

Kicksend (YC S11) partners with Target/CVS/Walgreens to launch "Print to Family" - skyfallsin
http://blog.kicksend.com/kicksend-3-0-the-only-app-youll-need-to-keep-in-touch/

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windexh8er
I really, really, tried to like Kicksend. The usability was horrible though.
My main use case was that I'd upload some pictures and share them to a list of
family and friends of the new baby - keeping the pictures off of email and
gaining some small increase in control.

Then we get into the problems...

There was no good way to bulk maintain pictures. Horrible. Lists? They didn't
work. Half the time the email wouldn't be sent out to the group after I shared
something. Fail. So, the last time I tried to use it - and realized that
nobody got what I sent out, I spent an hour manually deleting every file in my
account (since, again, there were no bulk interactions). On top of that, there
was no way to simply delete my account.

Kicksend was good in concept, but execution and reliability of it working was
one of the worst of any apps I've used in the past few years. I finally ended
up switching to a Pro Flickr account and just share things via Guest Passes.
Works as expected.

Kicksend was something I really hoped worked well, but all it was to me ended
up being a pretty UI that I couldn't trust to work at all. I would have paid
for an account had it - since I really did like the interface.

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vyrotek
So, I'm a little confused. This is something I do myself pretty regularly but
there are conflicting things here for me.

The photos I usually want to print are almost never ones taken on my phone.
And because the photos I actually send to people are from my camera I end up
using my PC and just upload them to the company and choose the location.
Costco, Walmart, Target all offer the ability to print at various locations.

I guess I don't see the benefit here. Driving to the store is the
inconvenience in the end. That's why people attach photos or upload them on
Facebook instead these days. Perhaps if it automatically snail-mailed the
photo to a family member it would be more useful. But even my 70+ year old
grandparents prefer I email them photos now anyway.

Edit - Just to add some context, I'm a father with multiple kids with parents
and grandparents who demand photos of them every day. :)

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josephjrobison
This seems really cool how you can automatically print at Target, CVS, etc
pretty easy. So this is definitely an upgrade.

I haven't used the app yet, I'm about to, but what's the advantage over just
emailing the photos to the grandparents?

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jmathai
The advantage is that they don't get a bunch of huge attachments.

But over the years I've come to the realization that attaching photos is still
the best way to share photos with grandparents.

Scenario 1 (attach to email)

Grandpa receives an email with an automatically generated thumbnail and clicks
the thumbnail to see the larger version.

Scenario 2 (everything else)

Grandpa receives an email with a link. The thumbnails probably don't show up
because images are turned off by default and that's how Grandpa rolls. Grandpa
clicks the link which opens a new tab and shows similar thumbnails to scenario
1. Grandpa clicks to see a larger version.

\---

Granted, you can provide a bunch of additional value (like ordering prints and
whatnot) in scenario 2. But it comes at a very steep cost.

Disclaimer, I'm a founder of OpenPhoto and work about 30 yards from the
Kicksend team. I personally use their app and think they're on to something.
But I'd be lying if I didn't say it's a challenging road (for them and us).

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Skywing
Does this compete with Picplum, now?

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jareau
skyfallsin, would this be considered an example of online-to-offline?

