VS Look: Chinese Start-up Offers Photobook Publishing in the Browser

A user's personal ebook on VSLook.com

The Chinese start-up VS Look is a personal photobook publishing platform that’s aiming to do something a bit old-fashioned with our modern digital photo mementos – print them out.

VS Look’s in-browser photobook editor allows users to pick out a template – anything from a traditional scrapbook to a mock-up of contemporary magazines – and populate it with photos, text, and even music. All but the music, of course, can then be ordered and crammed into a printed photobook or magazine, to keep as a keepsake, or give as a present.

Necessitating a user to work with the Flash-powered in-browser editor (pictured below, using a magazine layout) isn’t ideal, compared to the ease and speed of an app. But, from a practical, proprietary perspective, it at least allows the company to prevent piracy of its app technology, and also stops people creating full-size mock-ups and then printing them out manually.

Trying out VSLook's in-browser photobook editor web app.

Apple has a nice range of print products that can be made from its iPhoto app, but it’s limited to a handful of countries – and, almost inevitably, one of those is not mainland China.

HP might well be VS Look’s biggest rival operating in China. Its Chinese version of Snapfish – at kachayu.com – offers printing of individual photos as well as posters and photobooks.

In addition to offering printed items, VS Look is aiming to be social, too. Users can browse and read through others’ finished ebooks – replete with background music – and post comments as well as share the page with friends via Sina or Tencent Weibo, Douban, Baidu Tieba, or Kaixin. For photo enthusiasts, it also offers 10 GB of free photo storage, even without printing out any books.

Ordering, payment options and delivery are limited to mainland China, but anyone can register at the VS Look site and play around with it.