I’ve never really liked Flickr’s model of image submission via email. Its a great principle – I can’t think of many web-enabled devices that don’t support an email client – but the execution could be better.

I guess I just don’t like having to remember my ugly, private email address for Flickr. Its just not, well, pretty. The reason for the address is to mitigate the chances of spoofing the ‘From’ field, which is all well and good, but its not particularly useable. Generally speaking, people have difficulties remembering their own username / password combo let alone a single-serving email address.

Instead, I’m thinking that Blipfoto should have a general, memorable, mail address for uploading. Spoofing the ‘From’ address won’t be a problem, as the service would automatically send an email back to the user as feedback on the status of the upload (no image attached, invalid EXIF etc). If all’s well and good, the message would contain a verification code in the Subject. To confirm publishing of the entry, the user simply sends a blank reply (or clicks a link within the body).

This approach has two benefits; the user receives feedback on their entry’s status (which would be especially important on Blipfoto due to their stricter rules on publishing), and they don’t have to remember a convoluted mail address. The drawback is requiring the user to check their mail again for the confirmation message, but as they’re posting via their email client, this shouldn’t be a step too far.