Anyone who has turned digital photos into a printed photo book via Apple iPhoto or any of a variety of competitors knows how great they are. They make a perfect gift, if you can afford the $20 – $30 they generally cost to create, plus shipping.
Enter UK-based HotPrints, which I was introduced to at the DLD conference in Munich earlier this week. The company is using new printing technology from an undisclosed partner to create high quality photo books on the cheap – just $2.99 plus shipping to the U.S. of $0.75. That’s significantly less than any of the competing products.
And they’re focusing on Facebook, which has a rich collection of already-tagged photos just waiting to be turned into printed books. A quiet beta test of the application has shown that users love it, the company says, and once a user tries it once they average more than three purchases for themselves or as gifts.
Here’s what you get: a printed 25cm x 20 cm color photo book with 8 sheets and 16 total printed pages. You can comfortable fit six photos on a page, although some of the example books they’ve given me has as many as eight photos on a page. The paper is thick, high quality glossy stock.
HotPrints also offers a great tool on Facebook for creating the books that lets you peruse photos by your friends’ names and customize the layout.
The company was cofounded by Shervin Pishevar (the CEO of SGN) and others, and just closed a $1 million round of financing.
That’s quite a few messages in your inbox there.
No doubt.
Nice to see more UK startups, hopefully this will be successful and more will follow.
Love seeing high utility Facebook applications get some spotlight. Great work HotPrints!
Agreed
Looks interesting.
Since they’re UK-based, does that mean all US shipping has to go overseas, or do they have printing facilities in the US somewhere too?
4.98 GBP = almost $8.00 shipped to US.
I almost made an impulse buy, but that is why I didn’t.
Could justify <$5.00 but not $8.00
The total price, including shipping to US, for one photo book is 2.49 GBP, so it seems that the 4.98 GBP is for two books, and not one.
Ehsan is right. And in US dollars that’s $2.99 USD for the printed photobook and $.75 cents for shipping. That adds up to $3.74 USD for total to get it to you or a friends door.
Are we talking about worldwide shipping? Would be a great deal if I could order such a book from germany and just pay so little.
Yes, it is worldwide shipping!
Wow! That’s cheap! How can they afford that? They must be eating some of the costs. You can’t even get that cheap at Wal*mart.
Check out America’s Digital Newspaper:
http://www.Libe...tynewsprint.com
Simple to Read: Online | PDF | Printout |
I think Facebook puts a pretty low limit on the size of uploaded photos. Will the print quality of Facebook photos be any good?
If it could tie in to flickr via Facebook this would be better.
This is an excellent question. I have traditionally reduced the resolution of my photos before uploading to Facebook… because Facebook shows photos at a low resolution (~600 pixels wide).
I wonder what resolution photos are kept internally at Facebook? Does anyone know? Should I upload higher res photos in the future?
This one’s hot for some US competition!
Maybe we’ll go after them.
http://www.Heal...hcareITReps.com
The only reason I tried the app was because you compare it to iPhoto.
The result is nothing like iPhoto. IMO usability is OK but the design and variety of books is not even close to my expactations. However with a little help from a design studio it will be a nice app.
We have something less cool but allows you to create a collage with your own photos.
The difference is you are free to layout the photos anyhow you want, rotate, flip, some effects. Plus also add photos from other sites with a handy bookmarklet.
http://apps.fac...om/oblinqcards/
Give it a try.
Again, are the prints taken from the 600 px photos that are visible in a Facebook album? Because 600 pixels would look like crap when printed.
blurb.com also has a FB app … I’ve used the standalone app before and love it. I’ll have to check this one out too.
Looks fantastic, just doesn’t work in IE8 RC1 yet.
I’m pretty sure Facebook resizes and compresses the photos to an extent that prints from such a source would be unusable
I placed an order to try it out and I haven’t as much received a confirmation email from Hotprints. I’m hoping that is just a glitch and not a sign of anything sinister. I did email them just a moment ago and will update if I hear from them or get my book.
Less than 45 minutes after sending my email, I received a reply from CEO S. Mohammad M. Ahmadabadi letting me know the order had been shipped and he would look into why I didn’t get an email notification.
I have to say that I didn’t expect a reply until next week, so I’m pretty shocked and very happy with Hotprint’s customer service. Now I just hope the product looks great as well.
WOrked on book for 2 hours…. and then I couldnt publish it!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ARGhhhhhhhhhhhhhh… please advise.