Picture is bright for online photo albums
June 30, 2002
By JIM BROOKS
Digital cameras continue to grow in popularity. Over the past few
years, the resolution -- photo quality -- of consumer digital cameras
has continued to improve while the prices have dropped.
As owner of several digital cameras, I can attest to their
attributes. My favorite is the fact that I can shoot a photo now and
immediately see the photo -- no need for a trip to my favorite
one-hour photo lab.
According to research firm Gartner Dataquest, 17 percent of Americans
already own digital cameras. The company predicts that half of all
Americans will own them by 2006.
Digital cameras allow people the ability to easily share photos via
e-mail and Web sites. Some hospitals have joined the bandwagon and
created a special area for posting the photos of newborn babies (with
parents' permission, of course), allowing family and friends to view them.
Sending photos as e-mail file attachments works, but can be
cumbersome and time consuming depending on the size of the photos and
how many people you want to e-mail it to.
The Eastman Kodak Co. saw the need to address digital photo storage,
and last year it purchased Ofoto.com, one of several online digital
photo album Web sites.
Ofoto offers consumers free online digital photo albums. The service
is simple -- once you register, you create an online album and upload
your photographs. Once your online photo album is complete, the
service allows you to easily e-mail people a link directly to your
digital photos.
Users have the option of creating more than one digital photo album,
and photos can be easily added or deleted.
Printing digital photos can be costly when you add up the special
printer paper and all the supplies it can take. A nice feature of
Ofoto is that those who view your photo album can purchase prints
online -- from a sheet of wallet-sized photos all the way up to
20-by-30-inches. Not all digital photos have sufficient resolution
for the big enlargements, and a nice feature when you view each photo
is the suggested maximum size for prints.
In addition to prints, you (or anyone who views your album) can
create and purchase photo cards, frames for prints, and even an
archive of the prints on a CD.
Other online photo sites include Shutterfly.com and ImageStation.com
-- both of which also report steady growth. Industry analysts say
11.3 million people shared photos via the Web last year, with that
number expected to top 15 million this year.
Photo Web sites aren't the only way to share or professionally print
your digital photos. Most photo processing labs also offer digital
photo printing on quality photo paper. Some also can burn your
digital photos on a CD as well.
I still enjoy and use film cameras, but the tide is definitely
shifting toward a digital future.
LOONEY TUNES. The music industry successfully brought down
file-sharing pioneer Napster with multiple lawsuits over copyright infringement.
But Napster was replaced by a multitude of other similar services --
all of which are also being targeted by music industry lawyers.
In addition to legal attacks, the music giants allegedly have also
turned to guerrilla tactics in their fight against music piracy on
file-sharing sites like Morpheus, Grokster and KaZaa.
Record labels are apparently swamping the file-swapping networks with
bogus copies of popular new songs.
According to a story last week on the Internetnews.com Web site,
sources at the three major music labels admit they are sending out
decoy music files that appear to be copies of a new song. Instead of
music, the files are filled with silence or 30-second loops of part
of a song.
The move is an attempt to make downloading new tunes more difficult
in the hopes file swappers will opt to purchase the music rather than
steal it.
One industry official that requested anonymity said his label
resorted to the practice to thwart the theft of their freshest music releases.
Online music swapping sites remain popular. An estimated 40 million
U.S. computer users are regular users of the sites.
Record industry officials say the sites are directly responsible for
a 16 percent drop in worldwide music sales.
DUSTY IMACS? Retailers are reporting that the once in-demand
flat-panel iMacs are now gather dust on store shelves and in
distributors' warehouses.
The flat-panel iMacs -- some observers say the new cutting-edge
desktop computers resemble desk lamps -- were hot-sellers after their
January debut.
But Apple is not alone. PC sales typically pick back up as consumers
prepare for the back-to-school season. April of this year was bad for
all PC vendors, with sales down 22.5 percent compared to the previous year.
The summer months are usually slow for PC sales anyway, and sales for
all makes and brands have slowed. Even chipmakers Intel and AMD
warned PC makers to expect sluggish sales this summer. |
