July 04, 2003
Guradian: Picture messaging taking off
A writer in the Guardian, Sean Dodson, wrote this good piece on the emerging acceptance of camera phones and how people tend to use them in unexpected ways.
According to Mobile Data Association, quoted in the article, there is however less person to person communication going on than people sending pictures to themselves or friends using bluetooth / IR.
Could it be that people find it too hard to configure the MMS or GPRS functionality of their phones? Or don't see the reason why they should publish things they take on the web...? Like some other geeks I know? ;)
He also mentions the variety of novel and practical uses found for camera phones. Snapping photos of damaged goods, magazine covers, injuries, taxi drivers, criminals or suspicious individuals (that's a scary one). This is what happens when interesting technologies mix and become common place, people use them in ways previsously not thought of.
"'Although there was a lot of hype with the launch of things like Vodafone Live, the reality is only a small percentage of users have camera phones in the UK,' explains Ben Wood, a mobile phone analyst at Gartner. 'We regard photo messaging as a kind of disposable photography. It's sending a picture you probably would not have previously taken.'
I like the phrase "disposable photography". Very good label. Most pictures taken with camera phones probably never would have been taken with a regular camera or even an ordinary digital camera. It is the ease with which you pass the picture on to others or to oter equipment of yours that is the thing. Not just the fact that you always carry a camera with you.
"It's too early to tell how picture messaging is doing, but it is worth remembering that text messaging was first available in 1993 and it did not take off until 1998. The mobile internet was first available in 2000 and only now is it also beginning to take off. Unlike the pictures the phones take, there is no immediate answer."
Guardian Unlimited | Online | The real picture
Posted by manne at July 4, 2003 09:40 AM | TrackBack