Smilebox Creation
Following Melanie Holtsman comment on my review of PictureTrail, I checked out Smilebox.
Lately I got used to web based tools, so I was not thrilled when an .exe file popped up after clicking on “Start Here”. Nevertheless, there are MANY cool designs to choose from in many different categories: Scrapbooks, ECards, Photobooks, and Postcards for many different occasions.
The site itself describes their service as:
Smilebox is an easy and creative way to share your photos and videos in extraordinary photo books. In just minutes, you can create and share beautiful photo books with your selected photos, videos and music.
Just choose a design, personalize it, then email it, blog it or print it. It’s easy and free!
Being used to many FREE sites out there, I was not too happy to find out (much later in the process), that only a basic version is free and that one is limited to a certain amount of photos, music, and of course comes with dreaded ads. This basic version can still be e-mailed or embedded into a blog or website though.
The capability to save your creation as a .jpg file or print it out is considered premium content which costs you U$1.99 per project, U$4.99 per month or u$39.99 per year for access to all premium features.
These prices might be the deal breaker. There are too many other cool photo editing and scrapbooking sites out there that are FREE… Scrapblog, Mixbook ($ printing it as a physical book), Lunapix, LunaPic, Picnik, Picture Trail, and Dumpr for example.
And as soon as a tool has a fee attached to its service, it is out for using it with students at school.
Maybe the company would be willing to give a free Club Smilebox membership to educators, like Voicethread or take away the ads, like Ning and Wikispaces? Hint, hint…
The interface is really easy to navigate. Drag and drop features, step by step, instant, preview, zoom in>zoom out. Very professional looking pages.
Now that being said/sad. I know I would not be able to spend that kind of money for school use and not sure, with all the other free tools available, I woud spend it for personal use. I get too frustrated if the free version limits most features I would want.
It would have been a great storytelling tool for student use though…. if only ad free.
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I came across your blog, and would like to introduce you to an alternative to Smilebox. I’m a marketing manager for a company called Panraven (www.panraven.com). We offer a solution for storing your media (photos, video, & music), and then provide a process for creating “stories” that can be shared online or professionaly printed in photobooks.
Unlike Smilebox and other competitors, our service is exclusively online (no downloads required). I think you will also find that we are set up well for use in the classroom. Not only can students express their creativity through online storytelling, they can easily share and collaborate with classrooms from different locales.
Take it for a spin if you get a chance (it’s free to set up an account). I’d love to hear your feedback on the site and how it could integrated in classrooms.
Andy
akatz@panraven.com
[...] Comments Frank on Best Web 2.0 Applications for Elementary SchoolAndy Katz on Smilebox CreationJenW on Twitter- Changes in NetworkingTina Steele on Trackbacks to your BlogMaking your [...]
[...] week I received two interesting e-mails from Andy Katz (from Panraven.com). The first one after I reviewed Smilebox, another after I blogged about Panraven in a post and its potential use in the classroom. [...]
Hi there, we have a teacher program we are just about to launch. So in advance of that please send me any teacher email address and the link to their school website and I will set them up with a free annual subscription! We love teachers at Smilebox! Lots of mom’s work at Smilebox….
http://www.smilebox.com/occasions/teachers-toolbox/
Just came across this post bookmarked in Bloglines. In case you haven’t seen this, here is a link to the teacher tool kit at Smilebox:
http://www.smilebox.com/occasions/teachers-toolbox/
If a teacher signs up and is verified as working at a school, the $39.95 premium fee is waived. Also many extras are included for educational purposes! It is a great resource for parental involvement toward increased student achievement through motivation. The site includes an electronic address book, emailing, collection of responses to your designs and commentary. Check it out at http://www.smilebox.com/occasions/teachers-toolbox/
I forgot to include the additional access to the hundreds of free songs that can accompany your creations for all your recipients. You may search them by category or title.