The Blog

Hi everyone! First let me introduce myself since you’ll probably be seeing a lot more of me going forward. My name is Mike Gowen and I am the Lead Designer here at Scrapblog.

Just wanted to drop a quick line letting you know we’ve just added a great video tour of the new Scrapblog with the smooth, sultry voiceover stylings of yours truly

Take the Tour (Flash Required)

We’d love to hear your feedback, so feel free to post it here.

Enjoy!

I constantly get asked how we came up with the idea for Scrapblog. I usually tell the story of how a conversation about the evolution of photo-sharing led to discussing how photo albums evolved into the richer, more creative experience that scrapbooks offer. The story is true, but there is a deeper reasoning beyond that “aha!” moment. After two weeks of meetings with VCs, I felt the urge to revisit the basic needs and the vision that inspired us to create Scrapblog.

First, let me tell you about the personal needs that Scrapblog fulfills. Our family and most of our friends live abroad, so sharing photos and videos of our son Lorenzo and of our travels is a vital part of our communications. Sharing photos through Flickr fulfills part of that need. I love Flickr and use it very much, but there are special pictures and occasions that demanded storytelling in an interactive, multimedia setting. In that sense, Scrapblog enhances the online sharing experience and allows you to express yourself in a creative way.

Now, beyond online sharing, the next wave of user-generated content will be “design online”. Users are already seeking services that allow them to be creative and to publish content from the Web to the Web (W2W). The leading design online services will leverage from all the content that is already online and enable group collaboration. That is the vision that inspired us to create Scrapblog. Those who get it, immediately know that Scrapblog’s potential goes far beyond scrapbooking meets the Web. Scrapblog is about enabling a better breed of user-generated content.

I thought of sharing these thoughts with you. I’ll get back to work now so that you can get your hands on the new Scrapblog ASAP.