harpangel36 said:
What is the difference between iCloud and sites such as shutterfly anf Flickr for sharing my photos and videos?
The iDisk (that's what it is officially called, not iCloud) is where you can upload anything, and view it. Like you can upload all of your pictures, videos, files, music, etc, and you would be able to view it. However, it does cost $99 per year, and you are still limited on how much you can store. Personally, I do not recommend this service. It just costs too much, and still be limited. There are many rumors out of course, with the iPad 3 and iOS 5, about having more services with their cloud service, but I would wait to see what it is.
Dropbox works the same way, and it is great. I would recommend this app no matter what you decide. It is free! Up to 2GB of storage. You upload any pictures, files, etc on your computer, then you find them on your iPad through the app. Makes it much easier and less time consuming since you don't transfer the file through iTunes.
Then you have just photo sharing sites like Flickr. I use Flickr. It is great. And just in case you didn't know, it is run by yahoo. A free account limits you to 100mb worth of storage per year. However, you can pay just $25 per year and get unlimited storage. When you upload photos, you can choose from different settings. You can make them public, or selective private, or private. Public means everyone can see them. Selective private means you can choose who sees them (like family and friends, they must be a contact of yours on Flickr and marked as family or friend) or totally private where only you can see them. This service is great if you have family living far away and want to share any pictures with them.
The only bad thing is that Flickr does not do videos, unless if they are less than 90 seconds. However, I still highly recommend Flickr. You can test drive Flickr to see if you like it by using their free account, and later upgrade if you wish.
The only negative thing is that you would have to view the pictures through the website, however their are many 3rd party apps out their. I use flickpad pro.
It all comes down to what you want. If you have a lot of pictures, especially wanting to share some with family, Flickr is your best bet. If you want to store files, etc, then you could go to a cloud storage service, and I'm sure they are good, but I would not recommend it, especially since it sounds like you mainly have pictures. If you only have a few files, use dropbox.
Hope all that helps.
