Divvyshot launches refreshingly simple photo sharing

Divvyshot, a photo-sharing start-up I first heard about last March, has opened to the public. It's a clever and attractive site for photo sharing, with an emphasis on group events. It also has the world's cutest sharing feature for iPhone users.

The site succeeds as a photo sharing service. It's easy to use and very, very clean. Firefox users also get the benefit of HTML 5 support: you can just drag photos onto the Web site to upload them. There's no need for an uploader app, although one is available for other browsers. A new Flickr link button also lets you create albums from images you have on that service.

Albums are wide open by default. Not only can anyone with an album's URL see pictures, they can upload to the album too. You can restrict viewing and sharing (separately) to just invited friends if you like. People with access to albums can also easily download images from them, as Divvyshot creates ZIP file archives on request. Other photo sites also have versions of group albums, but I haven't seen any as simple to understand and use as Divvyshare.

The iPhone app gives you access to your images, like apps for other services. Its cute bonus is the sharing feature: you can transfer your photos to another Divvyshot iPhone user by holding both phones in one hand and shaking them together. It's a gimmick, and the whole thing is hung up a bit since both phones have to be running the app and set up for sharing, which ruins the spontaneity. But it's a good party trick.

Divvyshare is no Flickr, Picasa Web, or Zooomr. It's light on the features. But it succeeds as a simple site for sharing albums with family or friends, and especially for creating shared repositories for images from events that several people attend and photograph, like weddings, concerts, or parties.