This article originally published in Self-Service World magazine's special section, FOCUS: Photo Kiosks, February 2007.
In 1991, Kodak released the first commercially available digital camera, the DCS-100. A cutting-edge pro's dream, the 1.3-megapixel behemoth rang up at $13,000. Now, Kodak's 4-megapixel C433 sells for around $99; the entry-level, point-and-shoot camera fits conveniently in a soccer mom's palm.
As the price of digital cameras tumbled, the traditional film-developing industry tumbled with it. Now, a new industry rises in its place: self-service photo printing. The continuing shift, and the potential it creates for companies seeking to leverage it, will be seen first-hand at the annual Photo Marketing Association International (PMAI) Convention and Trade Show.This year's event, PMA 07, will be held March 6-11 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. The show hosts six conferences, each of which addresses a major topic in the photo industry. The Digital Imaging Marketers Association's portion of the show is the PMA show's self-service epicenter, where photo- kiosk providers exhibit their latest wares and compete in contests.
Among other exhibits, HP will show version two of its Photosmart Studio. Signifi Solutions will show a new media lounge that invites users to sit on luxurious chairs while printing photos and downloading ringtones and MP3s. And Lucidiom will show the next version of its scrapbook-making kiosk.
"Not only the established players like Fuji and Kodak have increased their importance on kiosks, and you see more of those on the show floor, but also we see the entrance of a lot of other players in this market," said Dmitrios Delis, PMA director of marketing research.
According to Delis, 35 percent of all photo prints are now made at kiosks, up from 14 percent in 2003. Chad Munce knows the effects kiosks have on the photo printing industry. As the PMA group executive for Digital Imaging Markets, he oversees the Digital Imaging Marketers Association. He said the market's maneuverings will manifest in interesting new solutions at the PMA show.
"There are online photo storage sites," Delis said. "What's happening now is they're allowing the
kiosks the functionality to access these online albums and print them at retail. So you walk into a retail store and you can, without a media card in-hand, pull up an online album and start making prints on site. There is also the added functionality of taking photos from your media card and not only making prints but uploading them to your album."
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| PMA is the place to press buttons and see prints from the latest in photo kiosks. |
One of the exhibiting companies showing off a new online photo gallery will be Storefront.com. Murray MacDonald, Storefront's president, said the new Web-based tool connects with kiosks or home computers, allowing users to access their photos from anywhere they can access the Web.
"All of us have seen the phenomenon where you click a button and wait, wait, wait, wait and clunk, you see the next page," MacDonald said. "We've done a Web site that's real-time and fluent, all done in Flash. It's a next-generation photo site that's a revolutionary ordering tool."
Also of interest
The DIMA Photo Kiosk Shootout. Twenty photo-printing kiosks flex their pixels for panels of experts and consumers, which will each give an award based on the kiosks' quality, usability and, for the experts, back-end functions.
Keynote speaker Chris Anderson. Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired magazine and author of "The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More," will discuss retailing based on individual taste rather than mass appeal.
Session D45: Creative Applications for Digital Signage. In this session, Self-Service & Kiosk Association president Alex Richardson explains how retailers with limited budgets can use in-store digital signage through creative applications, including with photo kiosks.
