Archive for January, 2007
Google’s Christmas gift to large AdWords publishers and advertisers was a digital frame. So the question which begs an answer, did PhotoVu receive one?
On December 9th, 2006, PhotoVu’s Co-Owner Mark Van Buskirk told those gathered at the Boulder New Technology Meetup that his Boulder-based company spent $4000 per day on Google (see ad below).
Digital Frame
www.photovu.com 10.4″ LCD, FedEx 2-day Upgrade Valentine’s Day Special, $209!
At a cost-per-click of $1.50 (price estimate based on Google’s traffic estimator on Jan 31, 2007), more than 2500 prospective digital frame consumers would have visited their site each day from the Google advertising alone.
How are others faring with site traffic? We will try to answer that question each month by presenting the current Alexa Ratings for those companies focused only on the digital frame space. The Alexa traffic rank is based on three months of aggregated historical traffic data from millions of Alexa Toolbar users and is a combined measure of page views and users (reach). The lower the rating the more visited the site.
So here’s how they stood on 1/30/2007
| Company Name |
URL |
Alexa Rating |
Date of Alexa Rating |
| Ceiva |
http://www.ceiva.com/ |
27,988 |
1/30/2007 |
| PhotoVu |
http://www.photovu.com/ |
232,091 |
1/30/2007 |
| PF Digital |
http://www.estarling.com/ |
295,194 |
1/30/2007 |
| Digital Spectrum |
http://www.dsicentral.com/ |
506,243 |
1/24/2007 |
| Pandigital |
http://www.pandigital.net/ |
1,001,981 |
1/29/2007 |
| iMate |
http://www.momentolive.com/ |
1,520,942 |
1/30/2007 |
| Bigeframe |
http://www.bigeframe.com/ |
1,571,353 |
1/30/2007 |
| KoolVu |
http://www.koolvu.com/ |
2,141,163 |
1/30/2007 |
PhotoVu is an early leader in adding wireless capabilities and photo RSS to their digital frames and while the product isn’t perfect (see our review) we hope their leadership and investment in helping to create this new market will pay off. PhotoVu seems to be making a splash but with many new entrants in the wireless frame market in 2007 including Digital Spectrum, iMate, Ceiva and Kodak, it should be an interesting year. For now, it looks like the PhotoVu ad spend has worked well! Stay tuned.
Back in the day (wayyyyy back in the day. . . .) families generally stayed in one area. Parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins: everybody lived in the same town, and everybody saw each other on a fairly regular basis. People took snapshots, and sometimes people shared the negatives, but when grandparents saw their grandchildren almost every day anyway, pictures weren’t really necessary in order to keep up on what the children looked like. Families posed for the occasional formal portrait, but sharing candid photos of our everyday lives just didn’t seem that important when people saw each other all the time anyway.
This changed when families started moving to the suburbs, and it changed even more when families started following the job market around the nation. Suddenly, grandparents weren’t seeing their kids or their grandkids all the time, and suddenly, it became really, really important for those grandparents to get pictures. Lots of pictures.
Most families have bookcases full of photo albums. In most cases, those photo albums are one of the first things people grab when the house catches fire; pictures of loved ones are, yes, that precious.
But honestly? How often do we sit down with those bulky photo albums and really look at what’s inside? Once a year? When the family convenes at Thanksgiving or Christmas? For many families, it may have been years since those bulky albums were opened. And yet, when they DO open them and really look, it’s an emotional, “why don’t we do this more often” type of reaction.
This ‘once a year’ viewing of valued family photographs is about to come to an end. Frame Media is developing some fabulous software for wireless digital picture frames, and in just a couple of months, it will be available, and I WANT ONE! I mean to say, I really, really want one.
Any visual that’s on your computer can be seen on your living room wall. It’s wireless. It doesn’t even have to be located anywhere NEAR your actual computer. You will be able to sit at your computer, upstairs or downstairs or wherever your computer is, and program that picture frame to show all of those precious old photographs, as well as all of those precious photographs from this morning. There is practically no limit to the amount of pictures you’ll be able to put on there, and just think, no more pulling out those bulky albums to see Andy and Sara and all the little cousins, romping and playing and losing their diapers in public and eating Happy Meals. You’ll be able to see Grandma and Granddad and all the precious folks who’ve gone before.
The wireless photo frame can hang anywhere in your home, and it will fit right in with whatever particular feng shui you’ve got going for you, and it will become the work of sheer art that your entire room will focus upon.
Ever-changing, ever-precious, ever reminding you of what’s really important in your life.
I want one. I WANT ONE. I can’t WAIT to get my hands on one. I know just the place to hang it, too. It’s all I can do not to take down the picture that’s already there and leave a big blank spot, waiting. HURRY UP, wireless digital picture frame makers!
Actually, several different companies are working on a version of the wireless digital picture frame. I was just checking out Westinghouse’s frame; it looks pretty good, and does a lot of cool stuff, but it’s not wireless. Kodak, of course, has theirs almost ready to go; they’re available in March. And they look AWESOME.
Did I mention that the wireless digital frames will play your Mp3’s? Randomly, or programmed any way you want? I did? Well, I’m mentioning it again. The soundtrack of our lives, playing along with the pictures that represent our lives. Sigh, lovely.
Come on, wireless digital photo frame people. This thing is too cool; I just simply can’t WAIT.
As a teacher, a wireless digital picture frame would be a godsend! I could mount it on the wall, and update it from my desk. There are already several recessed power cubicles in most classrooms, or, at the least, corner-mounted shelving with self-contained power cords and plugs. And if our only choice was to have the electric cord be seen, ask the janitor to staple it across the ceiling or something.
Just think, teachers. . . . we could have our students’ pictures, homework assignments, vocabulary words, anything we wanted, ‘broadcast’ on that screen, and our students could have easy access to them all.
Your office, downstairs, thinks it’s hot stuff because they’ve got that neon sign they can change on occasion, or that marquee out in front of the school that has to be manually changed? (and the letters keep blowing off or getting stolen. . . .) Heck, with a wireless digital photo frame in the classroom, or in the office, or in the hall, or in the cafeteria, we could keep our students in the know all day long, and without commercials!
Remember, the frame doesn’t have to be near your desk. You can sit at your desk and update it, though, and that would be so. incredibly. handy. Put a wireless photo frame in the hall or cafeteria, and someone down in the office could change it or program it!
Your students and their parents would genuinely appreciate having a wireless digital picture frame in the classroom. There would be no more excuses of “I didn’t know the assignment,” because the assignment would be RIGHT THERE ON THE SCREEN, interspersed with pictures of the football team, stats from the big game, the spelling word-of-the-day, some educational pictures you’re subscribing to, some announcements from the office, the cafeteria menu for tomorrow, and, yup, there it is, today’s homework.
PhotoVu has one that’s 19 inches! Even the kids in the back of the room could see it.
Start composing that letter to the PTA right now. Your child’s school NEEDS this wireless digital picture frame.
Besides, it’s just. . . .so COOL. And shouldn’t our children’s schools have cool things, too? A student might not look twice at a neon sign or a marquee. But a wireless digital picture frame on the classroom wall? All eyes, my dears. ALL EYES.
I wanted a digital picture frame for Christmas last year, but I didn’t get one. It was probably the most popular item of the season, and all the stores were sold out. I was disappointed, because even though I’m just a mother and a teacher and a regular person who isn’t all that knowledgeable about technology, I WANTED THAT CUTTING-EDGE DIGITAL PICTURE FRAME so I could see my children and my cats and my husband and our house and all of our relatives all the time, right on the wall above my computer.
But now? I’m kind of glad I didn’t get a digital picture frame last Christmas.
What I want now is a WIRELESS digital picture frame. WIRELESS!!!!!! And in just a few months, wireless digital picture frames will be available!
I can’t wait. What I mean to tell you is, I just can’t wait. I want one.
I’m not a person to fall for trends, but this wireless picture frame is something I would really use, and love. And the fact that it would also play my mp3’s while showing all my pictures, just makes me want it more.
We’ve got a wireless router already. I’m ready. Bring it on.
I’m organizing all my pictures; this one of me has got to go, but all these sweet pictures of my children that I hardly even see? In a few months, that’s all going to change.
Just like the scenes inside that wireless digital picture frame will change.
I won’t have to put it on the wall above my computer, either. I can put it in the living room, so everybody can see it.
It’s wireless, after all.
