I have been contacted by Michael from ZapLife, he asked me to look at his site and give him some feedback. Seems like I am getting a request like this every week now. And I love it!
While a few years ago everyone was trying to copy Flickr now each company has its own vision of what a photo sharing site should be and their implementation are quite different. I am really please to see such creativity and hope to see more!
What is ZapLife?
Their tag line is:
Zaplife aims to be an easy to use photo blogging solution with a social twist
What is photo blogging? It is like a blog but instead of writing articles, you post pictures. It is a very healthy way to get out, shoot, share and get feedback from others. To make the whole process even easier, they created a free iPhone app that you can use to shoot/share your picture with. It is a bit like tumblr but you can only share pictures.
What I like
First, pictures are grouped by day, showing only a single picture per day and you have to click on the picture to browse the collection. It makes browsing multiple collection dead simple. As long as the photoblogger daily pictures are all part of the same collection.
As with 500px, the discover page is the best, showcasing the most popular pictures but I think they may have gone a bit too far with the tag clouds.
What I dont like
Like Flickr and contrary to 500px.com, there is a lot of crap pictures. And it is ok, the site does not aim to be a portfolio, it is a place for anyone (owning a camera does not make you a photographer!) to share pictures with others.
The layout needs some refinements but it is still a young site so I expect it to improve with each update.
Should you give this a try?
If Flickr is not your cup of tea, you may want to give Zaplife a try. The feeling is totally different yet you wont get lost in the feature set. They are doing heavy development and features are added regularly so keep your eye on it!