Fotopedia Offers a Sneak Preview of Its Upcoming Site

Fotonauts, a desktop photo application that lets users upload, organize, share and tag their photos, has launched a preview version of its upcoming photo sharing site Fotopedia. They say the full service and the client will be available in a few days but in the meantime users are encouraged to explore the site in currently read-only mode.

Fotopedia isn't trying to be another Flickr; it is focusing more on the social aspect of photo sharing instead. Users will be able to create an album and upload photos from their computers but also add existing photos on Flickr or Picasa or Creative Commons pictures taken by others.

“With Fotonauts, keep looking at Picasa, Flickr, we synchronize your photos wherever you like. This is the first step to creating the semantic web for pictures. Distribute your creation everywhere, your website, your favorite event stream, wherever you want,” Jean-Marie Huillot, Fotonaut's creator and former CTO of NeXT and Apple's Applications Division, said.

Albums created with Fotonaut can also be made available online but with added content and functionality. Users can collaborate on albums adding photos from different users centered on a common topic. A multitude of other related information can be added to the albums, making them more than just about the photos. Existing entries from Wikipedia will be added, as well as Google Maps information. Users will also have the option of voting the photos in the albums as well as flagging them as inappropriate.

Fotopedia already has 150,000 high-quality photos available, grouped in 4,289 articles, which have a slideshow of pictures selected by users and also a Wikipedia entry and Google Maps information if applicable. There is a social component to the site as users will be able to follow certain articles or people and will have their own profiles as well.