Shutterfly now offeres a service that lets all members of a group
upload and share their photos with each other. Its truely a group
photo collection. Great for family reunions and special events.  I am
looking for 1) other services that offer a similar service and 2)
software that would facilitate this service if I were to host it on my
own servers.

Dear jmhines123-ga;

Thank you for allowing me to answer your interesting question. There
are literally hundreds of solutions like the kind you are asking about
so the ones I?m mentioning here are the ones that appear to be the
most popular according to professional and end-user reviews. I have
included some interesting articles at the bottom that you might also
find informative and supports some of my choices below. Let?s begin
with online options:

Flickr is a new site that is just now in the BETA stage. The program
offers secure sharing and management of photos. The basic account is
free.

FLICKR
http://www.flickr.com/

PBASE is another such site that offers the uploading and sharing of
photos in the way you described.

PBASE PHOTO DATABASE
http://www.pbase.com/

Yet another option is SMUGMUG which offers unlimited uploads and
secure file sharing. You (or those you authorize) can upload in a
secure datacenter. Plus, you can order CD and DVD backups anytime.
Photos are never deleted unless you do it.

SMUGMUG
http://www.smugmug.com/

23HQ is another relatively new option. You can share your photos via
the web or with prints. You can share with blogs, use mail or
subscription-based sharing and more. Share your photos with whom you
want, private or public or both. The coolest thing about it is that
it?s free.

23HQ
http://www.23hq.com/

You might also be interested in SNAPFISH. Your Snapfish account is
limitless ? and free! You can edit, organize and share photos with
whomever you wish. The site also offers free software to make the
process even easier.

SNAPFISH
http://www.snapfish.com/

MIRRA PERSONAL SERVER also bears looking into as a potential option.

MIRRA PERSONAL SERVER
http://www.mirra.com/solutions/digital_image_safe_02.html

I would, of course, be negligent if I didn?t mention PICASA by Google.
Sharing your photos is literally as easy as ?drag-and-drop?.
http://picasa.google.com/

You will find many other similar online options here:

GOOGLE: PHOTO SHARING
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=photo+sharing


Now, as for photo sharing software, PC MAGAZINE?s review of these
programs is quite informative:

PC MAGAZINE
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,887533,00.asp

The highest rated among them is an impressive product called Dynamic
DNS v. 2.1 with Photo Sharing, from TZO
http://www.tzo.com/MainPageSupport/HowToPage/SOLUTIONS-SHAREPHOTOS.HTML

Another is Preclick Tuner and Photo Organizer from Preclick Corp:
http://www.preclick.com/

AlphaBase Systems also sells a version of iO Presentation Manager that
includes built-in photo-sharing capabilities.
http://www.go-io.com/
http://www.go-io.com/server.html


Another user review of software can be found here:

SOFTPLATZ
http://www.softplatz.com/kw/picture-sharing/

There are dozens of solutions mentioned here but some of the more
notable software options mentioned are:

PIXPO
http://www.softplatz.com/Soft/Network-Internet/File-Sharing-P2P/PiXPO.html

EASY FILE SHARING WEB SERVER 1.21
http://www.softplatz.com/Soft/Network-Internet/File-Sharing-P2P/Easy-File-Sharing-Web-Server.html

POWERNET WEB FILE SHARING 1.8
http://www.softplatz.com/Soft/Network-Internet/File-Sharing-P2P/PowerNET-Web-File-Sharing.html

You may find others mentioned here:

GOOGLE: PHOTO SHARING APPLICATIONS
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=photo+sharing+applications


I hope you find that my answer exceeds your expectations. If you have
any questions about my research please post a clarification request
prior to rating the answer. Otherwise I welcome your rating and your
final comments and I look forward to working with you again in the
near future. Thank you for bringing your question to us.

Best regards;
Tutuzdad-ga ? Google Answers Researcher



INFORMATION SOURCES

ZDNET
http://reviews-zdnet.com.com/AnchorDesk/4520-7298_16-5103567.html

US NEWS
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/tech/articles/040517/17tech.div.htm

FREE DOWNLOADS CENTER
http://www.freedownloadscenter.com/Best/share-nfs-free.html




SEARCH STRATEGY


SEARCH ENGINE USED:

Google ://www.google.com


SEARCH TERMS USED:

Photo

Picture

Photograph

Slide

Album

Share

Sharing

Solution

Application

Server

Hosting

Awesome.

Just wondering if anyone knows of an online photo album service that
has more templates than the one-photo-per-page template. This would be
more like a real photo album where you ususally have two, three, or
four photos per page.

Some photos just need to be viewed together! It's so weird that no one
(that I have seen) does this.

The original question was asking about photo groups.  Besides
shutterfly, <a href=http://www.glowfoto.com>Glowfoto.com</a> has photo
groups, and their system is pretty complete (its similar to MySpace
groups, but its photo based, with unlimited photos per group). 
Moderators can make their groups open to the public or private (mod
must accept application).

Here's the groups page: <a
href=http://www.glowfoto.com/groups.php>http://www.glowfoto.com/groups.php</a>

Sorry, the links got screwed up, so here they are without the formatting:

http://www.glowfoto.com
http://www.glowfoto.com/groups.php