|
|
thing: Photo sites
Services that cater to the digital camera crowd
By Marty Beard
Special occasions make shutterbugs out of everyone, particularly at holidays, when cameras tend to be frequently bestowed gifts.
But forget about your Polaroid, 35 mm and even your Advantix. Those are passé.
These days, the hot cameras are digital, which have become more affordable and far more user-friendly than when they first debuted.
This mainstreaming of next-generation photography has translated into a big spike in visits to digital photography web sites, according to Jupiter Media Metrix, in addition to causing a big increase in the number of people using photo-editing software at home.
More than 21.5 million people were using photo-editing software at home as of October, up from 16.9 million a year ago.
"Compared to analog photography, digital offers incredible ease of use, instant gratification and an unprecedented ability to share photos over the web," says Jupiter Media Metrix analyst Billy Pidgeon.
Online sites catering to photo buffs offer a number of services that were once the province of the local drugstore.
Users can order prints or CD-ROMs and have them mailed directly to them.
Additionally, the services enable users to assemble virtual photo albums for viewing by far-away friends and family.
Some sites let people send in old-fashioned rolls of film, which they convert to digital images.
Use of photo-service web sites went up by 22 percent between January 2001 and October 2001.
Some 3.5 million internet users logged on to these sites from home a year ago. That number rose to 4.2 million by October 2001.
At-work use of photo-service sites increased 62 percent in the same time period, to 1.7 million in October from 1.5 million in January.
Leading photo sites include Snapfish.com, the No. 1 photo site, which had almost 1.1 million unique visitors in October, up 119 percent from January, when it had 502,000 unique visitors.
The No. 2 site, Ofoto.com, is a beneficiary of its partnership with Amazon.com. Ofoto CDs come with most digital cameras purchased from the online retailer. That relationship helped unique visitors to the site increase 152 percent between January and October.
Despite their growing popularity, the sector has not been unharmed by the recession and dot.com downturn. Photopoint.com, once the No. 3 photo-services site, is among those that have gone out of business.
Those that remain are luring people online with free services, then enticing them to upgrade.
"Many of the photo sites offer various low-end services for free, such as limited photo-sharing and archiving," Pidgeon says.
"However, to make money, these sites are looking to upgrade customers to high end, fee-based services, such as more archive storage, tools for designing multimedia slide shows and greeting cards, and printing services for photo mugs, T-shirts, posters and albums."
|
Top Photo Services Web Sites |
|||||
| Site |
Unique users, Jan. 2001 (000) |
Unique users, Oct. 2001 (000) |
% Chg in unique users |
Reach % among wired computer users, Jan. '01 |
Reach % among wired computer users, Oct. '01 |
| 1. Snapfish.com |
502 |
1,097 |
118.6 |
0.6 |
1.1 |
| 2. Ofoto.com |
257 |
646 |
152.0 |
0.3 |
0.6 |
| 3. Photopoint.com |
1,023 |
702 |
-31.4 |
1.2 |
0.7 |
| 4. PhotoWorks.com |
647 |
449 |
-30.7 |
0.8 |
0.4 |
| 5. Picture.com |
191 |
448 |
134.6 |
0.2 |
0.4 |
| 6. PictureTrail.com |
122 |
427 |
250.0 |
0.1 |
0.4 |
| 7. Shutterfly.com |
450 |
321 |
-28.5 |
0.5 |
0.3 |
| 8. ClubPhoto.com |
87 |
168 |
92.9 |
0.1 |
0.2 |
| 9. PhotoParade.com |
N/A |
193 |
N/A |
N/A |
0.2 |
| 10. ImageStation.com |
57 |
155 |
170.0 |
0.1 |
0.2 |
|
Source: Jupiter Media Metrix |
|||||
January 9, 2002 © 2002 Media Life
-Marty Beard is a staff writer for Media Life.
Printer-Friendly
Version | Send
to a Friend
Cover Page | Contact
Us
