Find out in less than 3 minutes what online photo sharing is all about. Lee and Sachi Lefever have done it again as they have just published a new short and cool video clip explaining to the non-tech crowd what online photo sharing is, why you'd want ot use it and how to move your first online photo sharing steps.

Photo credit: Lee and Sachi Lefever - CommonCraft Show

Sharing your photos online has recently become not just a techno-fad of those early power adopters of all things Internet, but an increasing sheer necessity for everyone owning a digital photo camera, as the number of shots taken and the cost of going to traditional prints make the traditional approach a disaster in terms of costs and manageability.

You live now in an age where sharing and collaborating are at the heart of all successful activities. Even if you work in a very traditional environment, you can't avoid noticing how much more sharing and cooperation is being supported around you, as both in the private and professional spheres, sharing is always a path to enhanced collaboration and deeper, more reliable and trusted relationships.

Here in a simple and plain words short video, Lee Lefever, explains what online photo sharing is, why you would want to consider it, what are the benefits of using it and which online photo sharing tools you can use to get your hands dirty right now:

English text transcript

Video: Online Photo Sharing in Plain English

by Lee Lefever

When asked what should be saved in a fire, along with family and pets, people often choose photos. If photos mean a lot to you, it's time to learn why keeping them on the web makes sense.

This is online photo sharing in Plain English.

As you know, cameras and photography have changed.

What used to appear on paper, now appears on computers and phones. No matter the format, we still love our photos and now they they have new powers.

First, let's be practical.

These days a fire may not be your biggest worry - a computer failure can destroy 1000s of memories. You can avoid this by keeping your photos backed up on the internet. A number of sites make it inexpensive and easy for you to upload your photos for safe keeping.

Now, because photos can be uploaded to a web site, all sorts of cool things are possible.

To make our point, lets looks at the old way...

You visit the Grand Canyon and take beautiful photos.

You get them developed and a few days later add them to a photo album that sits on a shelf. Few people see them and it's a pain to find a specific photo in all those albums.

BOOOO.

Now, let's look at the new way with a popular service I use called Flickr.

You visit the Grand Canyon and take beautiful photos with a digital camera. Once you're home, you move the photos onto your computer and then upload them to the Flickr website. You just click upload, find the photos on your computer and upload them to the web for safe keeping. Ahh, sweet peace of mind. YAAAY

But it doesn't stop there. You need to make sure that it's easy to find photos in the future. Along with adding titles, you can add keywords or tags that describe the photo. You might use tags like grandcanyon, arizona, park, scenery, 2007 to describe this photo. Each of these tags becomes a way for you to find photos in the future. Just click a tag and 1000 photos becomes 5 related ones.

Now, once your photos are online and findable, it's time to look at another fun part of online photo sharing - the actual sharing.

You can choose to make your photos public or private - it's up to you. Private is like a photo on your wall - few see it. But public is like taking your photos to a party - they become a representation of you and offer a way to make friends.

So, try sharing your online photos with the public. Here's what to expect:

Friends and even strangers may leave comments on your photos.

You can see which of your photos are most popular.

You may even discover that you're more motivated to take photos because you want to share them with the world.

So, photo sharing sites like Flickr do two things really well:

1) They keep your photos safe, organized and findable

2) They make photo sharing fun by making photos social

At the very least, back up your photos online, but if you're ready for fun, open your photos to the world and start to feel the love.

You can get started at Flickr, Webshots or Photobucket.com

You can... see the translated versions of this video on dotSUB.

Learn, explore and discover what new media social technologies are all about by checking out the CommonCraft Show. Lee and Sachi Lefever are master technology evangelists, bringing new tech and new media to the layman while making the process fun, easy and memorable.

Lee Lefever and Sachi were here in Rome just about a year ago. If you don't know this great pair of guys you can discover a bit more about them by watching these souvenir video they shot as me and my brother Giovanni took them for a motorbike tour of the city.