Y Combinator startup Picwing launches today (see our coverage yesterday of the other Y Combinator startups launching this summer). Think of it as a social photo site with an associated digital photo frame. Once you set up an account you can set options that let others view and/or add photos as well. Photos are uploaded to the site via a unique email address.
Photos can be viewed on the site, on the desktop via Windows or Mac software, embedded into other sites (I’ve embedded a few sample images below) and there is also a Chumby widget option. But the big use is to have them sent wirelessly to the photo frame that they are also selling.
Here’s the downside. The photo frames are $249, which compares badly to competing products that are in the $100-$200 range. The screen is 7 inches, which is on the small side. And for now you can’t even get them. Orders now will be fulfilled in 6-8 weeks, as the team builds the first batch by hand.
On the upside, the team is focusing on the software, particularly the social opportunities that have largely been ignored in the digital photo frame market until now. Once a lot of people have these in their living rooms, there are plenty of opportunities to drive additional services. The frame is running Flash on Linux, so it is also a fully functional PC.
Digital photo frames are already a half billion dollar market, and is expected to grow 4x over the next few years. This is a good space to innovate in. I pre-ordered a frame, and it will sit proudly next to my Chumby on my desk. I’ll also give out the email address for the device, so you can all send me whatever pictures you like.
Different concept, but for $249 it may seem tough to compete with similar products. Time will tell though.
http://blabtech.blogspot.com
how is this any different than CEIVA, a product around since 2001?
my guess is they’ll get the price down as they get an understanding of volume, etc.
Your are completely right, I guess I see where as the get a feel for the market they can have a better pricing structure. Like I said the concept is different, it may work. It’s probably just too early to tell.
Mike, how can you say that the social aspect of digital picture frames is not developped yet? Ever heard of CEIVA frames? They’ve been around since 2001 and do MUCH more than this crap.
Once they get their hardware prices down I think these guys will be rocking. My Mom would love me for a million years if I got her one of these.
digitzl picture frame {seesmic_video:{”url_thumbnail”:{”value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/lF1ch1ZqhA_th1.jpg”}”title”:{”value”:”digitzl picture frame ”}”videoUri”:{”value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/2Igy0JTYhd”}}}
I’m in for one if I can get this docstoc chick’s pics on my frame.
/end_perv
exactly why i despise seesmic
That’s sweet! It would be cool if you could get a discount for the whole family.
The price seems a little steep for my taste but I’m sure that as with evrything else that’s new the price will eventually go down. I think there is a lot of room to grow in this particular area and it’s good to know that companies are developing new technology and innovating.
http://www.KillerStartups.com
This is a cool tech idea, but not sure I’m seeing much of a market. I suppose you might get one for Grandpa and Grandma so they could see a vacation in real time in their living room?
The folks over at Chirpscreen.com should do this – they have a great desktop version that displays pictures from your friends on Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, etc.
Isn’t this a “me too” product? I purchased a D-Link wireless frame three weeks ago on Amazon which came with a free service framechannel. That service lets me get photos from my facebook account with weather, sports, and other content. How is this different?
Hi Techdude, Fredi,
I’m Edward, one of the founders of Picwing. While our cost of producing the Picwing photo frame is high right now, we are confident that we can get the price down over time as we reach economies of scale and reach out to more suppliers. Thanks for checking out Picwing!
I think there’s an opportunity to combine something like this with a whispernet like the one Amazon built for the Kindle so that people who don’t have wireless internet (read: old people) can effortlessly get pictures from family.
Sweet! Real hardware + easy software?? Winna.
Mike, check out Windows Live FrameIt (http://frameit.live.com). Most of the options you talk about are already implemented (this is the v1 beta release), plus you can add more than 1 frame, synch images from different sources and set up day/time settings for different image types.
Awesome. Just what I want – Windows Live Crap crashing when showing pictures of my family.
Looks like a great idea! I cannot wait to get a new frame! Family discounts seems like a good one =)
Kodak’s been doing this for a while
http://www.koda...pq-locale=en_US
Amazon’s got it in stock for $73.99
http://www.amaz...e/dp/B000MURAT2
Good luck winning over the consumer with your brand when your product is sitting on a shelf next to Kodak’s
The one you’re linking to on Amazon is not the same model that is $270 w/ wireless on Kodak’s site. The one on Amazon does not have the wireless feature.
Sorry,…wireless, 10inch screen, $175
http://www.amaz...TF8&s=photo
I think that’s a really good point, but what once the hardware becomes commoditized, ease of use and the best UI will win out.
Seems dangerous to have an email that anyone can send pictures to. What happens when spammers start sending porn and Vi@gra ads to these things?
I believe you can have a white list for who can send e-mail. To not have that feature would be silly.
From fields in emails are not secure.
Hi Mark,
Chrys is right, we take privacy very seriously. We allow a white-list of users who we will only accept pictures from. We also do a lot of checking of the integrity of the email (email headers, etc) to make sure that emails cannot be spoofed either.
just use a secret email which is known only to friends+family
Bridging the generation that loves Flickr, with the generation that loves photo frames. Brilliant.
An experiment with picwing:
Send pics of girls (SFW) to girls@picwing.com and it’ll be updated at:
http://picwing.tumblr.com
Seeframe by eStarling for $199
Same concept
http://www.estarling.com
They should sync the pics with facebook or flickr soon. I’d get one if it’s below $200
After playing around with the site and creating a few albums, I think Picwing’s photo-uploading and photo-sharing functionalities are smooth, clean, and simple-to-use. The fact that I can just tell all my friends to send their pictures to one email address and have them all consolidated in one album is so much easier than anything else on the market right now. I’m just waiting right now to see if this digital frame is gonna be as good as it sounds. I have one pre-ordered and am excited to see if it can revolutionize the digital frame realm. But thus far, Picwing has definitely made a fan out of me.
Hi everyone,
There are most definitely other competitors in this field. Not having any would be a bad indication of the market that we are in. After all, nature abhors a vacuum. We believe that we hold an advantage over others simply through better software on the web and on the photo frame itself. In the same way that the iPod+iTunes pair turned out to be a killer combination that forever changed the MP3 player market, we hope that we can do the same with photo frames.
it is so hard to find a digital photo frame that can hook up to my flickr account or whatever photo sharing site. My goal is to send a digital photo frame to my grandparents and all they have to do is plug it in, connect to their wifi, and shows them photos of their grandkids. What is the UI like on the picwing frame? Can u share a video review of the product?
If you know your grandparents’ wifi settings you can do it with this frame:
http://ourdoing....com/2008-03-01
The future of what these guys are doing is huge. Wifi connected Hardware with great software seems like the place to be as the web becomes more integrated with our real world lives.
See photoframe.vodafonce.com
You can update via the web AND via MMS over GSM.
sorry I meant photoframe.vodafone.com
I think people showing comparable products are funny. Kodak is not going to iterate weekly or monthly. They won’t incrementally integrate with many of the other website out there. These guys will own this space and these big companies or nameless Asian OEMs have no clue.
I have been using a networked Ceiva frame in this same manner for some time. Ceiva allows me to upload photos from my desktop to other frames for which I have access. Same concept here. http://www.ceiva.com
Ceiva is OK. I used to use it with my Grandmother. It was a pain before they added email support. Ceiva does allow multiple albums which is nice. Ceiva also comes with a price. Last time I checked the frame was around $200 and the “service” was $100 a year.
Picwing looks like just a $249 upfront fee for the frame. No service fee after that. The nice thing is that it works with the Chumby – for free.
good