We have some really exciting news for you: this morning, HP announced its intent to acquire us. The plan is to take the entire Tabblo experience— the editor, the template engine, and the output formats— and spread it far and wide across the web, and frankly, we could not be more excited.

When we launched Tabblo, the simple mission was to take bits to atoms, making the online content that results from popular activities (photo-sharing, blogging, socializing, etc.) compelling enough for users to want to print. We started with sharing photos, words, and templates because we believed the emotion and creativity involved in the act of telling stories was a great first beachhead in becoming the print engine for the web. And nine months, 150 thousand tabblos, and 5 million photos later, you guys have proven us right.

But now it is time to go out and apply our tools to even more type of content. To build new offline formats. Tabblo.com is a great place to tell the kinds of stories that you all have authored on the site, but the rest of the web deserves the same type of smooth transition form online to offline, from bits to atoms.

In the coming months, we’ll be talking more about the new types products and partnerships we are going to build together, but for now, here are the answers to the big 3 questions we know you must be asking:

1. Will Tabblo.com go away?

No, we have no plans to shut down the site - in fact, we’re going to be trying out new and different applications of our technology and we’d love your feedback on it.

2. HP already owns a photo-sharing site (Snapfish). Will Tabblo or Tabblo.com get mushed into Snapfish?

No. Our mission is completely different: we are aiming to make tools that will let us become the print engine for the rest of the web. This means a wide assortment of content that goes beyond traditional online photo sharing.

3. Do you guys still care about the Tabblo community?

Absolutely. We wouldn’t be here without you guys. You pushed and prodded and helped to make the experience what it is today. In fact— we kind of consider you our secret weapon as we move forward in developing new ways to move your content to offline formats. By all means, please keep on tabbloing and stick around to see where the fire in our bellies takes us next…

Creativity is boundless and ideally, so should the forms for expressing it. For the last nine months, we here at Tabblo have constrained ourselves to products that we could build in a factory and ship directly to you. We’ve done this both because there is an impressive set of items to offer through that channel (books, posters, auto-addressed cards, etc.), and because that is the main way in which we make money.

That said, we’ve always thought of the home printer as a very intriguing and appealing option— a sort of mini-Tabblo factory in your home. The process of printing your creations brings with it the reward of immediacy, which after all, is a key ingredient to the success of the web.

We thought about doing posters from home but decided that most home printers were too small and would reduce the overall product impact. Ditto for all of the other products we already had that we could have launched home versions of— they simply had better big siblings from inside the Tabblo factory.

And then it hit us— what if the first product we launched for home printing was something that we couldn’t easily make or ship from within our factory? What if we took advantage of all of the great things about printing from home (immediacy, cheap [free] labor, and no shipping costs or hassles) but kept the rest of the product design and creation experience at the same level as the rest of the products on the site?

Without further ado, say hello to the Tabblo PhotoCube:

Anyone who grew up in the 1970s will remember the rage that were the lucite photo cubes that you could stuff pictures into— I must have had 20 of them on the headboard of my bed. Consider the PhotoCube, a modern-day upgrade: more eco-friendly, more immediate, and ultimately more disposable. Or consider it an evolution on the photo frame.

Now for the facts: anyone can make one of these as long as you have any kind of printer (laser, inkjet, dot-matrix), any type of paper (photo, plain, card), and a pair of scissors, no tape or glue needed. It’s really easy.

So go ahead, make one or a dozen. And when you’re done, make a tabblo and send it our way— as always, we’re looking forward to seeing what you’ll do with the newest member of the Tabblo product family.

We’ve built some powerful tools here at Tabblo that enable people to combine their words and their photos to tell a story. So far our tools have been available through only one channel (www.tabblo.com), and we’ve been exploring other options. We’ve been getting good response from our contacts at private schools. So we decided to take the next step and go where Tabblo has never gone before: a trade show!

Last week, Carey, John, and I went to the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) Annual Conference in Denver. This conference is attended by more than 2000 heads of school, deans, business officers, and teachers, and a few hundred vendors with something to sell. Over the two days we were able to talk to hundreds of people about Tabblo.

As people walked by our booth, we’d ask them a question: “Do you share your photos on your school’s website?” Most schools answered “yes,” and were interested in improving the experience. They were looking for help with keeping in touch with parents and alumni, with displaying photos, with archiving photos, with keeping their website “fresh,” and with managing privacy concerns.

When we showed the powerful Tabblo editing tools to our booth visitors, they were able to see how a tabblo layout was better than a slideshow or a gallery. They understood that a tabblo can be securely shared with an audience ranging from a single family, to all parents, to alumni, and to the public. We showed them how Tabblo can be delivered using the Private Label Partnership. (Take a peek at how Tabblo looks when integrated with the Carroll School’s website, for instance).

Then we showed them the print products, and their eyes lit up. It’s one thing to see a tabblo on a screen, and it’s another to see it as a poster. Then we’d whip out the BigBook and MiniBook, and they’d really start thinking about how they can change the way they share their school’s photos. They already knew that photos helped them keep in touch with parents and alumni, but hadn’t necessarily considered graduation gifts, faculty recognition, event keepsakes, or fund raiser tools.

We like the response we got at the conference. Ask yourself these questions:

• Do you have photos and a potential audience, but would like to improve the experience?
• Would you like it to look like it is part of your website (Private Label Partnership, co-branding)?
• Do you like the easy transfer to prints, posters, and books?

If the answer is yes. . . ask us about the Private Label Partnership.

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