Fotopedia, a photo encyclopedia site that launches to the public today, hopes to become the Wikipedia for photos by centralizing the photo experience around user-created topics and subject matters. The sleek web interface is coupled with a desktop application for a community experience on site or off.
With Fotopedia, users can create or edit pages, which are photo-driven articles, and can use the desktop application to add photos from their desktop library, or online libraries like Flickr, Picasa, and Facebook. Fotopedia articles can also include a Google Map and Wikipedia info, but the experience centers around the top photos that make the page slideshow.
Users can nominate up to 10 photos per day to article pages using the aforementioned drag-and-drop desktop application. Nominated photos are then added to the "Candidates" tab of pages, where other users can vote their approval online or via the desktop application. Once an image receives 5 votes, it's added to the "Top" tab of the photo encyclopedia page.
Fotopedia also doubles as a social network, so you can create a profile, follow other users, pages, or albums, and interact with the pages and albums created by other users.
We're intrigued by Fotopedia's approach to highlighting photos in an encyclopedic form, and we think the website interface does a beautiful job at showcasing high quality images around subject matter or interest. We find Fotopedia to be a great way to explore and share images online, but we'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
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