Eastman Kodak Picture Network takes the photography
Ray Van Eng (03/13/97)
Consumers can access the KPN web site which consists of a network of photo labs across the country and view photographs they have brought in for processing, order reprints and send digital pictures to anyone with a e-mail address. Self-serve kiosks at photo labs will let consumers carry out digital manipulation of their images such as cropping, restoring old prints, enlarging etc. In the future, consumers may also be able to compile their own online photo albums at the Kodak site. Back in the good old days of the Box Brownie cameras in the 1920s and 30s, Kodak's philosophy has always been 'you push the button, we do the rest'. The new KPN service falls in line with this tradition. Ease of use is preserved. To upload the pictures to the Internet, all you have to do is check a box at the time when you bring the film in for processing. We suspect that the self-serve kiosks may also have a 'push me' button that will do similar tasks for the consumers. In any case, a number of products introduced last year will work with the KPN service. The Kodak Snapshot Photo Scanner 1 will help you scan and upload pictures to a KPN folder. The Kodak DC25 Digital Camera not only take digital pictures, you can also view them immediately with the built-in color LCD panel right after you have taken your shots. You can then decide to either send them directly to Kodak network or store them in CompactFlash removable storage cards in the PCMCIA format. Available right now from the Kodak web site is the "Picture This" multimedia postcard application which allows you to choose a stock photo from a list of categories, frame it, add in your own message and send it to someone via his/her e-mail address. The application is available in straight HTML and Shockwave formats. The KPN is Kodak's latest attempt to use leading edge new media technologies to provide innovative products and services. Although some of the company's earlier efforts such as the Kodak Photo CD product launched almost a decade ago failed to entice the public to use the TV or PC to enhance their photographic experience, the technology did successfully established itself as a standard way to store and present high quality digital images. In many ways, the new Kodak KPN service is an extension of what the PhotoCD has started. This time around though, Kodak is confident that using the world wide web to let people share photos and memories with distant friends and relatives may actually have a better consumer appeal. Given the immense popularity of the Internet, Kodak may indeed have reasons to be optimistic. |
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