Shutterfly, an Internet-based social expression and personal publishing service, has debuted Wink, a new service that combines real-time sharing with photo printing for the social networking generation. 

Wink is available as a free iPhone application and a full-featured Web site at http://wink.shutterfly.com. It lets consumers create and share printed photostrips using pictures from iPhones and social network sites like Facebook and Flickr.

?While billions of photos are uploaded to social networks, there is no meaningful way to print those images for offline sharing,? said John Poisson, vice president of mobile and social media at Shutterfly, San Francisco.

?The types of photos often posted to social networks are more spontaneous and in the moment therefore they don?t really make sense for traditional print formats," he said. "We?re introducing Wink to free these images from social networks and move beyond the confines of the 4x6 print."

With the first product, photostrips, users can combine a few of these in-the-moment photos?pictures of a party, a day at the beach, a perfect meal?and create something new and engaging in just a few seconds.

?Ultimately Wink complements the overall Shutterfly strategy of expanding the ways consumers can make the most of their images ? no matter where they are stored or shared,? Mr. Poisson said.

Wink is available as a free iPhone application and a full-featured Web site at http://www.wink.shutterfly.com.

Creating and sending a photostrip in Wink takes just seconds. Consumers just choose a template, add and adjust a few photos, and send to themselves and friends. 

Printed photostrips feature Shutterfly?s award-winning print quality, and arrive in days in a high-impact pop-up mailer.  Completed photostrips can also be shared on Facebook and Twitter.
 
A social media and word of mouth campaign has been building for about a week now, and Wink is launching with a massive promotion offering three free photostrips to the first 50,000 people who download the iPhone application.

Awareness of the promotion will be driven by a U.S. focused iPhone ad campaign and continued social media and word-of-mouth campaigns.

Wink is a new platform that enables the creation of photo-based products from iPhone, Facebook and Flickr, and gives consumers new and engaging ways to interact with their images wherever they live.
 
?We target consumers who share what they're doing while they're doing it on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Flickr,? Mr. Poisson said. ?Wink is perfectly suited for the way iPhone users communicate and share media, wherever they are.

?We designed the app to give you instant access to not only your iPhone photos but also those on Facebook and Flickr," he said.

"And the whole product creation experience in Wink takes just seconds, so you can literally create and send a photostrip from your iPhone while sitting at dinner with your friends.?