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I have had access to Expono for a while, but never gotten around to use it. Before you read this review, know this: I have been using Flickr 3-4 years already, and have all my pictures there. I have only briefly tested Picasa. It is difficult to review Expono as a start-up company, as it is competing directly with two of Internet’s biggest players, Google and Yahoo. Both Google’s Picasa and Yahoo’s Flickr are popular services and just about feature complete. So the questions for this review are: Is there space for Expono and what extra does Expono give, that should make established users of Picasa and Flickr consider to move. I consider it wrong to ask the question: If I was to start sharing pictures today, what would I choose?

There are a fair number of photo sharing sites available, and it was therefore strange to see the announcement of Expono opening for the public on the very same day as Fox Interactive Media lays off one third of the staff (of 120) at the competing photo-sharing site Photobucket. I hope Expono makes it.

Expono is fairly easy to use and comes with a clean and simple user interface for most of it’s functionality. I found the connections to Facebook, Twitter and Friendfeed a mess. The uploads have an ok speed, but miss not having the possibility to upload directly from Adobe Lightroom and Windows Live Photo Gallery. Perhaps someone will make a plugin in the future? Expono has all the features you expect to find on a media sharing site: Online backup, easy sharing, albums and tagging (also face and geo tagging), find duplicates and iPhoto photocast support. It also comes with a fine-grained access control, actually quite a bit better then the one in Flickr. Just take a look at Expono’s feature list, and you will be convinced. There are a lot of people that has not chosen a photo sharing solution yet, and Expono has timed there launch well, opening their service to the public in July. Just in time for people to upload and share their holiday memories.

Launching after Flickr and Picasa gives them the advantage of knowing what functionality users want, and also an opportunity to implement the features in better ways! Expono is for instance far easier/better on creating a new album and then adding photos to the album. And these functions are key functionalities in any photo sharing solution!

Expono is also one of the best examples I have seen of cloud computing so far. The company does not have their own server park, but have rather based their service on Amazon AWS (Amazon Web Services) combined with RightScale Cloud Computing Management Platform.

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