By now many of us have rediscovered the value of having our photos nicely printed on paper, if for no other reason than to keep people from hastily clicking past our carefully composed shots. (It would take a special kind of nerve to tear through someone’s photo album that quickly.) Seeing an opportunity there (and whataya know, the holidays are coming up), Flickr just rolled out “Flickr Photo Books”.
Simply go into your Flickr account, choose the images you want to print, and presto: a beautifully printed hardback book with customized photo covers and matching dust jackets will arrive at your door.
Flickr has a lot going for it here. Recently it upped the amount of storage space for its users meaning people can store more photos – at full resolution (crucial if you’re talking about printing these out later) – and by all accounts they’ve been taking advantage of this. Another advantage is the easy drag-and-drop nature of creating the books.
The largest hurdle this service faces is the price. At $24.95 for 20 pages (50 cents per additional page, up to 240 pages), this is a pretty costly endeavor. After all, Instagram (Flickr’s main rival) offers photo books through Blurb that start at just $18.99 for 60 pages.
The success or failure of Flickr’s venture may come down to two things:
1) There’s anecdotal information to suggest that Instagram is used more by people who prefer to share photos online rather than print them out
2) The quality of Flickr’s printed product. Unfortunately, there’s no way to gauge that until somebody actually forks out the cash for the photo book…
