Scrapbooks are a thing of the past, relatively speaking. Today, people go online to post their photos to share with their friends and family. Haven’t heard of it? Internet photo sharing is the popular new way to keep your photos organized in one place and have them be available to those who you invite to see them.

Web sites are popping up all over the Internet. Photo sharing is not something reserved for the living room couch. Places like Facebook®, MySpace®, Flickr® and more offer free space for you post and share your pictures.

Personally, I love the idea of Internet photo sharing. Not only is great for me, an amateur photographer taking pictures of my friends and family, it is great for people trying to break into the world of photography. By creating an online album, people can effectively reach a large audience without doing any work. Uploading photos? With our fast Internet connections today, it takes only a couple of minutes, and you can add tags, comments and leave space for others to comment.

Many people fear their safety online. If I am going to partake in Internet photo sharing, who is going to be looking at my pictures? Are they available to anyone who is on the web? Well, that is all up to you! Today, you can add security to your online photo albums, restricting and granting access to whomever you want.

When I upload my photos of friends, I only make them available for them to see, if however I go on a vacation and take landscape shots, I will make those public so everyone can experience the beauty of another place, while not exposing any of my friends to online scrutiny.

Online photo sharing is easy to do. You needn’t be a expert computer or Internet user to understand how to experience and participate in online photo sharing. All you need is a computer, the Internet and about 15 minutes to sit down and create an album.

 Let’s take for example the web site Flickr. This site is part of Yahoo!Òs Internet photo sharing group. To set up a Flickr account, either sign up with Yahoo! or Flickr itself, you will then be prompted through the steps of setting up your own album(s). Seem easy? Well it is!

I keep all of my photos online. It’s great because they are easily accessible. If the mood finds you right, and you are feeling nostalgic, hop on a computer and talk a walk down memory lane, anytime, anywhere. Have a great photo you want to share with your friends? Send them the link and automatically your mom in California, grandmother in New York, and friend in London can all look at it without a moment’s hesitation.

Internet photo sharing is the future. Store, print, copy, send and share all your digital photos in one place. It’s fast, easy and fun to use and look through. And if you find that Internet photo sharing isn’t right for you, just cancel your account, it’s that simple. But before you decide that it’s too much work or too scary, take a look yourself and see how great Internet photo sharing really can be.   

Read more on subjects like this on John W Scherer’s other blogs.