iWeb and Pretty, Easy, Sites
It takes no time to whip out a page in iWeb. Why? It’s all about the iPhoto integration. I won’t use it for blog posting (that feature is the worst of iWeb). What I have started using it for is sharing of photos with family and friends. Okay–so you’re saying to yourself, “he’s an idiot, that’s what Flickr is for”. I think Flickr is more about social photo sharing, not a way to maintain a shared semi-private photo album.
With iWeb, there are two ways to make photo sharing happen–using the photo album templates or the photocast feature. The photo album template demands you use the integrated iPhoto library and drag pictures into the editor section of the page. Simple as that. If you host it on .mac, an integrated animated slideshow widget is there for your viewers, automatically. While I wish I could edit how that looks and feels, it’s a enough to do the job.
The photocasting is very cool. You designate a smart folder (or any folder) in iPhoto as a photocast, and kablaam, every time a photo is added to the folder, the rss photo feed is automatically updated. I can think to the future–if/when my wife and I have kids–this would be a dead simple way to keep the grandparents updated. And of course, videocasts are supported as well.
Of course I wish it did quite a few things better–but it’s a great start. I just hope the demand is high enough for this stuff that Apple continues to improve this. At some point, I’ll generate a more complete problem/wish list. But for now–know that iLife ‘06 is a large step towards Jobs’ vision of Apple being the center of an annotated, connected, recorded, remixable world. End buzz.
Check out the page it took less than a minute to make (I know… it sucks–but still. I have an idea I’ll use it for to let it shine a little later). And yes, those photos are courtesy of me… my old Kodak DC4000 (or is it 400?)..