Parents are fond of sharing pictures of their kids – to capture those once-in-a-lifetime moments that never repeat, as their kids get older. The catch is that, sometimes, parents inadvertently share too much information in those pictures. For instance, a seemingly harmless snapshot of a young child waiting for the school bus can provide information about the location of the bus stop if it’s shared on social media.
A new app wants to change all that: Sherish claims it gives parents control over how they share pictures of their kids. All accounts are completely private, and there are no ads on the app – further contributing to a safer sharing environment. Think of Sherish as your own photo social network, but one where you don’t have to worry about setting privacy parameters.
Sherish lets parents create private and sharable photo albums that ensure pictures of their children only go to people who they know, like family and close friends instead of a worldwide Internet audience. Email updates from the app will automatically go out to selected family members and friends the second a new snapshot is added to the private photo album, even if they aren’t signed up for a Sherish account.
Interesting features include voiceover capability for pictures; Dropbox, Flickr, and Facebook compatibility, allowing you to import photos stored in those accounts; and the option to send single photos or entire albums to the nearest Walgreens for prints or hardcover photo album pickups. When you’re on your computer, you can use Sherish’s Desktop Uploader (Mac, PC, and Linus) to upload photos.
This app solves a problem for many parents who are concerned about pictures of their kids being seen by inappropriate people on the Internet. A University of Michigan study revealed that upwards of 74 percent of parents had second thoughts about putting up baby pictures on the Internet – yet they did it anyway. The same study also found that more than half of parents provided personal details in the pictures that would make it easy to reveal their kids’ location.
Sherish creator Jared Brown is a software developer, but also a dad, so he understands the dilemma parents face in this situation. His goal was to enable parents to easily share pictures of their kids with people that matter to them, without the whole world prying in through social media sites.
However, in lieu of an ad-based model, Sherish requires you to sign up for a subscription in order to use it, but you do get unlimited uploads. Sherish is available now on iTunes for $5 per month or $50 per year. An Android version will follow in June.