Online photo and video sharing service, Phanfare, raises $2.5 million in venture capital funding to create the first photo and video sharing network for families.

METUCHEN, N.J. (Jan. 4) -- Online photo and video sharing service Phanfare (http://www.phanfare.com) today announces that it has relaunched its premium photo and video web hosting service as a free photo and video sharing network for families. Backed by $2.5 million in new venture capital funding led by Azure Capital, Phanfare 2.0 is a place on the web for families to share photos and videos in a way that is collaborative, engaging and fun, while providing the privacy and security features that families require. Phanfare's industry-leading downloadable software integrates desktop photo and video organizing with web publishing has also been updated as part of the release.

Members can create photo and video albums and invite friends and family to join their Phanfare network. All members can view shared albums, leave comments and create their own albums at no cost. Connected friends and family access an online dashboard where they are made aware of new events within their Phanfare network. New members receive 20 free prints. Phanfare, which previously charged all users, now offers 1-GB of storage free to each user. Unlimited storage can be purchased for $54.95/year.

"The old version of Phanfare, like most Web 1.0 sites that families use to share photos today, had users creating their own islands, publishing updates manually to friends and family," said Andrew Erlichson, Phanfare's CEO. "The new Phanfare enables you to explicitly create your own network of family and friends so that they can contribute photos, videos and comments. Phanfare 2.0 is much more collaborative while retaining the auto-synchronizing desktop client and gorgeous online slide shows with custom music that have always made Phanfare unique."

The new Phanfare includes a unique way to share online albums with others within a group or organization. With Phanfare groups, everyone on the softball team or at the playgroup can share albums with one another without opening up access to all of their albums.

As always, Phanfare online albums combine photos and videos in an elegant presentation with no ads. Full-screen slide shows with the member's own music provide a great way to share cherished moments with friends and family. Plus, updated Phanfare desktop application software provides robust local management for photos and videos and automatic synchronization of content from your local computers to Phanfare servers. All photos and videos are backed up on Amazon S3.