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| Make a Smilebox postcard |
Smilebox released its desktop media client for Mac users today. The Flash-based tool can be used to compile digital slideshows, postcards, scrapbooks, and other arrangements for sharing photos and videos with friends and family.
Playing with Smilebox is a bit like browsing the greeting card aisle at your local supermarket. The template designs are either tasteful or tacky, depending on your aesthetic sensibilities. But they’re certainly not beautiful. The available audio overlays are also pleasant enough but not terribly exciting (fortunately paying users can upload their own tracks).
Smilebox is a freemium service: subscribers enjoy the extra music tracks, full-screen capabilities, and respite from advertisements kept from stingy basic users.
I’d like to see Smilebox develop a completely in-browser producer tool (it’s based in Flash anyway – can it be that hard to port over?), and allow its creations to play within the actual embed, as is the case with other widget companies (Slide, etc). If you click on my photo boat above, you’ll see a new window pop up.
The Redmond-based company raised $7 million last fall and has accrued $12 million overall so far.