Arcivr

[arcivr-blog]

How do Arcivr Communities work?

Arcivr Communities are for sharing photos with a person or group of people by invitation only. Communities are also used for crowdsourcing photos – pooling them together from lots of different cameras, for a team, school or life event like a wedding. The Community is one of our most popular features, and it’s a lot of fun. You can make as many Communities as you wish, and they act like private social networks for your photos.

Here’s how to use Arcivr Communities to share and crowdsource photos.

1. Sharing Photos Automatically Creates a Community.

Whether you choose to share with one or one hundred people, your community members are able to do four things:

view the photos,

add their own photos,

download the original photos and

comment on all the photos within that Community.

Sharing photos in Arcivr keeps the conversation fresh and relevant (more memories, fewer cat and lunch photos).

2. Crowdsource Photos for Events and Groups.

How to grab that shot Uncle Randy took of the bride and groom jumping into the ocean at sunset? Invite everyone at your wedding into an Arcivr Community with a link or email invitation, then everyone can upload their best photos into the Community for all to enjoy. Bride and groom end up with the 21st Century answer to the disposable camera.

3. Communities are free to join.

Your wedding guests or Little League teams don’t need to purchase an Arcivr account to enjoy your photos. Arcivr Community members get a lifetime of viewing and uploading privileges without ever having to sign up for an account - all it takes is a username and password to join. This way your community belongs only to the members you invite! Of course, we’d love all your Community Members to start their own photo legacies if they wish - but we leave that up to them.

4. Get Your Photos into an Arcivr Community Now.

You can create a Community first, then add people and photos later, or you can add photos to a Community now and add members later. You can add members one at a time, or in large groups.

Create a Community on your Communities page

Select a photo or group of photos and choose Add to Community

Select a photo or group of photos and choose Share

Grab the Community Link and send to your group - by email, on your blog, on your Facebook page, whatever you want.

Why not log in and check it out for yourself?

Shoot any questions to [email protected] or @arcivr.

Happy archiving!

[arcivr-blog]

Arcivr in 60 seconds – creating a new album

While everyone organizes their albums a bit differently (by date, event, location, etc), making albums ensures that you can quickly find and share memories for years to come.

Here's how to add photos to a new album:

Click the blue Select button to enter Select Mode

Select the photos you'd like to add (click to select one / click and drag to select many)

Select "Add to album" from the organize menu in the top bar (arrow icon)

Name your new album or add your photos an existing album

Watch an album come to life is seconds:

Why not log in now and create some albums!

[arcivr-blog]

Arcivr in 60 seconds – how to share photos

Each time you share photos, a private Arcivr Community is created for you and the recipient(s). Communities allow you to share, download and discuss photos with whoever you invite. You can add or remove members and photos to communities at any time. Best of all, recipients don't need a paid Arcivr account!

Here's how to share:

Click the blue Select button to enter Select Mode

Clicking individual images to select one at a time or click and drag to select multiple images at once

Select "Share" in the Edit Menu in the top bar (arrow icon)

Add recipient(s) email address (or choose an existing Community to share with)

Press "Share"

You've just shared some photos and created a private Community to continue sharing over time!

Watch sharing in action:

Why not log in and share some photos now?

[arcivr-blog]

Arcivr in 60 Seconds – View Mode vs Select Mode

Every screen in Arcivr has two modes – View Mode and Select Mode. And they do exactly what you think!

View photos in View Mode

View Mode is for enjoying photos – whether browsing or working with just one.

Highlights:

Teal menu bar indicates you’re in View Mode.

Click on a photo in View Mode for full-screen slideshow.

Click on the gear icon for shortcuts to share, organize, download or download a single image. 

Select and edit multiple photos in Select Mode

Select mode allows you to drag or click to select multiple images for sharing, organizing, downloading or deleting.

Highlights:

Dark blue menu bar indicates you’re in Select Mode. 

Edit photo name, caption, people and keywords.

Drag to select multiple images, or click a single image to select/deselect it. Your selected photos will have a teal border.

Counter in top bar lets you know how many photos you’ve selected. Click “X” to deselect all images.

Why not log in and check it out for yourself?

Shoot any questions to [email protected] or @arcivr.

Happy archiving!

[arcivr-blog]

A Note From Arcivr's CEO

About a year ago, I was up late one night, digging through generations of family photos – on hard drives, cameras, devices, social sites, and a closet full of shoe boxes. I was searching for this particular photo of me with my late grandfather, standing together in front of his '76 Oldsmobile. 

That night, I became determined to never lose another photo, to be able to combine and organize my photos all in one place. I created Arcivr for me to use, for my family to use, to keep generations of photos safe, and to be able to share them privately or post them socially. 

And now it’s yours to use, too! What can you do with Arcivr?

Intuitive interface is simple enough for your parents and grandparents to use

Share photos even with those who don’t have a paid account

Share photos in 100% complete privacy with 1 person or 1,000 people

Large groups of people can share in their own private Community – perfect for weddings, teams, family events, etc

Enjoy an ad-free, data mining-free photo experience – always

Enjoy a month of Arcivr on me, and if you love it, we want to welcome you as a member. Let us know what you think: all of Arcivr’s features were created because you asked for them!

Enjoy your memories,

Chris Korbey Founder and CEO of Arcivr

By the way, I finally found that photo of me and my Grandfather! What is it that makes grandfathers so epic?

[arcivr-blog]

Arcivr 1.0 is live!

The ‘official’ Arcivr, is here! Here are some highlights of what you’ll see the next time you log in:

Share everything privately through Communities.

When you share photos or albums in Arcivr, you create an Arcivr Community. Communities allow you to invite friends, upload, discuss and share photos in real time and complete privacy. Invite one or 100,000 people – it’s up to you. Communities are perfect for weddings, teams, vacations and family events.

Welcome to the world’s easiest uploader.

Drag and drop any number of photos from your computer or iPhoto directly into your Arcivr Collection, Albums or Communities. You can even drop photos onto the “New Album” or “New Community” cards to start organizing immediately. The best part: you don’t have to wait for your photos to upload. Enjoy your memories and we’ll let you know when your photos have uploaded!

The most important things haven’t changed a bit.

Arcivr is still 100% private. No ads, no data mining and no nosy high school sweethearts. There are hundreds of great apps for public sharing, but Arcivr is still the best place to archive and share meaningful moments with those who matter most.

Why not log in now and see the new Arcivr for yourself?

As always, let us know what you think at [email protected] or @arcivr.

Enjoy!

[arcivr-blog]

Sneak peek at Arcivr 1.0

After four months in private beta and hundreds of conversations with early users, the first full-featured version of Arcivr will release to the public in just a few weeks. And it's really (really) good!

As a small thank you to our beloved beta users, we added two currently unreleased features to all beta accounts. Next time you log in, you'll find a simpler interface and be able to drag and drop photos from your desktop directly into any part of Arcivr, including new or existing albums.

Here's a quick overview of the new features:

Have you logged in and used the new interface? Let us know what you think at [email protected] or @arcivr.

Stay tuned for the big announcement in the coming weeks!

Cheers, Team Arcivr

[arcivr-blog]

Facebook sync is live in all beta accounts

After a few hundred requests from beta users, you can now post photos and albums to Facebook directly from Arcivr! Just sync accounts and a “Post to Facebook” option will appear every time you share.

Arcivr will also backup all of your Facebook photos and albums. To keep you organized, everything imported will retain your Facebook tags and captions. You can even search the keyword “Facebook" to see everything you’ve imported into your Arcivr account.

Sync accounts in 30 seconds:

Step 1 Click your username in the top right of any Arcivr screen to open your User Profile.

Click “Sign in to Facebook” to connect your accounts. Facebook will ask you to confirm the connection and choose who can see your posts on Facebook.

Step 2 Watch your Facebook photos and albums roll in!

Step 3 Post photos from Arcivr to Facebook

Once your accounts are connected, you’ll see a “Post to Facebook” option every time you share a photo or album. Check the box, any we’ll post the photo and message immediately!

Why use Arcivr to post photos to Facebook?

When you post photos in Facebook, they get compressed into tiny, low quality files. It’s fine for a quick post but terrible for photo sharing, printing and archiving. Arcivr stores your original files – no compression or loss of quality. When you post photos to Facebook from Arcivr, a copy gets crunched down and posted to Facebook while your beautiful original remains untouched. 

Enjoy and let us know what you think at [email protected].

Cheers, Team Arcivr

[arcivr-blog]

Why Arcivr?

Back in 2007, managing photos wasn’t an issue. As a commercial photographer, I took thousands of photos. Each one was tagged, catalogued and archived on a shelf of perfectly-organized hard drives. 

Fast forward to 2013. We had three boys and thousands of personal photos scattered across cameras, phones, iPads, computers, Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, Dropbox, and a pile of overflowing shoe boxes. We also had a new challenge – grandparents who wanted photos. Today.

We needed a tool that could:

organize and securely archive every photo,

share photos privately or post them to social networks,

control who can see, download or share each photo,

invite others to collaborate by uploading photos to shared albums,

and do it all in one place.

We asked friends and coworkers what tools they used and got more complaints than recommendations. Clearly there was a need for Arcivr.

In September, Arcivr became a company. In December we shared the beta version with a few hundred early users. The response was overwhelming. As we worked with users to evolve the beta version, three core principles emerged:

Privacy – No ads, no selling your data and no prying eyes on your photos. 

Simplicity – Arcivr should be simple, intuitive and fun to use.

Longevity – Too many free apps disappear because they simply don’t make money. Arcivr should be affordable, but not free. 

The first full-featured version of Arcivr will launch in April 2014. We're already working on some pretty amazing additions for later this year. Beyond that, the exact future set is up to our users. Users like you. Give it a try and let us know what you think at [email protected].

Cheers, Chris Arcivr Founder and CEO