Research released today shows that people are turning to online platforms and services to record and share their digital photographs and avoid them slipping into the digital abyss.

The online survey, commissioned by Blurb and carried out by YouGov, found that 44 per cent of respondents share their digital photographs using social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.  The emergence of social media has given rise to a generation of people who are sharing information about all aspects of their lives online, posting photographs of everything from the mundane through to nights out on the town, holidays, and significant life moments like weddings. This trend is particularly prominent amongst 18 to 24 year olds, where 83 per cent share their images on social media websites, while only 19 per cent of people aged over 55 do the same.

“Images have become the new vocabulary, and it’s interesting to see how people are documenting their lives online in this way,” commented Eileen Gittins, founder and CEO of Blurb.

The survey also found that there is a growing trend for people to use creative online services to transform photos into real, personalised products, to keep, share, and give as gifts.  Almost half of those surveyed (44 per cent) stated that they would prefer to make a hard copy photography book from their snaps. In contrast, online photo albums proved the least popular choice for people looking to share their digital photos; only five per cent of respondents said they would prefer to create an online photo album using a web-based service such as Flickr.

“I’ve said many times that you can’t gift a website – the beauty of print is that it’s tangible; it’s real,” said Eileen Gittins. “Books are more than repositories for images, they tell stories with a beginning, middle and end. And even if the story is told through images, it still reads.  We know from our own research that gift-giving and memory-keeping are the top two reasons why our consumer customers make Blurb books.”

Head over to Blurb.com to see what it’s all about – it’s really quite good. It’s great that I can import from places like wordpress.com and flickr.com, it’s just a shame that I can’t import from RSS Feeds as I would have quite a few uses for it straight away!! 🙁