Webshots Blog

Happy Kwanzaa from all your friends at Webshots! We honor the seven principles of the celebration, which according to Wikipedia.org are:

1. Umoja (Unity): To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation and race.
2. Kujichagulia (Self-Determination): To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves.
3. Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility): To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers’ and sisters’ problems our problems and to solve them together.
4. Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics): To build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and to profit from them together.
5. Nia (Purpose): To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
6. Kuumba (Creativity): To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.
7. Imani (Faith): To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.

Merry Christmas! Enjoy our holiday video greeting and a gift of fabulous festive pictures from the Community. Want to remember this Christmas forever? Then take lots of pictures and videos today and uploading them to Webshots!  

Each year, as the clock strikes midnight and we sing ”Auld Lang Syne,” we ring in the new year with a bit of bubbly and a kiss. And as January 1 unfolds, we commit to a better year by making our New Year’s resolutions.

This week’s Creative Challenge is to tell us your New Year’s resolutions, whatever they may be. We’ll give you until the new year to post them in the blog and then check in with you in February to see if you’ve kept them or broken them.

Here’s to a great 2007!

We hope you’ve been enjoying the weekly Creative Challenges, where we put your skills to the test for a little fun on Webshots. Here are two updates on recent challenges.

Holiday Video Greeting Card Creative Challenge
At the end of November, we challenged you to create a holiday video greeting card and gave you some extra time to make one. Though the Creative Challenge is over, you still have time to record your warm wishes for the season and send them out to your friends and family. For some inspiration, enjoy this holiday video greeting from the crew at Webshots!

Search Safari Creative Challenge
We announced our new search earlier this month and wanted you to use it in the Search Safari Creative Challenge. We gave you four photos and asked you to name the search terms we used to find them as well as include a link to the photo. While member sgfren came close, no one actually got all four correct. Here are the answers:

1.

Search term: yawn
Member: cakeholemoon

2.

Search term: green inside
Member: katifelkai

3.

Search term: daredevil
Member: dadylngtoe

4.

Search term: I love chocolate
Member: angela018

Congratulations to member shibumi21, whose Shiba Inu, Kobi, won the best medium breed in Eukanuba’s Beauty of the Breeds photo contest for the month of October.

For more great pictures of adorable dogs, check out the pets channel.

During the holidays, people become consumed with seasonal shopping and end up going way over budget. But there are many free and unique gifts you can give this time of year. Here, 10 ideas that are filled with seasonal joy—remember, the best gifts come from the heart!

1. FREE! Leave a comment on a Webshots member’s photo, video or album page.

2. Donate to a charity in someone’s name.

• Animal Charities of America 
• DirectRelief International
• Heifer International
• HOPE worldwide
• MercyCorps
• Red Cross
• UNICEF

3. Bake a tasty treat filled with love and friendship. Get inspired by these scrumptious delights from Chow:

• Brown Butterscotch Pie
• Double Chocolate-Caramel Cookies
• Eggnog Cheesecake
• White Chocolate-Cranberry Bark

More sweet treats from Chow.com

4. FREE! Send someone a holiday video card filled with well wishes for the season.

5. Make your special someone breakfast in bed.

6. FREE! Give them a seedling to grow using one of your own plants. Check out the garden section of the Home & Garden channel for some gorgeous ideas.

7. Adopt a homeless cat or dog and give your new furry friend the gift of love! Webshots features many members with albums of animals in need of a good home.

• Member furryfriendsrescue
• Member prcspca
• Member rpershing

8. Create a photobook featuring all the best photographs of you and the gift recipient. Make one now at the Webshots store.

9. Make a gift certificate for something you’ll do, such as a long massage, clean the house or make dinner.

10. FREE! The best gift of all: A hug and a kiss!

Just in time for the holidays, we’re launching a bunch of new features that will make your Webshots experience even better. It’s our gift to you—thanks for being a part of the Webshots community.

Video Channel
Check out the best videos on Webshots, including the most recent and most viewed. Just mouse over on the “browse” tab at the top of any page and then select the “video” link. Be sure to upload yours, too!

Albums
The new two-column layout enables more albums on a page for all your friends and family to see. Plus, we’re adding a lock icon to all your private albums to distinguish them from your public ones.

Bookmarks
We’ve given you more room to bookmark members, photos and videos, so now you can keep track of all your favorites on Webshots! Be sure to bookmark the Webshots editor’s page.

Sharing Photos
It’s easy to share your Webshots photos on your personal blog or website, or your MySpace or Facebook page—just click on any photo to bring up the codes. And now you have five different display sizes to choose from: 100×100, 200×200, 425×425, 500×500 and 600×600.

Have you checked out the new Webshots search? Now you can find pictures, albums and videos within the 10 channels or the entire site! Plus, you can sort your results by most recent and most relevant. It’s fantastic!

So this week’s Creative Challenge puts your searching skills—and the new Webshots search—to the test. We’ve found four photos using the new search, and we want you to guess which words or phrases we typed in to get these results:

1.

2.

3.

4.

We’ll give you one point if you correctly identify the search word or phrase and two points if you also post links to the actual photos pictured. Don’t be afraid to just guess, too!

Please also put a link to your member homepage when you comment so the Webshots community can stop by and check out your photos and videos.

On your marks, get set, search!

Have you always had a sneaking suspicion that you could write a sitcom? Is your sketch comedy troupe better than Saturday Night Live? Do you have an idea for the next great mini-series? We want to talk to you!

Webshots is launching Project Spotlight, the next realm in entertainment, letting you create what’s on Webshots. Starting in early 2007, Project Spotlight will bring you web shows featuring your photo and video submissions.

To find out more about Project Spotlight, check out its homepage sign up for the email announcements to get the latest news and updates: http://www.webshots.com/spotlight.html

See you in the Spotlight!

Webshots has millions of amazing pictures and videos, and now you can find exactly what you’re looking for with our new search.

Right Here, Right Now
If you’re looking for pictures and videos from a recent concert or sporting event, just click on the most recent button to reveal results that were uploaded in the past few days. The most recent results are updated frequently, so check back often! 

Pictures and Albums and Videos, Oh My!
Looking for a great New York City album? Want to check out an amazing puppy picture? Can’t wait to watch an awesome kayaking video? Our new search lets you refine your choices to:

• Pictures
• Albums
• Videos

Channel Surfing
Webshots’ 10 channels offer a ton of great content, and now you can search within each channel to find exactly what you want.

For example, if you’re looking for a picture of a rose—and not a woman named Rose—then focus your search in just the Home & Garden channel.

You can also search the entire site to see results from the community as well as pro shots.

You Want It, You Got It!
Whatever you search for on Webshots, you’ll probably find it. Use the most relevant button to serve up results that are related to your search, whatever it may be.

Speedy and Safe
Your results will arrive faster than before, but due to our photo-approval process for safety reasons, you won’t immediately see what you uploaded in the search results.

Enjoy all the new search features!