OurPictures, the first consumer digital photo network designed for easy photo sharing, announced today at DEMOmobile 2004 a multi-year partnership with Cognima, the UK based effortless mobile services company, to create OurPictures Mobile, an all-new photo sharing solution targeting camera phone consumers.
OurPictures Mobile integrates the wireless interface from Cognima Snap(tm) and the photo sharing network from OurPictures to produce a seamless single click photo sharing experience from the mobile phone to the PC desktop and beyond. Once a picture is snapped with a camera phone, a single click will transfer the image to friends and family, as well as the sender’s PC desktop, without losing any of the photo quality. Members can also configure the service to automatically upload new images to OurPictures without any clicks at all.
“Cognima’s photo upload system is the key to making OurPictures Mobile as easy to use as a point and shoot camera and is one of the distinguishing characteristics of the Cognima Snap service,” said John Paul, CEO of OurPictures. “Together, we tackled the problem of getting photos from camera phones to a PC — and ultimately other devices — and distilled it down to just a single click,” he added.
“OurPictures delivers an elegant solution based on a common vision: the more automatic we make the process of sharing photos for the consumer, the more likely that this service will reach critical mass,” said CEO of Cognima, Simon East. “We think our collaboration will have incredible implications for the role of photography in people’s lives and the volume of pictures shared, since mobile phones are something you always have with you and OurPictures Mobile is so easy to use.”
Camera phones are becoming ubiquitous, with some models available to U.S. consumers for as little as $35 with mobile plans. With one megapixel phones entering the US market – and two and three megapixel phones prevalent in Asia – high-quality camera phone images are now available. Within two years, photos from mobile handset cameras will become the mainstream source of new photos of vacations, friends and family. According to InfoTrends, worldwide camera phones sales will hit 150 million in 2004 resulting in an additional 29 billion digital images captured. By 2008 sales growth is expected to experience a compound annual growth rate of 55% and will reach 656 million units.
As the first industry-wide solution to enable automatic uploads of photos and video clips from a camera phone to a PC in just one click, OurPictures Mobile(tm) will be available commercially in October 2004 throughout North America and the UK on supported phones for $1.99 per month.