GregBellDesign

For the past couple of months I have been quietly been working on launching a side project of mine called ScrnShots.

What is ScrnShots?

ScrnShots is a social web application for designers (graphic, interaction, information, etc.) to easily keep and share a digital inspiration diary. If that doesn't make any sense check out my profile page on ScrnShots:

From www.scrnshots.com/users/gregbell

The system allows you to upload screenshots, tag them and then share them with others.

Why Use ScrnShots?

Early in my career as a design student, I was taught to keep a folder or drawer full of print materials that inspired me to do better design. For me, this became somewhat of an obsession and to this day I still have a drawer full of designed materials that, for some reason or another, inspire me to do better work.

As I began doing more screen based design and user experience work, I started to keep a library of screenshots on my desktop to use as reference for projects. I found two issues with keeping a desktop based library of screenshots:

• It gets difficult to organize screenshots into specific categories, which means that it becomes a lot of work to manage something that isn't supposed to take up a lot of your time
• All of the information (screenshots) is locked away on my computer and is not easily shared amongst colleagues and friends

So, I built ScrnShots.

What Can I Do On ScrnShots?

Currently, ScrnShots is in private beta, but you can expect a full public launch in late January. Here is a brief list of the current features on ScrnShots:

• Upload screenshots as jpg, png or gifs
• Tag screenshots for retrieval
• Comment on yours and other screenshots
• Create A Widget for your Blog (At the bottom of this page is mine!)
• Personal Profiles
• Subscribe to user's ScrnShots RSS Feeds
• Embed screenshots in your posts or website

Some of the items we are working on right now:

• A firefox plugin to take screenshots directly to your account
• Friends list and feeds
• Groups
• Ratings
• Favorites

I plan on posting a fair bit here about the process of creating ScrnShots as well as the progress of the system. If you are interested in signing up for ScrnShots, please go to www.scrnshots.com and add your email address to the beta newsletter list.