The Social Photo Book

Smile. Photography was forever changed due to the migration to digital cameras. Not limited by the scarcity of film, we take more pictures than the Hollywood paparazzi or so it would seem. The problem, of course, is that after the initial glance these photos go into the digital abyss never to be seen again.

Luckily, photo books come to the rescue by reintroducing scarcity and permanence — scarcity derived through the number of pages and page sizes, and permanence from a physical copy. Photo books are created to read, reflect, and treasure in a form factor made for zero effort sharing. DIY’ers, scrapbookers, and those looking for a gift or keepsake, have pushed the total market for photo books to an estimated $500 million for 2009. As such, photo books have become a growing segment of the digital printing market.

Now imagine how ludicrous it would be if a high-roller gambler walked away from a Vegas craps table without picking up all of his winnings. That is the dirty little secret of the photo book industry as of now. Why? Up to half in 2008 and one-third in 2009 of those who started the creative aspects of designing a photo book abandoned the effort according to the PMA. After starting, many probably find themselves overwhelmed with finding, uploading, and editing the photos much less choosing a layout and copy to go with them.

Since most photo books depict specific, shared events, why can photo book creation not also be a shared activity?

The Social Photo Book Scenario (football game)

1. Photos taken by multiple people at the same football game
2. Photos of the game are uploaded and tagged to each user’s preferred service: Facebook, Flickr, Shutterfly, etc.
3. Invites go out over the user’s social network to add more photos and collaborate
4. The social photo book service aggregates & organizes photos from all sources (where APIs exist)
5. Everyone begins to build their individual pages and attach their text, etc.
6. Pages can be mixed and matched to create the best, final result

The sheer act of including a social aspect to creating the photo books from everyone’s unique perspective to the same shared event(s) ups the ante and follow through. Photo book clubs, anyone?

photo source: cotaro70s