July 31, 2008

My Idea - RealScrapbookStuff.com

This was a tough one. As I took my daily walk and started brainstorming various options for photo sharing services, I kept coming up with ideas. Problem was, they were all being done. Submit a photo via Email? Upload files without any sign-on friction? Mashup photos with music? Put live annotations on videos? (congrats, btw!) Argh! I kept racking my brain and finally decided to bring out my secret weapon - my wife. As she was running out the door, I asked her what problems she has with image/video websites. She thought for a few seconds and said “I need a website to help me to with my scrapbooking”. She headed out the door, and I had my idea for the day.
Now, I know a handful of you are already heading straight to the comments to post a bunch of links to similar photo sharing sites. However, every scrapbooking-type site I’ve seen falls into one of the following two catagories:
Use your computer to create a physical scrapbook that is mailed to you
Use your computer to create an online scrapbook that is embedded in social networks, blogs, etc..











This idea is different - I’m proposing a site where hardcore scrapbookers can upload digital photos to create scrapbook pages, and use digital reproductions of real stickers, stamps, and borders to mock up their pages. The site keeps track of all of the materials that are used in the online creation, and when the user is finished they would then have the option to purchase all of the raw materials (including the cropped, re-sized, printed photos) and have them shipped straight to your front door.
I’m not a scrap-booker myself, but based on observing my wife and her friends, here are a few problems I believe this would solve: