Photology Organizes Photos for a Fee

Earlier in the year a bunch of us went out for drinks and ended up at an underground karaoke bar. I remember singing (ok, yelling) a magnificent version of Pearl Jam’s Jeremy. The rest of the details from that night are blurry at best. I do, however, recall wearing a gray baseball hat that I can’t seem to find anywhere. As my investigation unfolded to find the MIA cap, I recruited the help of my wife, who can’t for the life of her, remember what the hat looks like.

Remembering that I used my camera quite a bit that night I began searching for an image of the hat to show my wife.

No luck. I wish I knew about Photology sooner.

I store most of my photos on Flickr. If you’re like me, you get lazy when it comes to tagging your photos. Not a big deal when you have 20 pictures. But as the years go on that turns into 200, 2,000 and maybe even 20,000.

Photology promises to make photos easier to find with fewer clicks in 30 seconds or less. Rather than using tags or folders, the site relies on search filters that tap into “memory tidbits.” The interface is intuitive, simple and straightforward, resulting in easier-to-find pictures.

So, in The Case of the Missing Hat, I’d have a better chance of finding the photo. Categories that can be assigned include:

* Time of day and Date (month, year)
* Orientation
* Over/under exposed
* Inside or outside
* Text search of captions, file names, folders
* Coarse or fine color search
* Photo content: Plants, Sky, Faces, Beach, Flowers, Snow, Sunset, Water

Photology can search through 10,000 photos in less than a second to find what you are looking for. As you might expect, this kind of speed and organization if not free. The Arizona-based start up currently charges $39 a month a year for the service. The idea of searching for a photo as if you were telling a story is certainly appealing. But so is replacing my hat. And I need to use the $39 for that.

We’ll keep an eye on Photology. It’ll be interesting to see if folks will be willing to pay to stay organized.

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