How do you keep track of your ballooning collection of photos when these are stored on multiple devices (computer, smartphone, tablet) or online services (photo sites, social media sites)?  

In our survey among 1,004 North American respondents we found that more than 76% of them store more than 25 photos on different device types (e.g. on a smartphone and on a computer).

More than half store more than 25 photos on multiple photo, social network or online storage sites.
While finding photos has never been easy, the problem has exploded now that most people no longer have a central repository where they store their photos.

Combining the results of a survey among 1,004 North American respondents with hands-on reviews of and interviews with an emerging crop of innovative solution providers, The Dispersed Photo Challenge Study presents a broad analysis of what is arguably the biggest remaining challenge in digital photography.

The Dispersed Photo Challenge Study has the following chapters:

Executive Summary
The Dispersed
Photo Problem
Photo Aggregation vs. Discovery Functionality
Photo Aggregation Functionality
Photo Discovery Functionality
Detailed Comparison of 18 Solutions

Newly updated December 2014:
Updates to 66-page addendum on 18 existing and 4 new solutions

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The Dispersed Photo Challenge Study includes 26 graphs and 3 tables, counts 105 pages, and provides an in-depth analyses of:

• Adobe Revel

• Apple iCloud Photo Stream

• Cooliris

• Dropbox

• Everpix

• Found

• Google+

• Microsoft SkyDrive

• MyShoebox

• NeroKwik

• Photobucket

• Picturelife

• Pixable

• Smile by Webshots

• SugarSync

• Swirl

• ThisLife

• Woven

Summaries of new solutions:

• Amazon Cloud Drive

• Canon Irista

• Kwilt

• Mylio

Analysis per vendor:

• From where do they aggregate photos?

• How do they handle photo changes and deletes?

• What syncing or aggregation methods do they use?

• Do they deduplicate photos; if so, how?

• What kinds of metadata do they gather and leverage?

• What kinds of sharing functionality do they offer?

• Do they offer an API?

• Do they offer photo output product features?

Publication date:
March 2013;
updated December 2014