Spotlight

I spend a lot of my time with my girls and pups taking pictures, which we post in blogs and on flickr. The joy of digital cameras is that you can delete the bad pictures, and crop the images so that the pics you select are exactly what you want to share with your friends and family. There are a lot of programs and websites where you can share pictures online, but there aren’t many where you can choose who can see the pictures of your kids OR sites that easily mail your digital images to someone who might not have a camputer. Kinzin is a program that allows you to limit who can view your pictures, and will mail 10 pictures to any address once a month. With out of state family and great-grandparents without computers, (and far too many unfulfilled promises about mailing prints) we were eager to review the service for PBN.

Kinzin works independently, or in conjunction with Facebook as a social networking site that allows you to personally invite and restrict individuals access to pictures of your kids. In addition, you can make books that are grouped around a certain child, an event, or anything else. Our current “book” is filled with spring pictures of the girls. Additionally, you can tag your kids with what they are currently doing, just as you do for yourself in other social networking sites.

The Kinzin interface is easy to use, you simply add a page to a book, and there’s a pull-down menu for importing an image from your computer, flickr, or a couple other places. Selecting from flickr was easy - I just chose a flickr set and clicked - the title and caption were brought over, too! It’s really handy to have all our spring pictures in one place that is easy to browse! If you want to share your pictures online only, without the automated mailing, Kinzin is completely free, and happily without ads!

Once you have added pictures to Kinzin, check out your “outbox” and make sure you delete any duplicates (I forgot to do that the first time, oops!). Then you can sign up to have Kinzin deliver 10 pictures to any address for $2.99/month. Right now, if you add a 3rd address, it’s free! Who can resist a bargain?

We sent pictures to my grandmother in Connecticut, my husband’s parents & grandparents in Texas, and my father and step-mom who live about an hour away. All 3 were very impressed with the pictures - they are beautifully printed, and come in a nice envelope. My grandmother lives in an assisted living place, and her pictures came at breakfast, and she was the talk of the dining room! She was so proud to show off her great-grandchildren!

The one problem I noticed is that I am used to viewing images online rather than having them printed. So, there needed to be some black framing on a few images because I didn’t crop them for printing as a 4×6.

Overall, I really like Kinzin - it’s easy to use, a fun and safe way to share pictures online, and the automated photo-mailing means that your relatives will really get your pictures, rather than just your intentions to mail pictures!

We happily give Kinzin 5/5 spotlights, with a few added beams from our very pleased family members who finally received long-promised prints!

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