MomCat Reviews: KINZIN - Share Your Memories without the Privacy Risk

One of the choices I have made as a parent and a blogger is to refrain from showing photos of my kids in this forum. It isn't that I don't want to show my two off, mind you. But, after reading story after story of loving parents putting their kids photos online, only to have those photos altered or enjoyed by any low-life pervert, well I got scared.

I used to keep a family blog with photo updates for both sides of our family. It was wonderful, but very difficult to maintain and keep up-to-date as uploading photos was slow and tedious and things like captions were not easy to insert. Then, the whole privacy issue came up so I dropped that too.

Also, I am an avid scrapbooker, so I have also tried many of the photo processing websites, but I find they lack a personal touches that a web page might include, and are filled with more ads for photo processing than my family members probably want to have to weed through just to see pictures of us.

Well, I think I've finally found a solution to all of this. Kinzin is a new site dedicated to protecting your privacy while letting you show family and friends what is new with you and your family. From the Kinzin site, it is very easy to upload photos. The great part is you can add captions to the photos as you go, making it like an online book. I could see this being so great for trip photos that you want to share because you can add tidbits of information on each shot.

Setting up your distribution list is as simple as typing in the name and email list and my family had no trouble viewing them once accepting their privately emailed invitation. (A few members of my family are tech-phobic, so this is really saying something.)

And one of my favorite features is that viewers can leave comments on each photo--great for special messages to the kids from grandma and grandpa about their latest pictures.

I also like that you can set up profiles of your kids with a current picture and a blurb telling what they are up to right now, what their favorite things currently are, and even add a wish list of things they'd like for special occasions like birthdays and Christmas. How wonderful would that be for those family and friends who live far away and aren't able to keep up what your kids are busy with these days.

Aside from email, Kinzin even integrates with Facebook, making updates to your Facebook page suddenly have more pizazz.

Probably one of the best surprises about this site is that you can enter physical mailing addresses so that your latest photos can be mailed out to family members who might not be as computer savvy for a small fee. My father-in-law was recently moved to a nursing home. I'm so glad my mother-in-law can get copies of the photos we've sent and take them by for him to enjoy as well! I had the photos sent to myself as well, and they arrived quickly and the prints look great. No excuses for me to not keep up with my scrapbooking now.

Each month, the Kinzin site looks at which are the 10 most recent photos and will automatically email and snail mail those photos to your distribution list. No one in your family will be able to complain about you not keeping them up-to-date again!

Be sure to check out more reviews of the Kinzin site and other great product reviews at the Parent Bloggers Network.