Bring your blog posts to life with PicApp
David Peralty, owner of the popular blog ‘Extra For Every Publisher‘, announced last week that he is the new Community Manager for PicApp. He dropped me an email the other day and asked if I could have a look at this new picture resource site.
So what is PicApp?
PicApp is a photo resource site which has thousands of very high quality images which are available for bloggers to add to their blog posts for free (or to use their term, high-end stock photography images). Most high quality image galleries (eg. Getty) charge for using their photos so a free alternative is sure to be welcomed. You don’t have to sign up to use the images but those who do gain access to some extra features. Registration is free anyways so if you use it more than once it’s probably worth signing up.
Using PicApp
Images on the site are split into two categories : Creative and Editorial. Creative images are generic images which can be used to enhance blog posts eg. nature pictures, familes, business people etc. Editorial images are journalistic images related to current events. By default both categories are selected however you can choose to search in either category.
To better explain how PicApp works I will walk you through a search I did to find a picture. I decided to search on the keyword ‘blogging’.
The search results page is very well organised and you can tell right away that pictures are of a high quality. The most common image search service I believe bloggers use is Google’s Image Search but comparing this with PicApp is like comparing night to day. Not only are the pictures of a generally higher quality, the results are definately more related to the keyword you searched for. I’m a blogger who adds images to a lot of his posts and I use Google’s Image Search frequently for finding those images however the search results you get for some keywords are strange to say the least.
The results for searching for ‘blogging’
When you click on the image you want you will see a description of the image and you are also presented with 4 options :
- Embed : Allows you to embed the picture on your blog post.
- Add : Allows you to add the picture to your lightbox. The lightbox is a great little feature. A lightbox is a storage area in your profile where you can add pictures for use at a later date. You can create multiple lightboxes to cater for your different blogs and topics. For example, you could create a lightbox for basketball pictures and another lightbox for golf pictures. You do need to be registered to use this option however in my opinion it’s worth it.
- Send : Allows you to email the picture to a friend
- Share : Allows you to add the picture to a social media site. They currently have 36 social media options!
Embedding the image on your site is very easy. You are given 2 or 3 size options for the pic, you can choose whether the image frame is animated and you can choose whether the PicApp mascot Picaboo is displayed at the top of the image.
One thing I noticed was that if you are not signed in and try and embed an image you get this message :
You are not logged in! You can publish the image without
signing up by providing your email
I thought it was strange that you have to provide your email address even if you’re not logged in (I assume this is to stop spamming or misuse or whatever). In the same popup box it asks registered users to sign in however when I did this it took me to my dashboard instead of the page with the embedded code on it. Therefore, after signing in I had to click back on my browser and then click on the embed link again to get the code.
And here is the resullt of adding the embedded code to your blog post, none other than celebrity blogger Perez Hilton :
Image details: KIIS-FM’s Wango Tango 2008 - Arrivals served by picapp.com
Image Sponsor
You can see from the image above that ads from PicApp have a sponsor area above it. They have included an advertising mechanism to facilitate royalties to the content owners. Most of the images hosted on the site are expensive to buy the rights to use them so this sponsor area is required in order for us to use the images for free.
As you can see in the above image, the sponsor area is quite large. At first I assumed that you were stuck with this large sponsor area underneath your post but David pointed out to me that by choosing the animated frame feature the ads are hidden behind the image and are only shown when you hover over the image. You can see the difference between the two frames below (the ad below uses an animated frame, the previous image used a classic frame) :
Image details: KIIS-FM’s Wango Tango 2008 - Arrivals served by picapp.com
As I mentioned above, I completely understand the need for these images to have adverts but I usually don’t like more adverts on my blog unless I’m getting something from it. The PicApp FAQ suggests that users will be able to make money in the future by using Pic App so hopefully this will be a feature which is added soon.
Overview
High end stock photography images can be expensive so I welcome a site like PicApp as it allows bloggers with low budgets to post images on their blog which they normally wouldn’t be able to. The service is incredibly easy to use and I’m sure the lightbox feature will prove very handy too.
I do believe that the sponsor area is a little too obtrusive if you use the classic frame but I guess this is the price you need to pay for getting expensive images for free (though the the animated frame is pretty good at hiding the ads). Once PicApp pays users a percentage of the ad revenue generated from the ads I think we will see the service grow in popularity.
If you are looking for a suitable photo for a blog post I recommend you browse through the images at PicApp as they have a large archive and it’s very easy to use. Give it a try and let me know what you think in the comment area 
Lee Litton | May 13th, 2008 at 11:20 am #
Thanks Kevin, i sure could use some good images on my blog, I’ll give it a try.
John Fish | May 13th, 2008 at 12:22 pm #
Well that’s a good concept and all but I have a few issues with it. 1 you can already get royalty free images from lots of different places, even though having another source is very good. 2. I’m not a big fan of the adverts. Why would I want to put that on something where I wouldn’t get any benefit from it. Sure they say that in the future you will benefit, but why buy the cow when the milk is already free. Believe I’ll hold off until I see what the benefit will be and keep using the sources that are already available.
Alex Cristache | May 13th, 2008 at 12:59 pm #
From the looks of it, it certainly is interesting, but I’m not convinced about all the animation and ads.
Yes, sure it’s free, and even free has a price, but still, there are a few marvelous resources for free high resolution images, or even those $1 stock images.
True, if you’re a celebrity blogger, you probably won’t find pictures of your stars.
If your blog is pretty much based on news and people, PicApp seams like the perfect choice.
And yes, unfortunately, people use Google’s Image Search as the main tool for images. While I know that using thumbnails would some how prevent copyright allegations, the images on Google are NOT FREE.
I’m pretty sure that not many people even consider this before using them.
Please excuse the loooong comment.
Kevin | May 13th, 2008 at 1:13 pm #
John - As far as I am aware the ad sharing feature will be a big part of the service. I don’t think that bloggers would make a lot of money from this feature unless their blog gets a lot of traffic however I have no doubt that more bloggers would use it if they did get a slice of the pie.
Alex - Loooong comments are more than welcome
You are right about google’s image search. This is why many people block googlebot from indexing their images.
David | May 13th, 2008 at 1:20 pm #
@Lee, John and Alex - First off, thanks for commenting. We definitely appreciate feedback, and are looking towards creating the best legal image source for Bloggers.
Yes, you can definitely get images from all sorts of places, but the images we are supplying are from high quality sources like Getty.
Alex hit the nail on the head when he mentioned Celebrities. Our editorial images are constantly updated with great images of popular events, allowing bloggers that follow such people, and events to have images almost instantly for their blog posts.
We do have some great features as well that helps put us ahead of the pack. My favourite is the RSS feed of searches, which will let you know as soon as we have a new image that matches your search term. This has actually inspired a few people to post as they didn’t know about a certain event in their niche.
Also, as Alex mentioned, Google Image search images are not free to use. Actually, it is quite illegal most of the time, and many image providers are cracking down on such infringement.
As for the comment about advertising, the benefit is that you have access to the highest caliber of images from the best providers. We still need to pay those providers, and this was the best middle point that addressed all of the providers concerns while still creating a system to distribute their images freely.
I understand that the advertising might put off some bloggers, but using the animated frame specifically is a good compromise in my mind.
If anyone has any suggestions for PicApp, please feel free to contact me at david.peralty at picscout.com.
Thanks again to Kevin for taking a look at what PicApp has to offer.
Alex Cristache | May 13th, 2008 at 1:33 pm #
Hi David,
What’s important is that at this time, PicApp is in BETA stage, and a good communication would probably solve even the issues that might put off some bloggers.
Obviously, the strong point with PicApp is the editorial section. No doubt about it.
Again, it’s obvious that those rights don’t pay for themselves, and Kevin made a brilliant point here.
Share! Not only your images, but also share a slice of the income. Bloggers put advertising on their websites to earn money. Most probably a small slice of that income + the right to use the photo would be enough to make some reconsider.
I know I would! And actually, I’m already considering it for a future project.
Really looking forward to see this application evolve.
Cheers!
Megapixels | May 13th, 2008 at 3:35 pm #
I agree the ads do seem a little annoying (large), but nothing is really free these days. As easy to use as PicApp is, I probably wouldn’t use it just because of the ads. Even if they were smaller, I’m not sure it would make a difference.
David | May 13th, 2008 at 3:45 pm #
Thanks again Alex. We are definitely hoping to learn while in Beta, and not be like Google in the sense that we run beta forever.
I have already passed on your feedback.
Megapixels - Thanks for your candor, I really appreciate it. Without the ads, we wouldn’t be able to run things for free, and then we’d have to head back to being just as Getty is today, charging fees that most blogger can’t afford for great images. If you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them.
Bagrep | May 14th, 2008 at 1:10 am #
This is definitely one excellent application. It is so cool and thanks for sharing with us bloggers out there. This is going to be fun.
exfatguy | May 14th, 2008 at 3:50 am #
From the looks of it, PicApp seems like a great way to attract readers. Although the ads could be hidden, I’ll say we should wait a while and see the it’s true potential. True it is free but free things are the one that we must carefully study it before we apply it to our sites/blog.
Jeff | May 14th, 2008 at 6:02 pm #
Thanks a lot! I have been looking for a nice picture application for my blog and i’ll give this one a try.
Chimbles | May 14th, 2008 at 9:48 pm #
This is actually not bad… the feature that is the coolest is that those pics have a really good description. Its always a pain to find a picture that captures exactly what you want, because a lot of the context is lost in search terms… this is one step closer! THANKS
salon hair tools | May 15th, 2008 at 6:06 am #
This is a wonderful site! I am always looking for images for my blog, and I refuse to just copy and paste a pic from someone else’s site since it does not belong to me. Now I can add all the pics I want with no worries.
Kazelxhm | July 15th, 2008 at 1:24 am #
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Kazeluen | July 16th, 2008 at 5:25 am #
Hi webmaster!