Picwing (YC Summer 08) Debuts Their Social Digital Picture Frame
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
Judging from the number of orders we've been getting, it seems like people have been waiting for something like this for a while. While there are other wireless digital photo frame products out there, we really feel that we've been the first company to tackle it from the software perspective.
Thanks again!
One simple suggestion that seems to be missing and can add a lot of value for very little cost...
Allow the frames to be personalised with custom messages engraved on the wood/glass. Finding a good engraving service is easy enough, but if you had a web-form for personalised messages (with preview), these would make excellent presents for weddings/birthdays/anniversaries/etc.
Everyone loves personalisation, and the sentimental value add-in is immense.
Just ordered mine. Look forward to getting it soon(ish).
The way Apple allows you to do it with iPods is really nice. We'll definitely look into this feature.
Are you assembling and soldering these frames from scratch? Would love to hear more tech details on this..
Is the power supply removable with a standard DC connector or is it built into the device?
The reason why I'm asking is that I'd like to purchase one for my mother, but since she lives in Australia the plug will be a problem unless I use a converter - which has the potential to cause problems for her (as she's not too tech savvy) and it would be easier if I go find a suitable power supply.
Just saying its "social" is played out and only works in the valley. Everybody is doing that these days. Hardware is normally a different game than software and is played by different rules. The marketing is totally different as well. That's awesome that you guys have been able to put a solid piece of hardware together. Don't let all that work, and all that future work, go to waste by falling into a web 2.0 trap. :)
http://ourdoings.com/2008-03-01
It sounds like PicWing has a lot more ambitious things in mind.
http://www.mobilemag.com/content/100/336/C2154/
It was pretty cool - the guy running it scored a deal on a bunch of old HP laptops that he took apart and reassembled into frames.
Then it'd be the ultimate for keeping-in-touch-with-distant-relatives.
Picwing's potential target market: Grandparents. Go after it!
My brother-in-law and myself did this (for my parents) with the then best-of-class Digital Spectrum MemoryFrame. Once we saw that a Wi-fi picture frame supported RSS feeds we were hooked - despite the high cost and painful configuration (RSS + picture frame). I am hopeful that Picwing will make the picture frame grandparent friendly and not try to extort annual subscription fees.
Grandparents or even parents are exactly who we had in mind when we built this!
My recently widowed grandmother doesn't have a computer, let alone a wi-fi connection...
We're exploring possible avenues for this, including having low cost GSM connectivity so you can send upto a certain number of pictures w/o a fee
Grandma's have wifi these days too.
Maybe something like this would be cool: http://www.usbackbone.net/wholesale_dial.htm
and then you'd have to add the modem hardware to the frame... or maybe just sell a slightly more expensive model with an internal modem.
Just because you know lots of people who are a certain way does not mean it's that way. Remember, you are living in a world that is filtered - to a certain demographic, to a certain income level, to a certain intelligence level, to a certain ambition level and so on. There are huge other demographics that are also filtered in a certain way, and for them, the total opposite is true.
For example, imagine an average high school dropout / labourer. His friends are unlikely to be college professors or other upper class, his friends are unlikely to be rich. His friends are most likely going to be similar to him. And their friends are similar to them. So you have this network of high school dropouts who are all linked to each other in one big demographic pool.
And their parents will also fit in a certain profile, etc. So, no matter what you observe, first of all realise that it's filtered. Very few can say they are intimate with all classes of society. When you are born in a certain class, you may get poor or whatever, but your friends tend to stay from roughly the same class.
It's like an article I read in a german magazine speaking about how universities are functioning as match-making institutions. The article spoke about how the path that leads to a person attending universities tends to bring people who are very similar to each other together - because each step of the way towards the university filters out people. So when they do arrive, you have a group of guys and a group of girls of similar intelligence, similar income level, similar ambition and so on. Perfect fits for each other.
Same with most of us here. We are only on this site because we fullfil some criteria. That I could be here typing this comment on this website means I have matched a set of strict criteria that have filtered out a lot of people.
So, the people you know are also people who would be friends with people who would have children that you would come in contact with. So the same filter mechanism that brought you here also acts on them.
So, your observation can only be through the lens of your class, status, upbringing, intelligence, and education.
Also my statement was "grandmas have wifi". I know two who do, which makes that statement provably true. I never said that all of them do.
More importantly, in the context of the original conversation, before we took this "my sample is more representative of the overall population than yours" detour, is that the product isn't aimed at people who don't know what the internet is. It's a digital picture frame. It's aimed at people who have digital cameras (meaning they almost certainly have a computer) and have family that have digital cameras, and want to be able to share. All products are not aimed at all people, and should not be.
While I assume they're aiming for a wider demographic than the average digital picture frame (and, I think, doing it in a good way) the point of my comment was that they shouldn't worry about aiming too wide. Worrying about making your social digital picture frame accessible to people who don't have WiFi is like making an iPod for people who don't have computers. There is no point.
But WiFi is really a very optional thing for now.
I'm not saying you're wrong, I strongly believe in focusing a consumer as tightly as possible in the beginning, and since he is dealing with a tech crowd here, he can make wifi a requirement.
But all the same, I don't think WiFi is as spread as you think. Imagine an iPod where one can transfer the music only by WiFi. Or an iPhone. That's a bad idea, is it not?
I'm not saying my sample is more accurate than your, but I am saying I have observed the opposite effect. There is probably some middle ground, the question is where the real statistic lies. And if one is willing to bet a business on that.
I really dislike assumptions. I like to treat facts as assumptions that have not been disproven yet, and that's why I argue this point - don't take it personally!
A lot of the reason for their popularity is cost. Disposables are dirt cheap. There's little upfront investment. Most people who can't afford a computer (and therefore would probably not spend $200+ on a picture frame) like that.
So right away, I'd just not worry about lower class families. You aim gadgets at middle class +. I guess my argument is that I don't see much market for a $200+ digital frame amongst people who don't have broadband. There are probably a number of people who have broadband but not wifi who might like the product, hence my suggestion to offer a bundle with a cheap, preconfigured router. (Supposedly only around 40% of broadband homes have WiFi).
I know what you mean about assumptions, but startups are all about making them, building toward them, then narrowing down as you collect feedback from customers. There's simply no way to collect the relevant facts, you have to start from assumptions. They could maybe do some market research, which is slow and expensive, and at least narrow down the assumptions. Or they can just aim their product at the people who can afford it and are likely to want it, and work from there.
So if I were them, I'd focus on building a kick ass wireless frame. Most people who have digital cameras and have experienced sharing them online will probably get it.
if you get grandparents and family involved, then it could be a great driver for photo taking, maybe kodak would be interested.
Surely electronic picture frames are sort of bad in terms of using energy needlessly? Is there technology yet that only uses power when the display changes, and not all the time?
I wonder how many times Paul Graham saw this idea mentioned in applications before picking the right team to implement it?
Overall exciting to see these devices slowly becoming popular (Chumby). There is a ton of innovation to occur here.
Though we were not looking at it from a hardware standpoint, but social photo software.
Either way its great to see these devices start catching on and congrats to these guys!
Just like jobsyndicate and startuply, nice copy. Perhaps PG looks for hackers, who are also writers :)
But never mind, I won't buy one anyway - I am waiting for digital ink to catch up...
Have you guys thought of sync-ing them with flickr and facebook pictures? Or you guys are already working on it?