Digital photo website design and features

¶ … photosite.com

The webpage www.photosite.com is a commercial website, which offers services to consumers. Because it is a commercial website, it is difficult to evaluate the website using Jim Kapoun's traditional criteria: accuracy, authority, objectivity, currency, and coverage. However, Kapoun's criteria did provide a good starting point for determining the usefulness and utility of www.photosite.com. In addition to Kapoun's criteria, an attempt to use the services offered by www.photosite.com was helpful in determining whether or not www.photo.site actually delivers the services it offers to consumers.

The author of the pages at www.photosite.com is not specified. However, it is clear that it is a company-owned website. The purpose of the homepage is to greet people and funnel consumers into the appropriate areas on photosite's webpage. It is not clear whether or not the author of the website was technically qualified to write the documents contained therein, however the information contained on the site gives instructions on how to use the site and the instructions work. Therefore, it appears that the author of the web pages was qualified to write them.

The publisher of the information contained at www.photosite.com is a company called Homestead Technologies. The document is published at www.photosite.com. The Webmaster is not listed at either www.photosite.com or at www.homestead-inc.com. There are no credited authors for the pages contained at www.photosite.com, therefore there are no credentials listed for the authors. However, both websites are commercial websites. It appears that Homestead Technologies is the owner of the information contained in the websites, and that Homestead Technologies is responsible for the material maintained on both websites. Furthermore, neither website contains information regarding who the webmasters are or how to contact them. However, although they do not contain information regarding their webmasters, both www.photosite.com and www.homestead-inc.com have customer support contact information.

The goal of the www.photosite.com website is to allow people to create and maintain online photo galleries. One goal of the website is to offer a free photo gallery service to consumers. However, the primary goal of the website is to sell premium services to its consumers. That said, the webpage does not contain hidden marketing; it offers legitimate free services and the opportunity to purchase additional services to other users. Some people may find the fact that www.photosite.com promises free photo galleries, but only offers one 150 picture gallery option for free to be deceiving. However, given that the service offered is free, consumers should be aware that the service is being offered in order to bring consumer attention to the www.photosite.com website. While there are no opinions expressed on the pages, they were written to appeal to a specific target audience: people who wish to share their photographs in online galleries.

An additional goal of the www.photosite.com website is to provide name recognition to Homestead Technologies. Looking at the services offered at www.homestead-inc.com, Homestead Technologies provides commercial web hosting services to consumers. The services provided by Homestead Technologies are for profit, and it appears that the free services offered through www.photosite.com may serve the purpose of establishing and maintaining a customer base for Homestead Technologies.

The website is very current. In fact, the consumer drives part of the information maintained via the www.photosite.com website. After signing up for an account on www.photosite.com, it took less than four minutes to receive a verification of the account information on the user's email address. It appears that Homestead Technologies also continuously updates the information contained on the www.photosite.com website. The website's copyright began in 1998 and it has been updated through 2005. The links are internal or to www.photosite.com's parent company and are all active. Furthermore, none of the information on the page appeared to be outdated.

The web pages contain a balance of text and images. The text offered on the web pages gives information on what services are offered by www.photosite.com and how to access those services. The text offered on the web pages also gives information on consumers regarding how to contact customer support. The images on the web pages appear to be examples of the type of photographs shared by the users of www.photosite.com. One might initially find that the pages on www.photosite.com offer more images than text; however, given that the site offers online photo gallery services, one expects to encounter a substantial number of images on the website.

The information on the pages at www.photosite.com correctly describes the services offered by www.photosite.com and how to access those services. There is no fee for information, nor is there a fee for the basic services offered by www.photosite.com. Furthermore, one does not need any special software in order to access the information or services provided at www.photosite.com. A user needs to have the required software and hardware in order to download their personal pictures from their personal digital camera. However, it is unlikely that a user without those resources would attempt to use the www.photosite.com website. While there is no suggested browser for better viewing, the format selected by Homestead Technologies for the website does not present any viewing difficulties.

The website provides photo-sharing services to many different levels of consumer. It appears to be used most frequently by families and hobbyists to share photographs. The sample style page offers suggestions for sharing baby and wedding photos, vacation photos, and nature photography. Furthermore, www.photosite.com provides all consumers with information restricting the nature of the photos that can be shared on the site. Finally, www.photosite.com prohibits its users from violating copyright laws.

Free users can open an online photo album with up to 150 photographs. Therefore, www.photosite.com does carry through its promise to provide free online photo albums. Each user gets a personalized URL address for sharing photos. Furthermore, users are given a great amount of flexibility in the creative design of their online photo albums. Finally, for users that do select a premium service, the charges for those services is reasonable and appear to be competitive with the online photo gallery market.