Blogger needs more room!

May 12, 2009 11:53 PM

Blogger running out of hard drive space trying to keep it simple and free...

So I keep a fairly photo-heavy blog (http://chrisinsouthkorea.blogspot.com, if you're interested) and have been for over a year. Blogspot allows for 1GB of photo storage through upload, which I'm coming up to the limit... Ideally, I'd like a place to upload photos that gives thumbnail links and displays a photo with as little clutter as possible. Oh, and free, easy to understand and upload. Any ideas?

posted by chrisinseoul to computers & internet (9 comments total)

Flickr. Their only requirement is that the image links back to the original on Flickr (no text, no border necessary), and you can blog images direct from Flickr. See this for example.
posted by nja at 1:26 AM on May 13

if i'm not mistaken, flickr actually has a bandwidth limit, so you might want to take that into consideration if your blog is traffic-heavy.
posted by mittenedsex at 1:54 AM on May 13

There's an upload bandwidth limit for free accounts (100 Mb/month), no download limit. Free accounts are also limited to 200 visible photos (you can upload more, but the older ones disappear from public view while being retained on the server), and I think there are also some limitations on size/quality which shouldn't affect the sort of images you'd put in a blog. Personally, I pay the $25 per year for a "pro" account which has almost no limitations.
posted by nja at 2:17 AM on May 13

Their only requirement is that the image links back to the original on Flickr

They don't really enforce this as far as I know, using an image without linking back works fine, although you would probably want to link back anyway.

If you pay the $29/year you get unlimited storage, plus two gigabytes a month or something of upload.
posted by delmoi at 4:37 AM on May 13

Tumblr might be too simple, but they provide image hosting and it's damn easy.
posted by dunkadunc at 5:42 AM on May 13

i use flickr... eaglefam.us, pretty easy, and works with wordpress, i'm sure there are blogspot apps for flickr...
posted by fozzie33 at 6:37 AM on May 13

Blogger can FTP your blog to any offiste hosting, so you could look around or shop for cheap or free hosting which could meet your needs -- if you're moving an existing site, it could be an enormous pain with lots of photos, although I believe Blogger will keep the original image URLs intact.

Sneaky path: start a *2nd* Blogger blog, get the new 1GB space, upload your images there, and hotlink them in your original blog. Google/Blogger doesn't care about hotlinking, least of all between Blogger blogs. You can hide that 2nd blog in your profile and/or make it invite-only, which will prevent people from somehow ending up over there, but it will double your free space for the time being - I am not sure if this violates any Blogger policies, but it's a quick-and-dirty way to increase space without affecting your current URL and readership.
posted by AzraelBrown at 8:21 AM on May 13

I use a combination of flickr (most), webshots and wikimedia (and I have a few % left in the blogger/picasa account for random/small/occasional/sidebar images).

Even if you stay with a free flickr account, anything you have linked will remain visible on the blog but only the first 200 images are viewable at the flickr site.

Webshots is an easy and good service (free, with either very large or unlimited bandwidth allowance) but I've never been completely happy with the image appearance when they compress it into the various display sizes. It may have been my screen resolution at the time I was using it regularly though.

Wikimedia is an excellent backup solution, particularly if you have images of *useful* things that you are happy to share with the world.

AzraelBrown, I'm fairly sure that what you suggest requires having a second google/blogger account, not just a second blog.
posted by peacay at 9:16 AM on May 13

Wow - thanks for all the great responses. After some careful research, I think I can live within the 100MB upload limit on Flickr. It'll mean a change of process / workflow, but I think I can live with that too...

As for the double-dipping of Google sauce, you'd need a second account for that - the photos for all your Google blogs linked with one account all draw from the same 1 GB of storage...
posted by chrisinseoul at 6:32 PM on May 13