The once-frustrating process of sharing digital photos and videos has noticeably improved over the past year, thanks to seamless Web-based programs that work like desktop applications. But many of these sites give all the power to whoever created the album, leaving invited guests to simply look at photos or add comments.

Shwup by muvee Technologies gives friends a common album in which to share digital photos and videos.

This week I tested shwup (www.shwup.com), a free Web-based application that’s available starting Wednesday from muvee Technologies and works as described above with only a few pitfalls. The concept is simple: Anyone who signs up for a shwup account can create an album filled with digital photos and videos, and this album can be shared with anyone else via email whether they have a shwup account or not. Recipients of these email invitations can click on an embedded link to view and add content to the album. Or users can completely skip visiting the site and instantly upload content by replying to the email invitation with attached photos and videos.

Muvee Technologies is best known for selling software that automatically creates short movies, or muvees, by blending digital videos and photos with music and transitions. Muvee’s namesake technology is a part of the free shwup site; a few muvees are automatically generated in each of the albums and everyone who is invited to the album can create muvees using its content. But shwup’s main focus is making sharing easier for everyone. It differs from most of the company’s software programs in that it’s free and completely Web-based.

A shwup album takes just a few minutes to set up and even less time to share. It works on Microsoft’s (MSFT) Internet Explorer and Mozilla’s Firefox 2.0 and 3.0 browsers but won’t work on Apple’s (AAPL) Safari until the fall. Shwup is available Wednesday but is still technically in its beta, or testing, phase, and I ran into a few kinks. I had trouble getting its useful reply-to-email uploading capability to work when two friends and I tried to upload content to my album using attachments in email replies. My friends had to visit the site to upload content. Muvee couldn’t figure out what went wrong when I asked the company about it.

I did, however, add content to someone else’s album using the reply-to-email method, uploading a digital photo in seconds. And in another instance I received a shwup email invitation on my BlackBerry and replied to it with an attached photo, which — in seconds — sent that photo from my BlackBerry to the specified shwup album.

Shwup automatically makes muvees, or short movies with music and transitions, using album content.

A glaring omission from shwup is the ability to view photos in full-screen view, a feature that most photo-sharing programs offer in slideshow mode. A friend of mine said he would use shwup over other photo-sharing Web sites that require user names and passwords if only it had full-screen photos. Muvee recognizes this as one of shwup’s biggest issues and says it will add this feature in August.

I uploaded over 60 high-resolution digital photos into my first shwup album, noting that the only limitation on files is that no individual file can be larger than 100 megabytes. These images can come from your computer, Flickr, Facebook or any Web site. Out of curiosity, I plugged www.cnn.com into the Web site entry box and shwup automatically grabbed images from the site that were available for me to use. I checked two of the images and they were added to my album in seconds.

Shwup automatically made and added three muvees to my album, using my photos put to music it chooses with dramatically timed transitions. These short clips looked really well-done, and were labeled as “sample muvees” so as not to be confused with my content. I followed a few simple steps to create a muvee of my own for the album by dragging photos into a tray, choosing from seven different layout styles and a handful of stock music licensed by shwup.

An option lets you upload your own music to play with your muvee, which I did. Seconds later, my homemade muvee played with transitions that were perfectly timed to the beats of a Fountains of Wayne song. After filling an album with digital photos, videos and muvees that I made, I invited friends to my album using emails generated from shwup.com. Within each album, a clear list of whoever was invited to the album can be seen on the top right side of the page. If someone hasn’t shared content yet, he or she can be “poked” by anyone invited to the album, sending them yet another email invitation.

Everyone invited to an album receives notifications from shwup whenever someone contributed content to the album and everyone can change the layout of the album to one of three settings: Grid, Simple or Mosaic. Moving my cursor over an album’s images showed data about each file including who contributed the photo or video, when it was captured and how many comments it had received in the album. (Comments are readable after clicking on an image to see a bigger version of it.)

Digital videos are labeled with small Play icons to distinguish them from digital still images. But a friend who uploaded a video to my album pointed out that the still image representing his video was a gray square rather than a still of the first scene as it did with the other videos — perhaps because this is where the camera was focused at the start of the video. Without an image to illustrate what the video was, it wasn’t as appealing as the other videos and images. Muvee explained that the ability to select a still image to represent a video was available in its pay software, but not yet in shwup, though the company plans to add this to shwup in the future.

Another hitch: If you invite someone to your album and then add something to the album you’d rather they not see, you can’t un-invite the person. Muvee says it plans to add the ability to un-invite members in July. Individual contributors have the ability to delete or “unshare” the content that they added to an album, while album creators can unshare and delete all pictures or entire albums. Album creators also are given the authority to merge albums.

Along with shwup, muvee also announces a new version of its downloadable pay software Wednesday: muvee Reveal. This $100 software has much more detailed features that specifically tweak your videos to become extra personalized.

When it works, shwup serves as a neat, artistic way to share photos quickly. Friends and family will be relieved that it doesn’t require any forgettable usernames and passwords, and the email-uploading tool will make anyone who knows how to attach something to an email feel like he or she can contribute to a photo-sharing Web site without a second thought. After shwup adds its full-screen photo-viewing option and clears up the glitches of its email-uploading feature, I’ll be using shwup for many group events to come.

Edited By Walter S. Mossberg

• Email mossbergsolution@wsj.com

The Wii Balance Board measures shifting weight.

For the past eight days, I’ve been stretching, crunching, yoga-posing and even running using this $90 package from Nintendo (NTDOY.PK). Wii Fit is the title of the disc that comes with the Wii Balance Board, a sturdy platform on which you perform your routines. The two are used together for various types of yoga, strength training, aerobics and balance games, which involve the Wii game system’s “Miis” — on-screen representations of yourself — that interact with trainers and other virtual characters. Sensors in the Balance Board detect a user’s weight, body mass index, balancing skills and positioning during activities, and the Wii Fit program keeps track of this information, providing tips on technique or weight loss. Wii Fit and the Balance Board must be used with the original Wii system, which costs $250.

I’ve grown fond of using Wii Fit and the Balance Board because it holds me accountable for my weight and balance skills. I learned fitness and health tips from a small, animated image of the Balance Board that jumped around on-screen — such as the fact that people who cross their legs while sitting are more likely to have back problems. And after a few days of using the system, I could feel a difference in my muscles.

For those used to 30-to-40-minute workout sessions, the Wii Fit programs may seem lightweight, since activities last for only about three to five minutes each. To unlock longer activities or additional strength-training repetitions, you must first do them a handful of times in their short versions, which can be frustrating. Nintendo says this is designed so that average users don’t feel intimidated, but I felt like some of the activities ended just as I was getting into them. Almost all activities involve actually standing on or touching the board.

Motivation is a key element in the Wii Fit programs. An on-screen graph tracked my progress, and I “stamped” each calendar day to show that I had exercised. Each minute of activity added a point to my Fit Bank, and enough points unlocked new activities; Wii Fit includes over 40 altogether. On-screen instructors demonstrated and joined me during yoga and strength-training exercises, congratulating me when I held my balance or noting that I stopped mid-exercise.

A daily body test measured my weight and body mass index against those from previous days and challenged me to two short balance tests, which changed daily. After, I was told my Wii Fit Age, a number reached using my actual age, BMI and performance on the balance tests. On good days this number was a couple of years below my real age, but it drifted upward when I was given harder tests, sometimes reaching 13 years older than my actual age.

Top: Wii Fit charts fitness progress over time, including body mass index and weight. Yoga (middle) and balance games like Ski Slalom (bottom) mirror board movements.

More than one person can use the system and profiles can be password protected. Friends can use the Balance Board under someone else’s profile; the system notices weight changes and confirms that it’s alright to continue.

The Balance Board measures roughly the size of a step used in step aerobics classes, and uses the same technology that gauges the weight of airplanes. These sensors expand and contract when someone stands on the board, measuring weight, and where and how that weight is shifting on the board. This works out of the box with four included AA batteries. Its power button can be nudged on with a foot, turning off automatically after five minutes of non-use.

I started with basic yoga, attempting the half-moon pose. I opted for a male instructor who told me that this position helped improve posture and digestion. He briefly demonstrated the position, and we got started on the actual session, which lasted two minutes. A large, on-screen circle that expanded and contracted illustrated when I should inhale and exhale as I held positions. I tried the Warrior, Tree and Sun Salutation positions throughout the week.

In the strength-training section of the program, I liked the Single-Leg Stretch exercise, which involved standing on the Balance Board on one leg and holding the other leg off the ground, bent up toward my chest. I slowly extended this bent leg out and in, while moving my arms and trying to maintain my center of balance. This exercise started at six repetitions, but increased to 10 reps as I improved; 20 reps are the maximum.

I tried the Torso Twists and Rowing Squats, but had a lot of trouble with Push Ups and Side Planks (modified push-ups), because I’m not good at push-ups. To my surprise, my trainer didn’t notice when I couldn’t finish the session. I got my best score on that exercise, clearly a flaw in the system.

During yoga and strength-training exercises, an on-screen red dot marked where my center of balance was detected, and I was encouraged to try to keep that dot within a highlighted area. After the exercise, a diagram showed where my weight had shifted, and I earned better rankings when I distributed weight evenly.

Aerobics were more fun, including hula hooping. I rotated my hips and I leaned forward so that my on-screen cartoon self could catch hoops thrown over my head by other characters. The Balance Board tracked the number of times I rotated my waist around in a circle. One aerobics activity that didn’t use the board was Basic Run, which requires users to put the Wii remote in a pocket or hold it while running in place for time intervals measuring three, five or 10 minutes depending on the pace. This mode is designed so users can either watch other runners on-screen or tune into television while running as Wii Fit tracks your progress. An aerobics activity called Basic Step was like Dance Dance Revolution: on-screen footprints showed where and how to step next — on and off the board.

Balance Games were fun — but hard. I tried a bunch, including Soccer Heading (where you pretend you’re the goalie), Ski Slalom and Tightrope Walk, and was surprised by the sensitivity of the Balance Board. But the more I played, the better I became at controlling my balance.

I brought the Wii and Balance Board with me to my parents’ house last weekend, but most people will do best to keep this board in one place since it weighs 10 pounds.

When I stepped onto the Balance Board at my parents’ house in a room with wall-to-wall carpeting, the system thought I had lost 13.4 pounds since the day before. I stepped off and tried this measurement again a few minutes later, but was told I lost another 4.6 pounds. However, when I returned to my own home with the board on an area rug on hardwood flooring, the system showed I “gained” 16.1 pounds. My weight at my own house was on the mark.

Some of my relatives jokingly saw this instant weight loss as a reason to buy a Balance Board, but this made me question the system’s accuracy.

Nintendo solved the mystery: The carpeting in my parents’ house, which I mistakenly thought was similar to the area rug in my house, must have been touching the bottom of the board, therefore transferring my weight onto the carpet and away from the board. Four circular “feet” come with the Balance Board to elevate it, solving the problem.

When the Wii Fit system thought I lost or gained a lot of weight in one day, it was concerned and offered tips for healthier fitness. In the case of the supposed weight gain, I was asked to think about why I might have gained weight, then had to select an answer from a list of reasons why, including Late Dinners, Night Snacking and Not Exercising. The system gave health tips related to the reasons.

Users’ outside exercise can be accounted for in the system. I added the time I spend playing tennis each week and this information plugged into a graph to illustrate fitness activity over time.

The idea of having a virtual trainer and a way to set weight-loss goals while tracking progress could be truly valuable for people in need of motivation without the expense and/or hassle of going to a gym. If you’re looking for a fun way to get in shape, the Balance Board will do the trick. Like the Wii, its activities encourage all sorts of people to use it, marking yet another smart move from Nintendo.

• Email mossbergsolution@wsj.com