(FORTUNE Magazine) – Photo-sharing Website HQ: San Francisco Founded: 1998 Sales: N.A. Employees: 75 Stock: Privately held Address: www.zing.com

For much of the past decade, consumers have greeted digital photography with a big yawn. Did it matter that a camera could capture images on a chip if regular cameras worked better? But because of little companies like Zing, digital photography finally has a reason for being.

Zing lets photographers do something they can't with their old film cameras: plug directly into the Internet. Users attach the digital camera to a PC and upload photos to their own Website. They can then edit and organize the photos into online albums and e-mail electronic snapshots to friends and relatives. People can also scan in regular photos, but the convenience of the Web connection is why digital photography finally boomed last year, with consumers spending $1.2 billion on digital cameras in the U.S., according to Info Trends Research Group, a market research firm in Boston.

Like most photo dot-coms, Zing has offered its photo-sharing services free so that it could attract eyeballs, and thus advertisers. But eyeballs alone won't bring in enough to pay the bills, so now Zing is looking to transform itself into an e-commerce destination. It will sell photo prints and enlargements, and customers can order mugs and T-shirts with their pictures scanned onto them. Zing is apparently doing something right: It is ranked No. 1 among photo sites by Media Metrix, with more than 1.7 million unique visitors in April.

Zing has attracted $14 million from some heavy backers, led by Kleiner Perkins. Kleiner partner John Doerr is stumping hard to engineer deals with big-name players. Why Zing and not some other hungry startup? "First market mover. Largest community. Solid people," Doerr shoots back in neat, quotable bullets. Doerr himself owns three digital cameras, and the walls of his Menlo Park, Calif., office are covered with poster-sized photos of his wife and two daughters.

On the day last winter when FORTUNE first came to call, Doerr is playing matchmaker between Zing and a Major Consumer Electronics Corporation. With a strategic alliance, the corporation would install software in its digital cameras, programming them to link directly to a co-branded Website where both companies would sell products and services. The corporation would get access to a popular and well-run photo site. Upstart Zing would hitch its wagon to a multinational brand with a huge base of loyal customers.

Doerr made his pitch for Zing and then bolted, late for a speaking engagement at Stanford. His administrative assistant sprinted to catch up with him, clutching his black satchel under her arm. The meeting broke up a few minutes later. Zing CEO Mark Platshon emerged beaming. "It went really well. Doerr was riveting," he says. "That was a standard John Doerr pitch," says John Shoch of Alloy Ventures, another Zing investor, dragging Platshon back to earth.

Indeed, months later the deal is still pending. Such is life in an era where dot-coms have lost some allure. Still, losing the deal won't break Zing. And nailing it could make Zing the clear leader among a new breed spawned by the marriage of the camera and the Web.

--Brian Palmer