It shouldn’t happen to anybody, but it especially shouldn’t have happened to Mike Marri. A 25-year photography enthusiast and uber-techie (he runs a custom home electronics business in New Jersey), Marri recently took a family vacation to America’s picturesque West Coast: Frisco, Monterey and Santa Monica. Marri documented that trip like a one-man paparazzi. Over 700 hundred high-impact, emotionally-priceless images ended up on his memory card.
And to this day, he hasn’t been able to get them off.
He’s tried. His local camera shop owner has tried. Software programs, recovery strategies, this product and that product have all been unable to retrieve Marri’s masterpieces from a corrupt, dysfunctional flash card.
“It’s been incredibly frustrating,” says the burned photog. “I’m resorting back to film!”
You’d think tragic cautionary tales like Marri’s would inspire American consumers to learn more about managing their flash memory cards or investigating various backup methods for the thousands of keepsake images that exist only on their computers. After all, everyone knows someone who’s lived through an epic hard drive crash or any number of digicam malfunctions, not to mention human malfunctions like losing those tiny SD cards or backing the pickup over the laptop. But amazingly, Americans are, for the most part, taking their chances when it comes to digital image storage, barely acknowledging their participation in a game of tech-roulette.
“The primary issue is that people in general just have way too much faith in technology,” says Lisa Walker, President of the International Imaging Industry Association (I3A), a non-profit organization that’s recently launched an educational Web site called savemymemories.org. “We asked people, ‘How long are your images going to last?’ And they looked at us like, ‘Are you stupid? Forever!’ And we were just like, ‘Oh, that’s not good. It’s really not good.’”
Indeed, just this spring, the Consumer Electronics Association reported that nearly one in three consumers don’t feel a need to back up their files. The study, called “Amassing Digital Fortunes: A Digital Storage Study”, was based on a survey conducted in December of 2007. It revealed that the average American adult currently has 1,800 digital files somewhere (80% of respondents reported using their home computer as “a primary long-term storage option”) and will likely add 1,060 more files to their personal libraries in 2008 alone. 85% of those files are photographs.
“We don’t want to use the scare-people-to-death approach, but we’ve got to get the message out about saving images,” says Walker. “People have 5 years’ worth of their kids’ lives on flash media cards. They haven’t made any prints. They haven’t done anything with them. And one day, those images are gone.”
Walker says even the rare consumer who takes the time to purchase and load a backup external hard drive or, more likely these days, burns a few favorite images on CD’s or DVD’s is not out of long-term photo-loss danger. “For one thing, optical media degrades over time…But also, technology changes so fast. There are so many issues with software and hardware migration,” says Walker, who offers the example of floppy and mini-discs. Who’s got a computer that’ll read a floppy disc anymore? Who’s to say that CD drives won’t become similarly obsolete in 30 years?
Crisis = Opportunity
Where industry-watchers see a growing consumer problem, however, they also see a burgeoning business opportunity for imaging retailers. Liz Cutting, Imaging Analyst for the NPD group, believes camera shops are the perfect place to get out the message about both backup accessories and online storage options…and sell image organization and storage as an important new service.
“Retailers are like, ‘How do we make money anymore?’ Well, photo specialty customers like to be taken care of. They’re typically older and a little more affluent. They are very appreciative of feeling like a valued customer. So, selling storage is like selling them life insurance,” says Cutting. “You don’t want to use scare tactics, but you do want to help them with good habits.”
In downtown Philadelphia, Pete Witcosky, the manager of an imaging products boutique called Photolounge offers his customers a 3-part strategy for safeguarding their photographs.
“The majority of times, we get people in who have 900 images on their 2-gig card that span a year and a half,” says Witcosky. “We tell them it’s terrible to do it that way. I always say print a copy, burn a CD and upload your images to a safe site so you have three copies.” That advice to print may sound old-school, but scientifically, it may still be the best bet for future-proofing keepsake shots. Both I3A’s educational Web site and one by CEA (www.digitaltips.org) note that good quality photo paper has a much better chance of maintaining the pristine nature of an image than a digital file, which can not only degrade over time but can be compromised every time it’s opened and cropped or tweaked.
At The Photography Center, a 38-year-old camera and now scrapbooking supply store in Malvern, PA, owner Pat Tracz has sent out educational articles about storage in her targeted e-newsletters. She’s used the issue as an opportunity to push not only higher-quality prints but premium-prized blank media, like Delkin’s Archival Gold CD’s and DVD’s which bill themselves as “The 300 Year Disc.”
She’s also begun to advertise “recovery services” for customers who’ve had bad encounters with corrupt flash cards. “We charge $30 per card to recover lost images,” says Tracz. “We’ve probably done it about six times since we started the service, but the people we do it for are ecstatic.”
I3A’s Lisa Walker says retailers could go even further, offering a full-range of storage services every time someone brings in a print order. “Tell customers, ‘Every time your media card fills up, bring it to me. I’ll offload everything. I’ll do prints or photobooks for you. I’ll hand you a nice album, a CD, and I’ll keep your electronic versions stored here so they are backed up. You pay me a certain amount a month and I’ll manage all your digital media and store the stuff for free!’ Offer some combination of service so customers get peace of mind and something tangible too.”
Into the Ether
Of course, not every retailer wants to be responsible for the electronic-storage portions of that offer. Currently, over 500 dealers throughout the U.S., including Witcosky and Tracz are relying on the online service provider LifePics to provide their customers an online storage solution. LifePics is an eight-year-old Colorado-based company founded by the son of photo specialty retailers. It offers retailers their own store-branded Web site through which customers can order prints, books and free unlimited low-res image storage, provided that the customers visit their own photo collections at least once every six months.
Retailers get a majority (95% says Tracz) of the profit margin on products and set prices for everything themselves.
“Our goal is to make sure there is no channel conflict,” sys Ken McDonald, LifePics’ VP of Marketing and Customer Success Team. “We point everybody toward a retailer.”
LifePics is about to unveil a brand new upload/storage program, debuting in Beta version this summer. Called “LifeSync,” the program has a “set and forget” function that each night automatically uploads every image a participating customer downloaded to their computer that day. “We surveyed our own customers and 87% of them said if they protect their photos at all, they periodically create CD’s or DVD’s,” says McDonald. “That’s a red flag because people only do that 2 or 3 times a year…Today, an average print order is about 30 images and most people place 4 or 5 orders a year. So they might have 150 images on our site. LifeSync will upload all of the 2,000-5,000 images on their computer to the site.”
The new service won’t be entirely free to customers, however. Storing low-res images is free, but if customers want the full high-res “archival” image saved, it’ll cost them $59.95/year (with retail partners getting a cut of that fee).
Photoshelter is another fast-growing online storage provider, albeit one that has in the past attracted more professional and advanced amateur customers. 32,000 unique users are uploading and storing (and sometimes selling their images too, through an e-commerce back end and a new stock photography service) on the PhotoShelter.com site, which offers a standard package for about $99/year. PhotoShelter CE Allen Murabayashi says the season is right for a new simplified storage product aimed at the non-pro, and he’s considering promoting that product through camera stores.
“We may offer the retailer the ability to purchase a card that has a coupon on it, offering a 3-months’ free personal archive,” says Murabayashi. “The retailer can buy it for a couple bucks and then resell it. It’s a marketing acquisition cost for us.”
Murabayashi notes that younger generations of photographers, the under-30 set, are growing up thoroughly comfortable with online storage. “People in Gen X and Gen Y have set up their own photo blogs. They’re already building an electronic trail of their own lives on social Web sites.” But Murabayashi says he expects marketing to older customers is going to be a challenge for a while. “I don’t think people take (multiple storage options) seriously,” he laments. “It’s funny, because people’s computers crash all the time!” yy
