FrameChannel featured on Yahoo Tech

FrameChannel was featured in a write up of wireless digital frames yesterday on Yahoo Tech. The blog post discusses the growing market of digital frames, mentioning FrameChannel and listing frames that currently work with the service.

With many new manufacturers entering the market this year and the new FrameChannel certification program, content and functionality of FrameChannel and wifi frames can only increase while price points drop. The next year looks promising for the wifi frame market and FrameChannel users!

The full article is below. Click here to read the original post on Yahoo Tech.

New Digital Frames Offer Wi-Fi, Simplicity

Thu Jan 17, 2008 1:57PM EST
Digital frames are everywhere, and CES was no exception. Upon closer look at the ubiquitous digital photo screens, a few nice trends are emerging. Wi-Fi capabilities are making it easier to send photos to frames, which are becoming less complicated to use.

Here’s a look at a few new twists to the new generation of digital frames:

Wi-Fi — Not necessarily new, but getting better. Several digital frame makers have made it easier to send photos to frames, as well as uploading them through storage cards and USB connections to computers. Kodak will have a new feature called Picture Mail this year that will allow you to send photos directly to one of its EasyShare digital frames via the Kodak EasyShare software. Ality announced the Wireless PIXXA, an 8-inch frame ($300) that allows you to send photos to it via an instant-messaging service called Photo Messenger.

Services are also emerging to help you send photos and other images and info as RSS feeds directly to the frames. FrameChannel is a free service that makes it possible to send photos and other personalized content via RSS feeds to, currently, these frames: Samsung SPF-72V, Digital Spectrum’s 8-, 10-, and 15-inch wireless frames, PhotoVu’s wireless frames, and iMate’s frames. Meanwhile, iMate has unveiled a new 10.2-inch Momento frame ($300) and a 7-inch Momento ($200) that includes Wi-Fi capability. Using a Momento subscription service (price not yet announced), you’ll be able to send photos via cell phone, RSS feeds, and sync photos with Flickr and other photo-streaming services.

Getting bigger — Ceiva, one of the first to offer a subscription service to send photos directly to frames, introduced the Pro 190, a $400 19-inch wall-mountable frame with Wi-Fi capability that allows you to move photos wirelessly from a PC to the frame, and from frame to frame. A monthly $9.95 Picture Plan subscription is still needed to send photos to Ceiva frames. Smartparts will offer the biggest digital frame to date in March, the $900 32-inch SP3200. Smartparts also showed off the first combination digital frame/printer that prints displayed photos with the push of a button. The 8-inch frame will cost $279.

Bluetooth — continues to be an option. Parrot is one of the digital frame makers that make it easy to send photos to frames via cell phones, PCs, and cameras-as long as they are Bluetooth-enabled.

From Picture Business Mag: Digital Frame Market Continues to Innovate!

From the October 24, 2007 Picture Business Mag.com comes this fantastic article about wireless/digital picture frames. I can’t improve on it, so here it is in its entirety, straight from the source.

“We absolutely love the amazing evolution, along with the sudden impressive emergence, of the digital picture frame category. What can’t these things do today? Stills, video, music, wireless sharing capability, changeable frames, increasing internal memory - incredible.

Seeing as these units have added such a wide variety of functionality, several manufacturers have begun offering this product in unique sizes. Digital Foci recently announced a keychain model to their one featuring a 1.5-inch LCD screen and 8MB of internal memory. An included Li-on battery offers up 9 hours of battery life.

PhotoVu has gone in the other direction, recently announcing a 22-inch widescreen display model. The PV2265W lists for $1,299.00 and features a 16:10 aspect ratio and a 1,680 x 1,050 res screen. This model also features built-in Wi-Fi for networking and can stream images directly from photo Web sites via RSS.

Continuing on the “On the Wi-Fi Front” for a moment. . . Digital Spectrum and MediaStreet have all recently come to market with wireless frames in a variety of sizes, so a product that screamed for wireless now has plenty of models to choose from, all offering a variety of features within the Wi-Fi set-up.

Lastly, and again on the decidedly high-end, comes Ceiva’s new 8-inch Wi-Fi model that can actually dock with Whirlpool’s new centralpark Connection refrigerators - the idea here being to enable consumers to display hundreds of images without using hundreds of magnets. The eventual marriage of digital photography and the kitchen fridge is finally here.

We have just one thing to ask of these manufacturers - please remember to offer one, relatively inexpensive model that simply displays pictures, in slideshow form, when you stick a card in it. Don’t forget the non-techies among us that will jump at that product. We understand from chatting with a few of the manufacturers in this market that the cost of LCD alone makes hitting a really low price point a challenge. Hopefully those costs come inline a bit more as the popularity of the device continues to grow and perhaps a $50.00 4-5 inch unit will someday soon be possible.”

I completely agree!

CEIVA® Announces Customer Experience Enhancements

August 28, 2007 08:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time
CEIVA® Announces Customer Experience Enhancements

CEIVA Expands Digital Photo Frame Service, Features and Functionality for 2007 Holiday Season

LOS ANGELES–(BUSINESS WIRE)–CEIVA Logic, Inc. today unveiled its new customer-focused offerings and product advancements designed to enhance user experience with the patented CEIVA Digital Photo Frameâ„¢. Just in time for the 2007 holiday season, the new features and functionality include expansion of its world-class customer care team and free CEIVA software updates that are automatically sent directly to users’ frames.

As part of the new upgrades, CEIVA will be introducing a new easier to use Digital Photo Frame menu that features intuitive thumbnail browsing and streamlined menus making on screen navigation a breeze. Menus on the frames will also now be bi-lingual in English and Spanish. To expand users’ connectivity options, CEIVA has released its new EZ wireless connection update which allows them to effortlessly set up their CEIVA frames to connect to their wireless home network by employing a look-up browsing feature. The new software updates are included with all new frame purchases this holiday season as well as sent automatically to existing Digital Photo Frames through CEIVA’s optional PicturePlan® service.

“CEIVA supports a community of people who have discovered that sharing memories and experiences with family and friends truly enhances their lives. Our goal is to provide this community with the best way to enjoy and share their digital photos. We pride ourselves on going the extra mile to further develop useful features while at the same time offering unparalleled customer service,” said Dean Schiller, CEO of CEIVA Logic. “We place a tremendous value on fulfilling our customers’ needs and as a result, go far beyond other photo frame offerings. With CEIVA’s emphasis on connectivity and our dedicated focus on customer service, we are able to better understand our customers and provide them with a superior experience.”

CEIVA will be extending weekday customer service hours and adding Saturday hours in order to accommodate increased holiday support needs. CEIVA customer care representatives are available by phone and on-line to handle basic questions, along with any inquiries related to technical aspects of the frames and PicturePlan®.

Kodak, Polaroid, Phillips, Westinghouse, Ceiva, Mustek, PanDigital, Smartparts. . . The Evolution of the Picture Frame

Over on Media Post, Adrienne W. Fawcett has an article about how digital technology has not only revolutionized the way people take pictures, but has also revolutionized the way people are viewing those pictures. Hence: the evolution of the humble picture frame.

“This spring, digital picture frames took off like nobody’s business,” says Liz Cutting, senior imaging analyst at the NPD Group. According to NPD’s Retail Tracking Service, digital picture frames grossed nearly $12 million, selling more than 112,000 units, during the week before Mother’s Day.

The May week’s sales were just as strong as Christmas, and beat the week of Black Friday. The trend is expected to spike again during June’s holiday troika of graduation, confirmation, and Father’s Day. . . .”

“Price, novelty and availability are driving the category. Last year, according to NPD, 54% of the digital picture frames sold were 5.6 inches in size, with an average price of $148.00. From January through April of this year, 54% of the digital picture frames sold were seven inches and went for an average of $102.00. The average selling price of a seven-inch frame dropped from $139.00 last Mother’s Day to $81.00 this year.

The novelty factor is helping to drive the trend this spring. Digital picture frames include an LCD screen with multi-media capabilities; it’s like having a mini-Power Point presentation on the living room mantel. Consumers can program the frames or simply pop the memory card from their digital camera into a slot.”

(If you have a wireless frame, your possibilities are even greater!)

Read the rest of Adrienne W. Fawcett’s post right HERE.