Good morning all!

The relentless proliferation of personal digital technology is evident these days by the nearly constant presence of cameras of some sort. Personal video and digital still cameras are in our pockets, part of our phones, or even in the bags those of us once used to tote around 35mm film cameras (does anyone still use film?) It seems that everything from a child’s birthday party to dinner with friends is an opportunity to capture digital memories. The question is … what to DO with those memories, especially when they are scattered among so many different devices, owned by so many different people?

Shwup (http://www.shwup.com/) tries to answer that question.  It’s a free service that makes it easy for you to easily and securely gather media from anyone with an email address (no signup required!) and then assemble that content into crazy mad awesome multimedia extravaganzas. Here’s a short YouTube video that is a lot better at explaining the concept than I am!

Once everyone has uploaded content privately into an album you invite them to (again, no signup required), you can begin creating. The interface is elegant and simple. I pulled in some pics from my Flickr account and in a few minutes had this to show for my work:

The music doesn’t really provide the right vibe for a collection of Kindergarten artwork, but, you get the idea. :) http://www.shwup.com/ is free but far too cool to remain that way forever, they’ll soon either find a way to monetize the site (charge for it) or they’ll be acquired. So, sign up today and start playing while it’s still free! I love the concept, the execution, the ease of use, everything. Check it out today and see if you agree!

Hope this helps!

-kj-