HP To Acquire Tabblo

Hewlitt Packard has announced its intent to acquire the photo sharing and printing service Tabblo. Additionally, Tabblo introduced the Tabblo print-at-home photo cube yesterday. The photo cube is a sort of updated take on the photo cubes that might still be hiding in your grandmother's house.

The Tabblo photo cube can be made for free by anyone with a printer, paper and pair of scissors. No tape or glue are needed. Just head to the Tabblo Cube page and upload your photos.

As a photo sharing site Tabblo stresses theme layouts and mini photo essays rather than the more familiar “stream” metaphor of Flickr and others. Along with that emphasis Tabblo has in recent months moved more and more into the print realm. You can print a variety of posters sizes, create collages pieces and more, which is undoubtedly where HP's interests lie.

While we've never actually reviewed Tabblo I've always kept tabs on it, as it were, because it uses Django, one of the better development frameworks out there right now.

In a note to the Google Django Group Ned Batchelder, designated “hacker and craftsman” at Tabblo, wrote:

One of the things that HP valued in Tabblo was our ability to innovate quickly and deliver solid products in a short amount of time. We definitely feel like Django was one of the reasons we were able to do that, and to make such an impression on HP. So thanks a bunch to the entire Django community. You were part of our success. We'll be continuing with Django inside HP.

Django has a pretty strong track record in the journalism field, the Lawrence Journal-World and the parts of the Washington Post among others (sadly, not Wired), but Tabblo is definitely the highest profile Django-powered commercial site that I'm aware of.

Incidentally the Tabblo folks have been quick to point out that the site will not be merged with HP's existing photo sharing site, Snapfish, but will instead remain a separate enitity focused mainly on printing photos.