Online photo sharing sites : informal poll

[gsukumar]

Greetings,
I just started a company which develops management software dedicated to managing online photos similar to how Lightroom or Picasa2 lets you manage assets on the desktop. Currently it supports 8 different photo sites and 2 video sharing sites.

I was reading about backup nightmares (had some of my own too), and was wondering if anyone would even consider using online sites themselves as backups (eg: an unlimited account in SmugMug used for storing ALL your photos?).

thanks and warm regards
-g
www.nitrodesk.com

[fx101]

Greetings,
I just started a company which develops management software dedicated to managing online photos similar to how Lightroom or Picasa2 lets you manage assets on the desktop. Currently it supports 8 different photo sites and 2 video sharing sites.

I was reading about backup nightmares (had some of my own too), and was wondering if anyone would even consider using online sites themselves as backups (eg: an unlimited account in SmugMug used for storing ALL your photos?).

thanks and warm regards
-g
www.nitrodesk.com

The issue with online backup is the storage space size. Smugmug lets you store unlimited photos but they are restricted in size and format. A true backup will do my source files (most of them in future proof Raw DNG format) as well as any converted JPEGS I have laying around. I use Pbase for posting photos but even its 500MB account doesn't give me enough space for backups. When I travel around the world in order to backup my memory cards I use ExaVault for which I pay 30'ish dollars a month and I get 50GB of storage space (enough for a good chunk of my pics). It would simply be WAY to costly for any service to back up everyone's photo library in entirety. Thus, I've had to resort to my own little RAID server because online backup is far too expensive. I would consider an online site with enough storage space, but considering the costs involved I doubt I'll see anything under $30 a month for 50GB of space.