1. Lightbox is joining Facebook!

    We started Lightbox because we were excited about creating new services built primarily for mobile, especially for the Android and HTML5 platforms, and we’re honored that millions of you have downloaded the Lightbox Photos app and shared your experiences with the Lightbox community.

    Today, we’re happy to announce that the Lightbox team is joining Facebook, where we’ll have the opportunity to build amazing products for Facebook’s 500+ million mobile users.

    This means we’re no longer accepting new signups. If you’re an existing user, you can continue to use Lightbox.com until June 15 and you can download your photos from here.

    Facebook is not acquiring the company or any of the user data hosted on Lightbox.com. In the coming weeks, we will be open sourcing portions of the code we’ve written for Lightbox and posting them to our Github repository.

    We’d like to thank the Lightbox community, our investors, and our families for supporting us during this journey.  We’d also like to thank Giles Peyton-Nicoll, the Creative Designer behind Lightbox, who will be staying in the UK to pursue other opportunities.

    Thai Tran & Nilesh Patel
    Co-founders, Lightbox

  2. New and noteworthy Lightbox photographers

    Many of you might have noticed the New and Noteworthy category recently added to Lightbox. This is where we will feature our recently popular photographers to make it easier for you to find them. 

    We will be switching out these photographers regularly to keep them new and fresh. They will be selected based on the quality of their photos and recent popularity within the Lightbox community. In addition, we would like to accept nominations from our users. If you have come across any new favorite photographers on Lightbox in the last few months, please tweet us their Lightbox accounts to @Lightbox with the hashtag #newandnoteworthy and we will consider them to be added. 

    And yes, you can nominate yourself too!

  3. Lightbox on your Kindle Fire

    The Lightbox app is now available to download in the US from the Amazon AppStore. If you have a Kindle Fire, it’s perfect for browsing through those photos you love and keeping in touch with your followers. 

  4. Photos from London Lightboxer meetup

    Thank you to all of you who attended the Lightboxer meet up last night. We had a wonderful time and hope we can do it again! We are looking for Lightbox ambassadors to organise meetups around the world. If you’re interested, we’ll start out by creating a Facebook group for your region. Once you’re ready to host your first meet up, we’ll help you promote the event through Lightbox. Email support@lightbox.com if you’re interested.

    We currently have three Facebook Groups that are going strong; Indonesia, Philippines, and the UK. These groups are open to anyone who wishes to join. If you’d like to join a Facebook Group in your area, just let us know and we’ll create one for you. 

    Here are some photos from last night. Thanks for the fun time!

    Lightbox Meetup - by FabienOld-school Polaroid in action at UK Lightbox meet up -by NileshLightbox #meetup -by EmmaLightboxes -by JanosNilesh and Olex -by Kris

    I know what to wear tomorrow! - by Claudio

  5. Details for London Lightboxer meet up

    Here are the final details for the Lightbox meet up next week. Join the Facebook Group so you don’t miss future events. 

    Location: Meter (Previously known as the CAMP) 70-74 City Rd, London, EC1Y 2BJ
    Date: 29 March, 7pm onward

    Additional details: It will be informal gathering to socialise with the Lightbox team and other Lightboxers in the area. Meter is a restaurant/bar. Come get your free T-shirt and say hello. 

    Look for our huge Lightboxes. You can’t miss it.

  6. Your photos are now appearing in Twitter timeline!

    Many of you requested to have your photos appear in Twitter timeline. To accomplish this we now add a pic.twitter link to your tweets so a copy of your image is available for preview both on the web and in the official Twitter app. You can see it live here. 

    Thank you to those of you who voted for this feature on Uservoice. We hope you will find it useful and use Lightbox as your primary photo sharing service. Feel free to throw @lightbox in your tweets so we can take a look as well!

  7. St. Patrick’s Day Fun

    This past Saturday was St. Patrick’s Day, an Irish holiday celebrated in many countries around the world. The holiday falls on March 17th and honours St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. 

    The following photos shared on Lightbox show the various ways people celebrate St. Patrick’s day. As you can see, green is the theme; even the Chicago river gets dyed green every year! 

    By Thomas J

    By Bruce Valentine 

    By Michael Mahoney 

    By Neil O’Hara

    By Jim Egan

    By Minds Eye

    By Pratt20

    By Pamela

    By Jonathan Kingham

  8. London Lightboxer meetup

    Would you like to meet some of your fellow Lightboxers in your area? You should consider organising a meetup in your city.  Contact us at support@lightbox.com so we can help with the planning and promotion. 

    We’re having our first ever Lightboxer meetup so save the date, London Lightboxers! We will be organising an informal gathering on Thurs, March 29 so we can all meet and mingle. The location is TBD but will be over in the Old Street area around 7pm. Make sure you show up on time for your free Lightbox T-shirt!

    Please join the London Lightboxer Facebook Group  and keep an eye out for the event details. 

  9. How to become a featured user on Lightbox

    We’re looking for exceptional Lightboxers to be featured in the Art, Food, and Fashion categories on our Explore page.  If you consistently take good photos in any of those areas, place a #food, #art, or #fashion hashtag in your photo titles and we will take a look.  Please make sure all your photos fall in the same category to be considered. 

    If your Lightbox is selected to be featured, your photos will be placed on the Explore page under one of the categories circled below. 

    If we see many of you tag your photos with a new hashtag (examples: #wedding, #nature, #animals), we’ll also consider adding it as a new Explore category. 

  10. New Collage View

    Some of you might have noticed the new collage view recently added to the Lightbox website.  When viewing your own photos in “My Lightbox” or another user’s Lightbox, you can click on the button in the top right to switch to the collage view.

    After you’ve selected the collage button, the photos will be organized into the beautiful format seen below. 

    All images by David Kuhn