A relative requested some prints today, so I hit Shutterfly, a site I’ve used in the past. They appeared to be down so I googled for information about them. It’s been so long since I’ve used them, I thought maybe they’d gone out of business (they haven’t).

While searching, I ran across an article whichthat has some interesting background on the state of digital photo printing.

"The consumer doesn't need to print images anymore," Chute said. "On average, about a third of folks who own digital cameras don't print. ... The ones who print, print on average less than 20 percent of their photos."

- Net sector struggles to capture digital photo market

I used to print a lot more than I do now. With sites like Flickr and my own online photo album, there just isn’t much need for me to print photos. I still print occassionally for decorative pieces around the house, but those are just my best shots. Maybe the top 0.25% of my photos. I don’t print en masse anymore.

With the falling prices of LCD displays, one can easily imagine a near future where one doesn’t even need to do that anymore. LCDs will be so cheap (think under $50) that I’ll be able to just buy a bunch of LCD picture frames and throw them around the house. If they’re smart, they’ll all come with some kind of wireless networking built-in (not like the awful subscription scheme Ceiva uses) so I can upload new pictures to all of the frames in the house with just a few mouse clicks. How cool would it be if the entire refrigerator door was one giant LCD screen?

Comments

1. Joey Livingston on 2005-01-13 07:00:44 wrote: Have you heard about <a href=“http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3568505.stm>digital paper? Very nice blog, btw.