Educating the Masses
June 20th, 2008
Whenever a new service or product launches - especially a consumer product, there is a span of time the creators have to spend explaining to people just exactly what they do, before they can start selling it to them.
We guys still get blank stares when we mention online photo printing, personalised calendars or custom mugs. I would love to get to a stage where there is instant recognition when one mentions these.
So how is this instant recognition achieved? One great contributor to that is competition. Your competition, to start with just ensures there are more people explaining the same thing often in different ways, and then someone with more marketing moolah will take such awareness mainstream.
Which is why I want to thank Canon. I recently came across this billboard for Canon’s latest home printer called the Wonder Box. And hear hear! They aren’t selling great page throughput, <super high number> print resolution or some other arcane jing bang. They are selling one important use - that you can use the wonder box to make personalised calendars, greeting cards, photobooks and t-shirts!
Of course, you can already make all these cool personalised products at itasveer (some in the works).
(Click to enlarge)
Which also brings us to another question: Home Printers. Do you think home printers have a got a chance in this niche personalisation market? Would you rather use a home printer instead of an online service? Let us know in the comments.
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7 Comments Add your own
1. Sandeep Pagey | June 20th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Actually, if the service of an online provider is as good as that of iTasveer, I would just use the online service as compared to having a printer of my own. I will have a low resolution printer for immediate needs but will do all heavy duty stuff through iTasveer.
Kudos.
2. ashes | June 21st, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Well, anyone who doesn’t print a new TShirt everyday or a calendar every week would prefer an online service like yours rather than investing in a printer like that. And thinking hard and long, another use of such a personal printer would be when somebody has confidential photos to be printed and they fear you guys might try to blackmail them later :)
3. Animesh | June 21st, 2008 at 9:33 pm
Well actually getting a printer is only half the story. For eg. products like photobooks and calendars need more than just printing - there’s the binding to take care of. Apart from that printing from most such inkjets is quite expensive, maybe we should do a post on that as well, comparing a few printers vs online printing.
4. Shalini | June 24th, 2008 at 1:02 am
I use home printers when I am in a fix and need pictures instantly to meet a deadline or something otherwise I alway rely on professional services.
We have three different printers (HP, Lexmark, Epson) at home none can beat a professional finish… I don’t think you need to worry about competition from that direction.
About photobooks and t-shirts, I think its too much experimentation for an individual, I’d rather go for something more sure shot.
5. Animesh | June 25th, 2008 at 10:06 am
Hey Shalini, I had been wanting to connect with you since a while.. you seem to have a great knack with scrapbooks. You have some amazing work there :)
Will definitely drop you an email in the coming few days
6. Shalini | June 26th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Thanks Animesh, I’d look forward to it.
I wanted to ask you something, is it possible that when the pictures from Picasa are selected for printing, their comments could be transfered too… its quite a pain to type each one of them again.
7. Animesh | July 3rd, 2008 at 3:47 pm
It is ofcourse possible, I’ll take this down as a feature request.
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