The Photoshop.com Mobile beta lets people with Windows Mobile phones view and upload photos.

(Credit: Adobe Systems)

Adobe Systems has gradually extended its Photoshop brand from its beginnings as high-end image-editing tool to its Elements consumer-oriented photo software and its Express online photo-editing site.

Now, the company has begun taking the next step with Photoshop.com Mobile (see previous coverage). The software is the “easiest way to upload, view, and share photos online from your Windows Mobile phone,” according to Adobe.

This software lets people upload photos from their phones to Photoshop.com and view photo albums stored online, according to the site. The beta software, a free download for people in the United States, works on several Windows Mobile-based handsets.

If your device isn’t supported, Adobe recommends using Shozu mobile phone software, which lets people upload photos, among other things.

Personally, I’d like to see a mobile phone app that could perform some really basic adjustments–cropping or auto-fixing exposure, for example. But, so far at least, this isn’t that application. However, Photoshop itself is about to enter its 11th major version, CS4, and mobile phones are getting more powerful all the time, so the possibility is there.

But more likely, Adobe sees this software as a tool to increase its customers’ online activity. Photoshop Express can be used for those sorts of adjustments, although even high-powered phones such as Apple’s iPhone can’t use it yet. But with gradually increasing network capacity and mobile-phone processing, this market will become much more mature in a few years.

For a few cautions and further details about Photoshop.com Mobile, see the release notes.

Update at 8:23 a.m. PDT: Shozu sent out an announcement of its own, saying its software lets 350 different cell phones upload pictures to Photoshop.com. The software also works with Facebook, WordPress, and Google’s Blogger, and can send photos to multiple e-mail addresses.

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With nearly 1,000,000 posts a day, the blogosphere is overflowing with content and now fully established as a mainstream rather than fringe phenomenon. Traditional media have adopted blogs as a complementary form of content to the traditional news and feature stories. According to Techhnorati’s latest report on the state of the blogosphere, many bloggers are making money. Technorati surveyed a sample of about 1,000 bloggers and found that the mean annual revenue for advertising is $6,000, but sites with 100,000 or more unique visitors are generating more than $75,000 in revenue.

(Credit: Technorati)

None of these results is surprising. Blogs started as a means of personal expression, and now offer more than a billion people the tools to self-publish. Traditional publishers and an armada of new, innovative publishers, as well as millions of readers, have embraced the blog format and ethos. Marketers, readers, publishers, politicians, and most people on the planet with access to the Internet understand the diversity of voices, as well as the cacophony, that blogs allow. The more savvy bloggers are getting sophisticated about search engine optimization, developing a niche, and making money. Technorati will dribble out more results from its survey this week, illuminating the what, why, and how of blogging.

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It may be a little too early to do a roundup of the best redesigns of 2008 like we did last year, but with Thursday’s one-two punch of new looks for social sites Twitter and FriendFeed, it’s a good chance to take a look back at some of this year’s redesigns and talk about what was changed or fixed.

I’ve picked 10 of my favorites below, listed in no particular order. See also the honorable mentions section at the bottom of the post, which includes content sites or other places that didn’t quite make the cut.

1. Twitter

Twitter’s new look isn’t all that different from its old look, except for a slightly more rounded feel and the inclusion of tabs on the right side.

Twitter’s redesign was a twofold change: one part to simplify the interface, and another to reduce the resources needed to host the site. Now when users hop between various functions it doesn’t reload the entire page, meaning a faster experience and less data to serve.

The most interesting part of the redesign is actually something we don’t know about. The tabbed interface on the right was apparently set in place to make room for additional features as they become available. It could be the new things from Twitter itself, or the foundation for special developer-created applications users will be able to use without leaving the service.

2. Facebook

Facebook’s new look blends in user chat with an applications start bar. More importantly it’s made it easier to sort through and add content.

The “new” Facebook was one of the most drastic changes of any site this year. Like Twitter, tabs took center stage, as did the chat which shares screen real estate with what’s essentially the “start” button on Windows. This new menu let users launch networked applications from any page they’re on. The change also embraced widescreen displays, making use of the extra room to let users build out the experience horizontally instead of having to scroll up and down.

You can read more about it, and the user backlash, here.

Continue reading the rest of this article after the jump.

3. FriendFeed

FriendFeed’s new look puts the navigation almost entirely on the left-hand side of the screen, and uhh, it doesn’t normally have a pirate theme.

FriendFeed’s big change moved the navigation from the very top of the screen to the side, and allowed the posted content to make full use of widescreen displays. More importantly, it made room for additional features without squeezing things together, much like Twitter’s. One of the most interesting aspects of the new look was that the company let any user who wanted to test it with the use of a special URL, then pushed out the look to everyone in less than a month.

4. Yahoo.com

The new Yahoo will cut down on some of the clutter and include widgetized content akin to the company’s My Yahoo service.

Yahoo’s big, bold new look is the only one on this list that’s not actually out yet. The Web giant will be letting users add customized bits and pieces of content, much like users are currently allowed to do on the company’s My Yahoo service (whose look was also tweaked this year). The big difference is that this custom content will sit alongside Yahoo’s constantly updating stream of news, photos, and links from around the Web.

Screenshots of the new look were posted by Yahoo on Wednesday and the company has already begun testing it on a select percentage of users to work out some of the kinks. Look for it in the coming months.

5. MySpace

MySpace’s updated look is a lot cleaner than its old one, and puts the focus on user-generated content from its members.

(Credit: MySpace)

MySpace’s redesign took place in mid-June. It was a play to get some of the service’s features and user-generated content into the limelight, and away from the sea of links that existed before. More importantly, it added things like better search, a profile editor that removed the need for hard coding, as well as a high-resolution media player for its video service.

6. Digg / Digg mobile

The updated Digg.com and mobile version of Digg improved upon existing designs while keeping the core of the service generally the same.

Digg’s big change this year was the inclusion of a recommendation engine which completely re-tooled the way users parsed through newly submitted stories. On one hand, it improved your chances of finding content you’d be interested in based on past digging, however, it came at the expense of the cloud view, which simply grouped together all the story headlines in one mass.

The same release brought with it a re-do of Digg mobile. Previously the site was only optimized for iPhones, but the new version let users on any handset view and vote on the site’s top stories.

7. MobileMe (formerly .Mac)

MobileMe’s Web mail looks downright modern. The aging .Mac platform was replaced with a slew of cloud-powered Web apps that sync up with your various devices–at least when the system is working.

With the announcement of MobileMe at WWDC ‘08 in early June, and subsequent release in mid-July, Apple effectively killed off .Mac in place of a handful of updated Web apps. One of the biggest changes was in its Web mail service which joins an online calendar, file and contact manager which are all accessed within a single interface.

Despite its slicker look, the core functionality of the service suffered substantial problems in the first month or two, including the Web mail which was unavailable for some users.

8. LinkedIn

LinkedIn’s redesign was not a drastic one, but complimented some of the utilitarian aspects of the service.

LinkedIn’s February redesign came hot on the heels of a two-month long beta test for registered users of the site. Aimed mostly at integrating applications designed by developers, the site made room for growth with a left-hand side toolbar and tabs–much like Facebook’s design before its facelift.

9. Delicious

The new Delicious is dramatically different from its former self. Everything is far more angular, and tag management has been drastically improved.

Yahoo’s Delicious unveiled its new look to all users in late July. Users had been testing it in private beta since late 2007 (our look here). The big change was not only in the name, which ditched the hard to remember de.licio.us, but also what was going on behind the scenes to make it more responsive and scalable. The site also got a complete overhaul of its search engine, making it easier to dig through old stories, tags, and users.

10. Last.fm

Last.fm’s new look lets you start getting artist recommendations without having to sync up and share your current music library.

Music social network Last.fm underwent a complete redesign in mid-July. With the new look came the capability to get recommendations simply based on dropping in a few band names instead of having the site analyze the user’s music library and ratings. Like MobileMe, the service also suffered some stumbles with unreliability.

Honorable mentions for other sites: CNET, Engadget, Wall Street Journal online, TechCrunch, CenterNetworks, Mashable, Bebo, Revision3, and coComment. If you think we left one off drop us a line.

(Disclosure: Last.fm is owned by CNET News parent company CBS Interactive.)

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