Teleshutterbugs Have a New Way to Share

WEST TRENTON - This year marks the fifth anniversary of the camera phone’s entry into the North American consumer market. These hybrid devices have come a long way, evolving from novelty status to producers of reasonably clear photos. Now Exclaim, a West Trenton provider of Web-based and wireless applications for sharing photos, video and sound, wants to teach cell phones a new trick: sending snapshots directly to a Walgreens pharmacy for printing.

Exclaim has rolled out its new Pictavision Teleprints application, which enables camera-phone users to forward their pictures to pharmacies run by Deerfield, Ill.-based Walgreen Co. for printing.

While the Pictavision software first appeared in 2003, it only allowed users to upload their pictures to the Web for printing by dotPhoto.com, another service owned by Exclaim. In February, Exclaim introduced the new Pictavision version as the first consumer offering that moves photos directly from camera phones to a professional printing outlet.

“Basically we have taken out this whole step of having to send them to the Web and then print them,” says Jiren Parikh, vice president and general manager of wireless with Exclaim. “According to the Consumer Electronics Association for 2006, 9 percent of global digital pictures taken were taken with camera phones. However they are all sitting on the camera phone; they are not

going anywhere.”

The Pictavision Teleprints software is a free download available through one’s wireless carrier. It is available to Alltel customers, and will soon be offered by Verizon Wireless, according to Parikh. Sprint and Cingular will offer the application beginning in June, he says.

Once the application is loaded onto a camera phone, the user can send digital pictures to any of the more than 5,600 Walgreens in the mainland United States and Puerto Rico. Carriers charge users $1.99 to transmit an image; Walgreens charges 19 cents apiece for prints and will hold them for pickup or mail them out.

Lubna Dajani, chief executive officer of technology- and business-services provider Stratemerge in Westwood, sees the application as a way to distribute camera-phone pictures more widely among technophobes. “It’s interesting when you can send your photos to the local Walgreens where your grandmother is, or someone like that who is not digitally inclined,” she says. “I think they will do well with this service, especially if they don’t have too many competitors. It’s a good idea.”

While Web sites such as Flickr.com and Kodak.com make it possible to upload images from camera phones to the Web for later downloading and printing, Parikh says the process turns off many users. “Uploading that photograph and saying you are going to print it later, you probably just lost 75 percent of your audience,” he says.

Exclaim, which has 50 employees, split into wireless and Web divisions two years ago. Its primary investors are Lawrenceville’s Edison Venture Fund and Sycamore Ventures, which has an office in Princeton. Parikh says the company is profitable.

Printing camera-phone pictures raises questions of quality. Many camera phones take low-resolution photos that are unsuitable for printing in the usual 4-by-6 or 5-by-7 sizes.

In-Stat, a research firm in Scottsdale, Ariz., last year reported that only one in 20 camera-phone users printed their pictures or posted them online.

Exclaim says it adjusts print choices to best match a picture’s clarity. “Once our software is downloaded to your phone from the carrier, depending on the resolution quality, we give you options,” says Parikh. “If you have a 3.2-megapixel phone” that produces high-resolution photos, “it can give you an option for 5-by-7 photos. If you don’t, it’s going to limit it to 4-by-6.” He says the Pictavision software enhances the quality of low-resolution pictures before sending them to Walgreens.

“With camera-phone quality going up, even a 1.3-megapixel lens you have on a Motorola RAZR probably is pretty good for a 4-by-6 photo,” Parikh adds. Meanwhile, camera phones are becoming increasingly powerful; some have the capability of taking pictures on a par with inexpensive digital cameras. “You’ve got a 3.2-megapixel phone [on the market],” says Parikh. “That takes pretty phenomenal pictures.”

Advances in mobile phones typically happen abroad before reaching the United States. “In South Korea and Japan right now, the standard is four and five megapixels,” says Parikh. “We believe that by 2008, we’ll be at four megapixel phones [here] and after that it’s going to be five megapixels and up.” Cell phone picture quality could then rival that of many digital cameras.

E-mail to jpruth@njbiz.com