If you attended PMA this year you clearly saw that the photo book product had a dominant presence. This was really the first PMA that we saw high quality, and easily obtainable photo book solutions all over the show floor. While the various offerings included all manner of digital scrapbooks (another market poised for takeoff) and assorted other photo albuming product, the product we were most impressed by were the beautiful hard or soft bound photo books, with easy, interchangeable layout templates and type interfaces, that could be created with limited-click ease and ordered on the Internet or at photo kiosks in store.
And it appeared as though they were being offered by everyone with unlimited branding opps that included software packages that allow the end-user to get as involved, or as uninvolved as they choose. An important factor when you consider that the industry is finding out that there are several different incarnations of “Jennifer.”
The photo book has a market as varied as the page templates available within it. Quite simply, we see this item as one of the hottest to emerge in this industry in 2007. It brings everything to the table that digital promises to bring – ease of operation, easy to share and carries huge personal value to the creator. When an imaging product dishes out that happy hat trick, you’ve got a winner.
