Bubbleshare is shutting down on November 15, 2009
Bubbleshare, my first online photo sharing site is closing its doors on November 15, 2009. I think Bubbleshare was one of the first online photo sharing site that utilized AJAX and did it really well. Founded by Albert Lai, it’s his 2nd startup. The 1st one was MyDesktopNetwork which was sold in 1999. Bubbleshare was acquired by Kaboose Inc for US$ 2.3M in 2007.
Here’s Bubbleshare’s announcement today:
Dear Bubbleshare member –
As of November 15, 2009, Bubbleshare.com will no longer be available and all links to all albums and photos will cease to function (including existing links within emails, blogs, etc). To access your photos in the future you will need to download your photos prior to November 15, 2009.
To save your images to your desktop, simply click the "Download Album" link next to your albums and double click on original photos. Your photos will then be saved to your desktop.
Again, all photos and albums must be removed prior to November 15, 2009. Effective immediately, you will no longer be able to upload any new photos or albums.
We apologize for the inconvenience. It was our pleasure to assist you with your photo sharing needs.
Thank you.Sincerely,
The Bubbleshare Team
Good luck to the Bubbleshare team. It was really fun using the free online photo sharing site.
August 13th, 2009 at 11:30 pm
Dear BubbleShare Management Team,
I have been using Bubbleshare for over 3 years now to store my photos and have found your services easy to use, reliable and competitive. I especially love the full-resolution download feature and ‘Download entire album’ function. Unlike other photo sharing sites which reduces the resolution of the original image during upload/upload, Bubbleshare allows a full-size /full-rsolution download – so you feel like you’ve shared your best moments without any lost of detail with your friends and relatives. The ‘Download entire album’ is especially convenient when you need to share the entire album and not just a few pictures. Imagine clicking 20 times to download 20 photos at other photo-sharing sites.. not very convenient is it?
I think Bubbleshare has done extremely well. I am disappointed that the site has to close down. I hope you will continue to provide your services for free to existing loyal customers. We hope to see Bubbeshare after November 2009…. please live on…..
Many thanks,
A Hopeful Bubbleshare Fan
I
August 22nd, 2009 at 12:33 am
Oh! I’m also sad and disapointed because I’ve been using Bubbleshare since 2005 chosing it between lots of photosharing systems…
But I’ve problems now downloading my entire albums as the Bubbleshare Teanm suggest… I click “Download album”, but I wait and wait and i’m not receiving the email with the album. Something goes wrong… (I’ve succesfully downloaded entired albums before now…)
Can anyone help me?
August 22nd, 2009 at 12:39 am
Ups! I think I’ve found the answer… I need to wait for A WEEK!
Downloading the Original Photos of any Album
I\’m copying the following text from the Bubbleshare webpage (http://www.bubbleshare.com/help/download_originals):
\”If you want to download your albums, please follow these steps:
1. Login at http://www.bubbleshare.com
2. Click the \”My Albums\” tab
3. Click on the album name or \”Edit\” link for the album you want to download
4. Select \”View Album\” from the Left Navigation Menu
5. Click the \”Download Album\” link in the Right Navigation menu
You will receive an email containing the album archive link when the archive is ready.
Unfortunately, due to the high volume of download requests, the email may take up to a week to be sent out.
You will download a zip file continuing the original files which you can double click on to extract. You may need the free Winzip program.\”
September 4th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
I don’t see a “Download Album” link. How in the F— am I supposed to download my albums without it?
September 4th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
1. Login at http://www.bubbleshare.com
2. Click the “My Albums” tab
3. Click on album name or “Edit” link for the album you want to download
4. Select “View Album” from the Left Navigation Menu
5. Click the “Download Album” link in the Right Navigation menu
An archive of the album will be created and you will receive an email when it is ready to download
BubbleShare.com will continue to be operational until November 15, 2009 so you can download your albums at anytime up to November 15.
September 5th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
aj — Thank you. I thought I’d tried everything. This can’t be simple for the average user.
I’m really bummed Bubbleshare is shutting down. I spent many hours looking for the right website for my albums and chose Bubbleshare. I feel betrayed after all the hours I put into the albums, all the hours I’ll spend downloading them, and then uploading them somewhere else. It seems they could have at least had a seamless transition to another worthy website that would directly import all your albums. Transferring each album one at a time is a terrible waste of our time.
Picasa looks promising. Any recommendations?
–acm
September 5th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
I use Picasa. But I’m not impressed with the 1GB limit. Flickr pro might be a good alternative.
September 8th, 2009 at 7:30 am
aj,
Please help:
When I try to download, I get an immediate option to “open” or “save”, not the email described in your announcement. When I try save the zip file to my computer, I get a bad zip file – it contains 0 bytes. I did get an email the other day, but the zip file I received was also 0 bytes.
Alternatively, I would like the option to purchase a CD with all of my albums on it. I apparently can order one CD per album, but my albums are so small that they would all fit on one CD. I am not able to create a new album with all my pictures on it either. Is there a way?
Thanks
September 8th, 2009 at 8:04 am
Hi Roy, that is something beyond me. Please contact them at http://www.bubbleshare.com/about/feedback it might be a technical issue with the downloading of the albums. They might be getting a lot of requests too.
October 31st, 2009 at 11:12 am
Please HELP! I attempted to download all of my albums over 2 weeks ago and have yet to receive the link via email! I tried emailing bubbleshare directly, but the feedback email address is no longer active.
Does anyone have any idea how I can get my photos?
Thanks!
Tara
November 8th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
I have been working to download my pictures for several months, but still have 26 albums left. I try everyday, but I am only allowed to download occasionally. Is there any other way to get the pictures? Can we petition to get the deadline moved? Any help would be seriously appreciated. These are the only copies I have of my daughter’s first two year’s of life!!!!
Patrick
December 1st, 2009 at 2:00 am
I’ve been waiting for my download links for over 2 months now, and I am angry. Why didn’t Disney follow through with this, they are opening themselves up for a class action lawsuit if you ask me. I had over 40 albums that they did not send me the links to, and I tried to contact them using their feeble contact email address. I’m mad and don’t know what to do about it.
December 1st, 2009 at 9:27 am
Try to contact them here:
Feedback: feedback@BubbleLabs.com
Corporate: corporate@BubbleLabs.com
Address:
BubbleShare Inc.
2200 Yonge Street, Suite 1400
Toronto, ON M4S 2C6
Phone: 416 593 3000
March 1st, 2010 at 9:27 am
Sucks to see users get left out in the cold when huge sites like Disney and Bubbleshare play economic games. Anyways, there are lots of alternatives to bubbleshare, just go with the big boys and backup your photos.