Photo Sharing For Grandparents Doesn't Use Tags Or Ajax

from the maybe-next-a-dedicated-RSS-reader? dept

It seems that whatever the hot internet application is, there's always some company looking to strip it down and sell it as a standalone service to those who aren't tech-savvy. A few years ago, a few companies were trying to market email-only devices, primarily aimed at grandparents who didn't have computers. Now that photo sharing is all the rage, one company is selling what they call a "Printing Mailbox". Basically, it is a printer attached to the internet, which can print photographs when they're sent as attachments. Again, the target market is grandparents who want an easy way to receive pictures of their grandchildren. But unless the user can expect to receive a high volume of photographs over a long period of time, having a dedicated device and a regular monthly fee for just this task seems a bit much. It would be more economical to have a service that accepts attachments, prints them out, and sends them to the grandparents via the mail, though that's not nearly as alluring has having a dedicated device. Like the email devices, it doesn't make much sense to sell both gear and internet connectivity with so little functionality.

4 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 

Reader Comments (rss)

(Flattened / Threaded)

  1. Thank God! by TriZz on May 23rd, 2006 @ 9:34am

    If the grandparents want pictures that bad - it should be up to the savvy parents/grand kids to mail grammy a photo via post.

    PS: First post!!

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  2. Yeah, what TriZz said by kelly jeanie on May 23rd, 2006 @ 9:55am

    Yeah, that's what I was thinking, too. It's really easy to upload pics to a service like Snapfish or something and have the pics mailed directly to Grandma.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  3. by Anonymous Coward on May 23rd, 2006 @ 10:14am

    Wow... imagine the spam coming out of that thing! Someone gets a hold of your device's address and you'd get all sorts of... "unwanted" pictures. And imagine the ink costs.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  4. by egon on May 23rd, 2006 @ 11:11am

    From Ofoto you can have them delivered next day for like $2.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

Add Your Comment

Get Techdirt’s Daily Email
Plain Text HTML Save me a cookie
  • Plain Text: A CRLF will be replaced by break <br> tag, all other allowable HTML is intact
  • HTML: No formatting of any kind is done without explicitly being written in
  • Allowed HTML Tags: <b> <i> <p> <a> <em> <br> <strong> <blockquote> <hr> <tt>
Close
Get Techdirt’s Daily Email
Plain Text HTML Save me a cookie
Search the Techdirt Blog
And now, a word from our Sponsors..
Subscribe to Techdirt's Daily Email Newsletter

Techdirt's Daily Email Newsletter

Related Stories
Close
E-mail It