Tabblo prints teeny-tiny photo books
The poster child of poster printing now does books, too.
Tabblo is not the biggest photo-sharing site out there, but it wins big points with me by having a plug-in for Picasa, Google's photo-management application. There are many other good photo services out there, but I use Picasa to manage my photos, and I really don't like having to deal with separate uploaders. Picasa plus Tabblo handles it for me.
But Tabblo is also a very weird photo service. It launched with a focus on making posters of photo collections, which can be viewed online or printed. That certainly sets Tabblo apart from other sites, but how many people print wedding or new-baby posters?
Finally, today, Tabblo is launching a book-printing service. There are two formats: a 9.5x8-inch book and a cool little 4x4-inch booklet. The small book format sounds like a great family giveaway...especially since it will be cheap--under $10.
Tabblo's online layout tools are simple and easy to use. I'm looking forward to sending photo books to people in my family right after my son's first birthday next year, and this new feature puts Tabblo in the running with my other favorite photo book product, Blurb [video].
By the way, the only other photo site I know of with a direct link to Picasa is Google's own Picasa Web Albums. In my dreams, Flickr would also get a Picasa plug-in, but that's unlikely to happen since Flickr is now a Yahoo company. Of course, in other dreams, I use iPhoto on the Mac.