Deja Vizit?
Wednesday, December 16, 2009 at 10:20PM Today's Wall Street Journal featured a profile of Glen Lurie, President of the AT&T's new product group charged with creating non-traditional wireless products. In the article, a new digital picture frame, called Vizit from Isabella Products, was highlighted.
I received an email from the company today, indicating the product will be available for $279.99 plus a choice of Photo Plans: aBasic Photo Plan $5.99/month or a Premium Photo Plan $79.99/year (includes 20% more photos).
A year ago, during my tenure at T-Mobile, I led a product development team that launched the T-Mobile cameo, one of the first digital picture frames connected to a wireless carrier network. The product was highly appealing to consumers and reviewers alike. Engadget noted: "Critics were able to MMS over images from a variety of rival networks...Overall, however, it was noted that usability was remarkably high and that the process was easy enough for most anyone to grasp."
T-Mobile cameo
The main challenge the product struggled with was its pricing model which integrated an unsubsidized piece of hardware with its utility coming from a monthly service. Imagine if all of a sudden your digital camera cost you $279, like it does today, but every picture you take flies automagically to your Flickr or your MobileMe account. And the whole thing only works if you pay a fee every month.
New experiences often create dissonance in a consumer's mind when they are introduced, but that is especially true when new pricing models are appended to them. How do I value having a TV that gives me 999 channels when in practical terms I only watch so many hours of television? How many consumers know their home broadband speed and how much of that bandwidth they pay for they actually use each month?
The Vizit picture frame may add a few capabilities to the cameo - screen, website management tools - but the pricing model may still be the biggest barrier to the category becoming mainstream for consumers.
Reader Comments (2)
Why wouldn't you try and bundle the wireless service into the price of the device, similar to the Kindle? Isn't the intent of embedded wireless products to have a low-cost wireless service that is obscured from the customer?
My assumption is that the wireless portion of this device is low cost; the majority of costs are incurred by the person sending the photo. Using your tv analogy(albeit dated), this is a screen that can receive a lot of content over the air. If they want expanded services, then they can sign up with a carrier to upgrade.
Great feedback! I think the model you suggest is a good one. I love how that makes my Kindle no fuss, no muss when I need access.
These picture frames aren't as low cost as you might think, once they get an embedded 3G radio, and play video, like the cameo did. And selling access to the 3G network - to enable MMS and coverage- requires changes to carrier billing (gifting, annual subscriptions). Some of that infrastructure support, admittedly, is the actual innovation Lurie had to execute.