Mobile blogging with Flickr

Blogger's mobile blogging service is a great idea, but unfortunately not all mobile phone networks are yet supported (see here for information about which networks currently are). You could still post by email using your mobile phone, but image attachments are not supported by Blogger. So what's the alternative? Use Flickr's mobile blogging service instead!

I often post by camera phone on one of my other blogs, and have found Flickr's mobile blogging service to be ideal for my needs. To start mobile blogging with Flickr, you'll need to take the following steps:

1. Create your free Flickr account (if you haven't already done so). Flickr also provides a paid service, but you don't need to pay extra charges to use the mobile blogging service.
2. Set up your blog by going to Your Account>Blogs in your Flickr dashboard. Click on "Add New Blog" and follow the steps to verify you are the owner of your blog.
3. Next, you need to set up your email address which you will use to post your photos to. Go to Your Account>Upload by email to do this. You will be given two different email addresses to use: the first is to email your photos to Flickr, the second (and the one we are most interested in) will post your photos to your blog. This address will look something like this:

   uniqueemail2blog@photos.flickr.com

   . Enter this email address as a contact in your handset.
4. You can then modify your layout preferences to change how your photo posts will appear in your blog. This can be done from the Your Account>Upload by Email page in your flickr dashboard (look for the link beneath your mobile-to-blog email address). You can alter the size and position of your photos, and also the template which is used to post to your blog.
5. Once you've set your preferences, you can now begin blogging photo posts using your mobile phone!

You can post to Flickr either by sending an email from your handset using your photos as attachments, or by sending an MMS message to your Flickr address. The subject line of your message will be used as the title of your post. Usually, Flickr blog posts appear within a few seconds of being sent, but from experience I can say that on occasion this can take a couple of hours.

I've found this technique to be a very useful alternative to Blogger's service, at least until all mobile phone networks support it!

Technorati Tags: blogger | mobile+blogging | photo+blog | flickr