dawn!

She wins a one year pro account! We'll get in contact with you directly to give you your prize.

Thanks again to all who participated!

Martine Cotton!

She wins a one-year subscription to a PhotoShelter Basic Personal Archive account! We'll get in contact with you directly to give you your prize.

For everyone else who didn't win, PhotoShelter has decided to give away a PhotoShelter Personal Archive Standard Account -- 3 months free -- $29.99/month thereafter. Includes 35GB storage, 20GB/month hi-res bandwidth, Seamless Customization Available (for integrating with your web site), $50 ecommerce activation fee waived.

Anyone who reads this blog post can take advantage of the discount by visiting this page. And if you'd like to learn more about this you can take their tour.

Thanks again to all who participated. See you again soon!

As you may have noticed Photoblogs.org has a new sponsor and now a new Freebie Friday with Squarespace, Inc. Squarespace has been around for years, offering high end solutions for creating blogs. And now these clever people have made a version specifically for photobloggers. Check out photographers.squarespace.com to see what they've got.

Part of what interests me about Squarespace is that it's a blogging company making a photoblogging tool and not just a photo sharing tool. This means that their journal features are solid, including great XML and XML-RPC ping settings, spam blocking, and comment control options. It also means that they have a lot of components that fit nicely with a photoblog; ie. forums, forms, static pages, and some solid gallery display features for large collections or user generated submissions.

At the moment Squarespace photoblogs do not offer social networking components or photo printing and selling, but I've been told that these features are in the works. For creating a serious photoblog Squarespace is a great choice, because of all the customizable features, versus a venue like Flickr that is more focused on the social aspect.

The Freebie

Squarespace is giving away a one year pro account worth $12 a month so you can create your own online portfolio or photoblog.

How to win?

The prize will randomly be awarded to one lucky commenter, so go to it!

Deadline

Be sure you make your comment by the evening of Thursday, February 28th in order for it to be counted!

Last Week's Winner

Also, we'll be announcing last week's Freebie Friday winner in the next few days, so stay tuned.

pinwheel (kazaguruma) by Photomo

Citing falling sales Polaroid announced on February 8th that they would be ceasing production of instant film and photobloggers across the world went into mourning, swiftly followed by hoarding.

Although we think there is little chance that public outcry will convince Polaroid to reopen its factories there is a petition with several thousand signatures we urge you to sign. Polaroid have said they are open to licensing the rights to produce instant film to a third party, so the more people sign the petition the better chance there is someone will realise there's a viable enthusiasts' market for small scale production.

Fujifilm are now the only company producing instant film products.