
Picwing (YC Summer 08) Debuts Their Social Digital Picture Frame - fallentimes
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/15/picwing-debuts-their-social-digital-picture-frame/
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edawerd
Thanks guys! I'm Edward, one of the founders of Picwing, and we're really
excited about finally telling the world about the product!

Judging from the number of orders we've been getting, it seems like people
have been waiting for something like this for a while. While there are other
wireless digital photo frame products out there, we really feel that we've
been the first company to tackle it from the software perspective.

Thanks again!

~~~
babul
Congrats on the launch guys! Awesome product.

One simple suggestion that seems to be missing and can add a lot of value for
very little cost...

Allow the frames to be personalised with custom messages engraved on the
wood/glass. Finding a good engraving service is easy enough, but if you had a
web-form for personalised messages (with preview), these would make excellent
presents for weddings/birthdays/anniversaries/etc.

Everyone loves personalisation, and the sentimental value add-in is immense.

Just ordered mine. Look forward to getting it soon(ish).

~~~
edawerd
Wow thats a great suggestion! We wanted to (someday) let people customize the
actual frame, but the engraving takes its to a whole new level!

The way Apple allows you to do it with iPods is really nice. We'll definitely
look into this feature.

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zkinion
Please put something more into it to make it different than d-link's or any
other wireless picture frame that can also pull stuff from facebook/etc. Is
there an ease of use advantage?

Just saying its "social" is played out and only works in the valley. Everybody
is doing that these days. Hardware is normally a different game than software
and is played by different rules. The marketing is totally different as well.
That's awesome that you guys have been able to put a solid piece of hardware
together. Don't let all that work, and all that future work, go to waste by
falling into a web 2.0 trap. :)

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fallentimes
Once they get their hardware prices down I think these guys will be rocking.
My Mom would love me for a million years if I got her one of these.

~~~
tdavis
I could get one for my mom too, then take pictures and have them show up there
so she will bug me about my life less often ;)

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brlewis
If that's all you want to do, you can just use any MRSS-capable frame with
OurDoings.

<http://ourdoings.com/2008-03-01>

It sounds like PicWing has a lot more ambitious things in mind.

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davidw
Cool! I worked on these a while ago, but then we moved back to Italy...

<http://www.mobilemag.com/content/100/336/C2154/>

It was pretty cool - the guy running it scored a deal on a bunch of old HP
laptops that he took apart and reassembled into frames.

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gojomo
These should really have a webcam and mic, too -- albeit with a physical
shutter/switch for total confidence in its on/off status.

Then it'd be the ultimate for keeping-in-touch-with-distant-relatives.

~~~
edawerd
Thats exactly the long-term direction that we want Picwing to go. Pictures are
really just the beginning for us: We would love to enable applications like
email, video conferencing, and more that your Grandma would be able to use in
a really non-intimidating way.

~~~
brlewis
Interesting. It looks like you're going after "2. Simplified Browsing" (but
not just browsing) as well as "27. Hardware/software hybrids" plus at least
one of the 30 different subtypes of "9. Photo/video sharing services"

<http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html>

~~~
edawerd
number 27 definitely matched what we are doing. The beauty of hardware these
days is that its not as scary as most software people thing. Hardware these
days really just means low-level software.

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wallflower
Six words: Automatically updated photos of their grandkids

Picwing's potential target market: Grandparents. Go after it!

My brother-in-law and myself did this (for my parents) with the then best-of-
class Digital Spectrum MemoryFrame. Once we saw that a Wi-fi picture frame
supported RSS feeds we were hooked - despite the high cost and painful
configuration (RSS + picture frame). I am hopeful that Picwing will make the
picture frame grandparent friendly and not try to extort annual subscription
fees.

~~~
edawerd
Wallflower,

Grandparents or even parents are exactly who we had in mind when we built
this!

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brfox
If there is any way you could do this with a dialup connection, then you have
yourself a real golden opportunity... especially if there was no monthly fee
for 5 pics/month or something. I would buy one right now if it did this.

My recently widowed grandmother doesn't have a computer, let alone a wi-fi
connection...

~~~
edawerd
We realize that there is sort of a disconnect between the people who buy this
thing, and the people who this is intended for (i.e. grandma with no wifi).

We're exploring possible avenues for this, including having low cost GSM
connectivity so you can send upto a certain number of pictures w/o a fee

~~~
mattmaroon
I wouldn't worry too much about the subset of people who presumably have
broadband (since they know what flickr/facebook, etc are in the first place)
but not wifi. You could just sell a cheap router with it in a bundle for that.

Grandma's have wifi these days too.

~~~
maxklein
Grandmas have wifi? You are out of touch with ordinary people.

~~~
mattmaroon
I know lots of senior citizens who have broadband and/or wifi. I guess not any
who have grandkids my age, but lots of people who have children my age who
have children themselves.

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maxklein
That's the problem, isn't it. You know lots of people, so you have made the
assumption that it's all that way. Well, I know lots of people who are my
parents age who not only don't have the internet, but are only peripherally
aware that it exists, and really have no interest in going on it.

Just because you know lots of people who are a certain way does not mean it's
that way. Remember, you are living in a world that is filtered - to a certain
demographic, to a certain income level, to a certain intelligence level, to a
certain ambition level and so on. There are huge other demographics that are
also filtered in a certain way, and for them, the total opposite is true.

For example, imagine an average high school dropout / labourer. His friends
are unlikely to be college professors or other upper class, his friends are
unlikely to be rich. His friends are most likely going to be similar to him.
And their friends are similar to them. So you have this network of high school
dropouts who are all linked to each other in one big demographic pool.

And their parents will also fit in a certain profile, etc. So, no matter what
you observe, first of all realise that it's filtered. Very few can say they
are intimate with all classes of society. When you are born in a certain
class, you may get poor or whatever, but your friends tend to stay from
roughly the same class.

It's like an article I read in a german magazine speaking about how
universities are functioning as match-making institutions. The article spoke
about how the path that leads to a person attending universities tends to
bring people who are very similar to each other together - because each step
of the way towards the university filters out people. So when they do arrive,
you have a group of guys and a group of girls of similar intelligence, similar
income level, similar ambition and so on. Perfect fits for each other.

Same with most of us here. We are only on this site because we fullfil some
criteria. That I could be here typing this comment on this website means I
have matched a set of strict criteria that have filtered out a lot of people.

So, the people you know are also people who would be friends with people who
would have children that you would come in contact with. So the same filter
mechanism that brought you here also acts on them.

So, your observation can only be through the lens of your class, status,
upbringing, intelligence, and education.

~~~
mattmaroon
Aren't you doing the exact same thing? How is "Grandmas have wifi? You are out
of touch with ordinary people" any more rooted in fact, rather than your small
sample, than my original statement?

Also my statement was "grandmas have wifi". I know two who do, which makes
that statement provably true. I never said that all of them do.

More importantly, in the context of the original conversation, before we took
this "my sample is more representative of the overall population than yours"
detour, is that the product isn't aimed at people who don't know what the
internet is. It's a digital picture frame. It's aimed at people who have
digital cameras (meaning they almost certainly have a computer) and have
family that have digital cameras, and want to be able to share. All products
are not aimed at all people, and should not be.

While I assume they're aiming for a wider demographic than the average digital
picture frame (and, I think, doing it in a good way) the point of my comment
was that they shouldn't worry about aiming too wide. Worrying about making
your social digital picture frame accessible to people who don't have WiFi is
like making an iPod for people who don't have computers. There is no point.

~~~
maxklein
I still think you're wrong. A digital camera is owned by practically everyone
now for the simple reason that it's very difficult and expensive to buy a non-
digital camera.

But WiFi is really a very optional thing for now.

I'm not saying you're wrong, I strongly believe in focusing a consumer as
tightly as possible in the beginning, and since he is dealing with a tech
crowd here, he can make wifi a requirement.

But all the same, I don't think WiFi is as spread as you think. Imagine an
iPod where one can transfer the music only by WiFi. Or an iPhone. That's a bad
idea, is it not?

I'm not saying my sample is more accurate than your, but I am saying I have
observed the opposite effect. There is probably some middle ground, the
question is where the real statistic lies. And if one is willing to bet a
business on that.

I really dislike assumptions. I like to treat facts as assumptions that have
not been disproven yet, and that's why I argue this point - don't take it
personally!

~~~
mattmaroon
Not only are film-based cameras not expensive or hard to find, they actually
outsell digital ones in the form of disposables. I read somewhere not too long
ago that they outsell non-disposable cameras by over 25%. (I'm assuming those
sales figures meant discrete cameras, rather than including cell-phones. I'll
try to find it to check.) Interesting anecdote: my wife and I bought 25 of
them for our wedding, and it seems unlikely we will buy 25 digital cameras
combined in our lifetimes.

A lot of the reason for their popularity is cost. Disposables are dirt cheap.
There's little upfront investment. Most people who can't afford a computer
(and therefore would probably not spend $200+ on a picture frame) like that.

So right away, I'd just not worry about lower class families. You aim gadgets
at middle class +. I guess my argument is that I don't see much market for a
$200+ digital frame amongst people who don't have broadband. There are
probably a number of people who have broadband but not wifi who might like the
product, hence my suggestion to offer a bundle with a cheap, preconfigured
router. (Supposedly only around 40% of broadband homes have WiFi).

I know what you mean about assumptions, but startups are all about making
them, building toward them, then narrowing down as you collect feedback from
customers. There's simply no way to collect the relevant facts, you have to
start from assumptions. They could maybe do some market research, which is
slow and expensive, and at least narrow down the assumptions. Or they can just
aim their product at the people who can afford it and are likely to want it,
and work from there.

So if I were them, I'd focus on building a kick ass wireless frame. Most
people who have digital cameras and have experienced sharing them online will
probably get it.

~~~
maxklein
Alright, we meet in the middle then. On another note, you know one factor that
will make a break their company? It's the color of the actual frame. I would
never ever buy one of those fake wood made of plastic frames, because they
look hella corny. They really need to work on the finish of the frame to make
sure it looks really good.

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jmorin007
Congrats guys! Great idea. Looking forward to getting one for the fam for the
holidays!

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luccastera
Wow! I really like that idea. Now what would be great is if I could hook it up
to my Facebook account so that as my friends are adding pictures on Facebook,
they show up on my Picwing frame sitting at home automatically.

~~~
edawerd
This is a really cool idea too, and it's def on our feature list. We would
also keep in mind that all your pictures on facebook are not necessarily the
pictures you want on your grandmas photo frame =)

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axod
It's sort of funny seeing this, after CO2Stats.

Surely electronic picture frames are sort of bad in terms of using energy
needlessly? Is there technology yet that only uses power when the display
_changes_ , and not all the time?

~~~
vlad
"Electronic paper" is designed this way.

~~~
axod
In production and cheap yet?

~~~
nick5768
It's the stuff that is used in the Kindle and Sony Reader displays (also in
that upcoming Esquire magazine cover
[http://www.hackaday.com/2008/07/30/esquires-hackable-e-
paper...](http://www.hackaday.com/2008/07/30/esquires-hackable-e-paper-
display/) ). I know the refresh rates are still very "1st generation", but
have no idea about how far along color displays are though.

------
Baltropreneur
Cool stuff!

I wonder how many times Paul Graham saw this idea mentioned in applications
before picking the right team to implement it?

Overall exciting to see these devices slowly becoming popular (Chumby). There
is a ton of innovation to occur here.

~~~
marketer
That's probably a compliment to the picwing guys :) An idea that seems obvious
in retrospect is probably a good idea. But I'm betting it wasn't obvious to a
lot of people before the TC article. If you said, four months ago, that you
wanted to "view your photostream across any medium", you'd get plenty of blank
stares :)

~~~
Baltropreneur
Yeah it was a 2ndary idea we mentioned in sept 2007 application. Like do you
have any other ideas we may find of interest.

Though we were not looking at it from a hardware standpoint, but social photo
software.

Either way its great to see these devices start catching on and congrats to
these guys!

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hooande
When is Mother's Day again? One less holiday present I have to worry about.

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terpua
<http://www.picwing.com/about>

Just like jobsyndicate and startuply, nice copy. Perhaps PG looks for hackers,
who are also writers :)

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auston
Dude holy crap! I was totally thinking of this! I'm definitely going to get a
few!

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Tichy
Why do digital picture frames always have such broad borders? I'd really like
one that is more elegant, that is, with less wasted "screen estate".

But never mind, I won't buy one anyway - I am waiting for digital ink to catch
up...

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khill
When I see something like this, my first thought is, "I wonder how easily this
could be hacked so I could display whatever picture I wanted on random
people's photo frames?"

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ericwan
this one is awesome. I'd get one for my mom when it gets cheaper. =)

Have you guys thought of sync-ing them with flickr and facebook pictures? Or
you guys are already working on it?

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maxklein
Too expensive. For $50 you'll have me, till then, no deal.

~~~
axod
For $249 you could just buy a mini laptop :/

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whalesalad
Pricey but I bought one. Mom's birthday is right around the corner and I love
supporting a small and new startup.

