Image hosting
Image hosting is an application-specific hosting service whereby servers are made available to people and organizations to store photographs and graphic images online. These images can then be linked from external websites or shared via emails. In the last few years, image hosting has developed a huge appeal.
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Why image hosting is popular
One reason for the popularity of image hosting is that most people who require image storage don’t have their own web space. In addition, the popularity of other Internet-based interactive applications such as forums, auctions, and blogs has helped image hosting services become a viable sub-industry today.
Common uses of image hosting
The most common uses of image hosting:
- For remote hosting of avatars and signatures for forums, blogs, and social network websites like MySpace and Hi5
- To host media files on file hosting services other than personal websites to avoid getting pummeled by bandwidth theft
- To upload auction pictures and photos for auction sites such as eBay
- To organize and share photographs in a photo gallery for family and friends — with the size limit of emails imposed by certain email providers, users rely on image hosting so that they can send links to images instead of attaching hefty images to emails
How image hosting works
While most image hosts allow anonymous image upload, some require free or paid registration to take advantage of extra features like more bandwidth and disk space. For this reason, it may be better to use only one image host.
After choosing an image host, the next step is to locate the desired images previously earmarked for web storage.
The upload process takes a few seconds, depending on the size of the image. Once completed, the site then provides the new address where the image is stored on the Internet. The most common link formats given:
- Direct link to image
http://www.imagehosting.com/party.gif
- BBcode link
[URL]http://www.imagehosting.com/party.gif[/URL]
- HTML link
<a href=”http://www.imagehosting.com/party.gif”></a>
Common features of image hosting
Most image hosting websites provide these features:
- Automatic thumbnail generation or resizing of uploaded images
- Ability to upload batch images
- Organization of images in albums or folders
Most image hosting providers have applications that allow users to select and upload one image at once. Some others allow users to upload many files at a go. They may also enable image transfer from URL and the ability to upload a single zip file that contains several images compressed.
Paid image hosting
One of the rules governing the free image hosting industry is that users are limited in the number or weight of image sizes that can be uploaded. Images are also deleted after a certain period, and users are likely to have advertisements appear next to their images. Paid image hosting avoids these inconveniences and is cheaper than other types of web hosting.
Paid image hosting providers charge a monthly subscription fee. They usually provide some essential tools and applications for users to create photo blogs and galleries with their images. Or, users can add images as a slide show. Other paid image hosting providers offer more sophisticated applications that allow for customization, such as adding notes, formatted text, trans-loaders, and browser sidebars. The paid versions also provide users with password-protected albums and various customizable options: skin, colors, and subdomains.
Technology used with image hosting
Generally, image hosting services are operated on dedicated servers because of their popularity and high bandwidth and disk space usage required. Large image hosting websites use clustered hosting technology whereby the images are stored on several servers.
Most of the popular image hosting companies have deployed their own application to power their site. However, both free and commercial scripts can be found at HotScripts.com.
External links
- Video: How a photo-sharing site keeps its data: how online photos are uploaded and shared on the Web
- Free Image Hosting Directory: directory list of websites dedicated to offering free image hosting service
- All Image Hosting Sites: guide to selecting the right image, photo hosting service
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