Digital cameras and camcorders are everywhere. The Consumer Electronics Association says 33 percent of U.S. households now own at least one digital camera. Further, the association estimates digital camera sales from manufacturers to dealers will total $3.4 billion in 2003. Not surprising, since cameras are getting better, smaller and cheaper.
And the convenience of zapping undesirable photos right away beats the frustration of shooting a whole roll of film only to buy prints that reveal your unique ability to take out-of-focus pictures and images of your thumb on the lens.
So, we’re all snapping pictures and dashing home to print them out and show to our friends, right? Not really. Even though digital photo printers are getting cheaper and easier to use, shutterbugs are using online print services to share photos with friends for free and even make prints.
It works like this: Once you’ve taken your pictures and downloaded your images into your computer, you can upload them to a Web photo sharing service and e-mail your friends a link to an album of your photos. If you want 4×6 prints that you can paste in a photo album and keep it on your coffee table, you can buy them for 25 cents to 39 cents a print — plus shipping — and have them delivered to your door.
Photo-sharing sites abound, but the most popular are Yahoo Photos (http://photos.yahoo.com), Ofoto.com and Shutterfly.com, with Walmart.com’s recently unveiled service looming large on the horizon. They charge nothing to store your photos and to share your photos with friends; they make their money when you want to buy prints.
Ofoto asks 29 cents; Shutterfly lets you prepay $39 for 135 prints (that’s 29 cents a print, or you can prepay $99 for 400 prints, at 25 cents a print); Yahoo Photos charges 39 cents a print; and Wal-Mart charges 25 cents, and you can skip the shipping charges by picking up your photos from a Wal-Mart that you choose online.
If you’re unhappy with how they turned out, you have 30 days to contact them for a free reprint.
Battling Wal-Mart and one another, Ofoto.com and Shutterfly.com are looking for even more business. Ofoto, owned by Kodak, will give you 10 free 4×6 prints if you sign up by Feb. 28. Independently owned Shutterfly will give you 15 free 4×6 prints that must be made within 60 days of signing up. With either offer, you’re responsible for shipping charges and any taxes.
That’s all fine for camera owners, but what about those who like to shoot movies? Until recently, there was no place to park and share movie files, which could easily take up 4 megabytes of space, compared with the relatively tiny 400 kilobyte file of a digital still image.
Xdrive.com is changing that by offering 500 megabytes of space to store and share videos for $10 a month. The privately held file-storage company doesn’t make prints but shares your video with people you designate. Xdrive is courting business with a free 15-day trial.
Obviously, this has implications for music file-sharers who want to swap without being sued by the record industry. Unlike users of peer-to-peer software such as Kazaa, Xdrive members are restricting who can access their files.
