Memolane is a nifty free website that allows you to create and edit your own walks down “memory lane” with images and text.
Designed to work with Facebook and many other social media and networking sites, and totally free to use, it can expand your internet social presence and provide a great way to photo/scrap book online.
When Facebook first started to become popular and well known, it had to deal with the legacy of things like MySpace and other social media sites that allowed people to create and manage their very own ‘home page’ on the internet.
From those pre-cursor sites, Facebook’s developers knew that images, be they camera photos or digitized artwork or other custom images would be a big part of the attraction that would bring in new users as well as keep the existing ones. Therefore, Facebook’s image system was meant to be pretty robust, as compared to the earlier sites like MySpace.
As time went on and Facebook gathered more and more users, they continued to enhance and develop the image capabilities. They added things like Galleries and Albums, with various customization options like putting a specific image as the ‘cover’ of a digital album you may have created. Then, much more recently, Facebook introduced the new ‘timeline’ format, which is much more image oriented. For example, the new timeline format allows you to pick a ‘splash’ image that will appear as the big banner on the top of your timeline, with a much smaller chosen image inset (usually a photo of the page owner). Additionally, the timeline allows you to insert images at whatever point you like on the timeline and use those images as links to other parts of your page, like descriptors of who and what is in the image itself.
Given all those options and advances that are available, it’s somewhat surprising that anyone took the time to create a system that goes even further, and is compatible with both Facebook as well as creation of a custom account. That program and site is Memolane.com and for the short time I have been using it I have been decently impressed with it. When you first go to the site you’ll see that you have two options. You can create a whole new account, specifically just for Memolane, or you can log in using your Facebook account, which has its own advantages. While I may not be the biggest fan of Facebook in general, I would actually recommend that you go with the Facebook login option for Memolane because, among other things, it will automatically download the images on your Facebook account and will also put them into a basic walk down memory lane for you to start with. From there you will be able to customize it in pretty much any way you choose, within the available options.
If, on the other hand, you decide to go with the other option, want to use a different social network, or if you don’t have a Facebook account, you will have to begin from scratch, uploading and arranging your images yourself. This option can be better than the Facebook option insofar as allowing you to build your memory lane from the ground up, rather than going with a pre-rendered set of images. For instance, if you wanted to create a photographic collection for another person, or a company, anything or anyone that doesn’t have a Facebook account with those images already, choosing the standalone account option would be the best one. In the end, it’s all about what you personally want to do with your images.
Once the images are there, or at least one of them is there, you’ll be able to edit things like captions, tags, and other text information attached to each image, as well as adding standalone text comments to any section of the time line in that particular lane. You can create multiple lanes, dealing with specific or even random subjects like a personal lane and a business lane and a weird photo lane, anything you want. You will also have options for sharing your memory lanes with others via various social networking services, even if you don’t have a Facebook account or haven’t attached it to Memolane.
The Verdict: I would recommend Memolane for anyone who wants to organize their photos and other memories along a time line, for both Facebook users and others. It’s simple to use but deep in it’s options, as well as being completely free and quite well designed. I had a lot of fun using it and building my own lanes and I look forward to seeing others from people I know and like. So, get over there and check it out. It could be just what you’ve been looking for to manage your photos and memories, at no cost! Until next time, my friends.
Check out Memolane here.
