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The White House is making unprecedented use of consumer web technologies but those technologies aren't always well suited to fit the government's needs. They aren't always well suited to fit anyone's needs - but maybe if Obama leans on them a little bit things will change.

Today the White House launched an official collection of photos depicting Obama's first 100 days in office on Flickr. The Creative Commons Foundation asks why these photos are licensed as Creative Commons Attribution (meaning you have to credit the source) instead of being in the Public Domain free for use in any context, as data created by the Federal Government usually is.

Flickr now holds the world's largest repository of Creative Commons-licensed images, but according to a new study, most Flickr users opt to license their images under the most restrictive CC license. Also, only a relatively small number of users (24%) allow commercial use of their images, and only about 12% of users choose the BY license, which allows for free sharing and remixing, as long as the author is attributed.

Photobucket, the most popular photo sharing site in the U.S., just announced a number of new features that will give its users easier ways to share their photos and videos across multiple web services like MySpace, Facebook, or Blogger. Photobucket also introduced a new version of its mobile site, which features a streamlined interface, as well as easier ways to access comments, ratings, and subscriptions.

According to the latest data from HitWise, Photobucket, the leading photo sharing site in the United States, saw a rapid decline in its market share over the last twelve months. Photobucket commanded 36% of the photo sharing market in February 2008, but this number dropped to 27% last month. Most of this loss, according to Hitwise, can be attributed to a decline in visits to MySpace, which has always been the main source of traffic for Photobucket.

Flickr has offered video (or what they sometimes call long photos) to Pro accounts for almost a year now. Limited in length to 90 seconds, anyone could watch these without having to pay. But Flickr announced today that all accounts, including free ones, can now take advantage of this format. Plus, everyone will now be able to view any HD videos without suffering a drop in quality.

On any given day, there are thousands of people snapping iPhone photos and uploading them to Flickr. So many in fact, that the iPhone is one of the top five cameras. That's amazing - but not for the reasons you'd think. It's amazing because the default process of getting a photo from the iPhone to Flickr should be easier. And while any number of apps have attempted to solve that problem, Flickit handles the task in a way that is arguably the most graceful - and iPhone appropriate - of them all.

Just a short while ago, Flickr announced that it now hosts over 100 million geotagged photo. Starting this week, Flickr is making it easier and more fun to view these geotagged images in relation to your own photos by introducing a new 'nearby' feature. These new 'nearby' pages will display a map with images that were taken close to the original photo.

We have seen our fair share of photo sharing tools lately, but Troovi sets itself apart from the competition by offering an anonymous, fast, and easy to use photo sharing service in an exceptionally well designed package. Thanks to its integration with a wide range of other social media services, you can use Troovi to quickly post links to your pictures to Twitter, Facebook, or FriendFeed. Because you can upload your photos anonymously, it only takes four mouse clicks to start an album and add your first picture.

Phanfare is one of the lesser known photo sharing services on the Net, but its new iPhone app is putting the company back in the spotlight. This new app, dubbed 'Photon' (iTunes link), might just be the best photo sharing app we have seen on Apple's phone. Thanks to a smart integration with the company's cloud storage and online gallery features, as well as some nice enhancements to the iPhone's own camera features, this free app looks like a clear winner to us.

You encounter images everyday. Some of them inspire you to be more creative. Some evoke feelings of happiness or disgust. Some simply capture a moment. But all of them serve as a reference point. Image Spark hopes to make these fleeting moments of inspiration more accessible by providing a place for everyone to create, share, and be inspired by the images we find.