Rmbr Aims to Put Fun, Sharing Back Into Photo Sharing

Do you consider organizing your digital photos another thing on the to-do list, something you've got to squeeze in but is not all that fun? Gabe Zichermann of rmbr.com is banking on that widely held view. He's helped create a photo-sharing site that aims to put the sharing back into photo sharing and make tagging, or organizing, photos as easy as playing fun games.

Often, the photographer gets little out of the task of organizing photos before ordering prints and sending them to friends and family on the web, Zichermann said. He and Chris Cunningham, founders of rmbr, want to change that. 

"The fun about photos is my mom and I would sit down once or twice a year and thumb through the photo boxes together and she'd tell me stories," Zichermann said. "Photos are catalysts for stories, the keeping of family history."

Zichermann and Cunningham set out to build just that, a semi-private photo-sharing site where family and friends can share and discuss photos, not just view them in a slideshow or print them out.

Another element to rmbr.com is the casual games that are built in as a way to make tagging photos fun and easy, and to combine the casual games that lots of people like to play with sharing photos. Zichermann envisions family members playing games together while discussing the memories the photos spark. He explains:

"Once my family photos are digitized, I need my mom to explain what happened in these photos. We need to find a way to interact. What we have in common is we both play games on the Internet; she plays Solitaire, I play other games. We both chat. This is the kind of interaction we're trying to engender."

Rmbr will not take the place of other photo storage sites, such as Flickr or Shutterfly. Think of it as another way to organize and discuss your photos by creating a social network of people you want to share photos with.

If you're interested in trying it out, the site enters its beta phase in a few weeks, and you can sign up to be part of it on rmbr.com.