Pump Audio’s catalog of more than 75,000 tracks.

“Music truly brings a video creation to life, and it was important to us that our users be able to incorporate music into their remixes,” said Alex Welch, CEO, Photobucket. “Pump Audio’s independent music solution helps Photobucket offer our users a wide selection of music that does not violate copyright infringement laws.”

Photobucket recently launched a web-based video remix and editing service, powered by Adobe Systems Incorporated. Using this remix service, Photobucket users can combine images, videos, text, and music provided by Pump Audio to create content mashups from their Photobucket albums, without requiring any additional downloads.

“User generated content, such as photo slideshows and video mashups, has created a significant opportunity for independent music,” said Steve Ellis, founder and CEO, Pump Audio. “Photobucket is an innovator in helping consumers bring their personal media to life, and shares our position that personal media communities can respect copyright law and also expose their users to high-quality independent music.”

Unlike stock music, Pump Audio’s catalog consists of real songs by thousands of independent artists worldwide. Because Pump Audio works directly with independent artists, it can offer a unique licensing system for managing and delivering the rights to use tracks in online productions. Pump Audio’s licensing model already has attracted major media customers, including MTV Networks, NBC Studios, HBO, New Line Cinema and advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi. Under its artist-friendly system, Pump Audio splits licensing revenues with musicians, and the artists retain complete ownership over their music.

Working together, Pump Audio and Photobucket also are creating a new venue for participating artists to gain additional exposure to Photobucket’s massive user base. Pump Audio artists will receive a visual credit with information about the music being used in Photobucket mashups, creating a new promotional opportunity to directly reach potential fans. Photobucket users can embed their mashups into any web page, blog, or social network profile, and also share with family and friends, so artists will have the potential for broad exposure.

About Pump Audio

Pump Audio licenses the world's best independent music to content creators worldwide. Founded in 2001, Pump Audio has established itself as a leading provider of digital music for TV and advertising producers. Now Pump Audio is becoming the soundtrack of the Internet, opening Web access to its catalog of tens of thousands of songs so creators of all types can build music into their video and interactive productions. With Pump Audio, artists can license their music into productions without giving up any ownership, while content creators can discover new music ready for use. Based in the
Hudson Valley, Pump Audio can be found at http://www.pumpaudio.com.