For my second blog post on emerging technologies, I decided to explore the world of digital scrapbooking with a site called Scrapblog. The IP address is www.scrapblog.com/default.aspx. They even let you test drive the site before you are required to sign-up for an account. While the account itself is free, as are the pre-made pages, you do have to buy credits if you want to permanently get certain things like stickers, backgrounds, etc. The good news is that you don’t have to do this if you use a pre-made template, so that’s nice. I think you get 300 credits for $5.00, and up to 2800 credits for $50.00. Again, I’m a poor college student, so free is good!
Once you sign up for an account, the digital scrapbook creation process is relatively simple. If you want a tutorial before diving in, simply scroll to the bottom of the page and click “Quick Tour.” I chose to do this so that I could get an idea of the site and see if it was really a good fit for me. You can also choose this option without creating an account. To begin making a Scrapblog, you click on “Create New Scrapblog,” and the site takes you to the builder. You can use a preset theme, or simply start with a blank page. I went ahead and began with a template since I am still new to the process of creating a Scrapblog. Hopefully, in the future, I will be proficient enough with the site to the point that I can create Scrapblogs from scratch. I enjoyed getting to upload my pictures, and mess around with their order, color, and appearance. I especially appreciated the crop feature! Making text spaces for comments was fun too. There is so much that you can do with font size and color in this program! Even though I am a traditional album scrapbooker and I doubt that will change anytime soon, I enjoyed getting to learn how to utilize technology to help me accomplish one of my favorite hobbies.
While the site was definitely what I would categorize as “user-friendly,” there were a few things that bothered me. For starters, when I went to upload my pictures, I had to upload them one at a time. The control feature didn’t work in this site like it did in Animoto. Also, I don’t like paying for things, especially online, though in this case I can understand why a site like Scrapblog would do that. Still, when you don’t have that much money, unforeseen payment options can be a real bummer on a site.
Still, all in all, I really like Scrapblog! I think it is a unique technology that can really bring out your creative side! I hope you enjoy my sample scrapbook! It features someone near and dear to my heart: my pet hamster, Hamlet! Check it out below or follow this link:
http://www.scrapblog.com/viewer/viewer.aspx?sbId=1893989.
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