General Sessions

InfoTrends State-of-the-Market Address

The digital photography market is at a crossroads. The old business of photography is struggling as digital camera sales decline and photo printing matures. Imaging vendors and retailers are searching for new opportunities that will mark the launch of the new business of photography. This brave new world will revolve around connected experiences, where many of the new players will be from non-traditional photography companies. Decisions are being made now that will determine who the early mover advantage goes to. This opening session will present InfoTrends’ view of the industry, discuss market directions, and provide a snapshot of future market opportunities and threats.
Speaker: Ed Lee, Group Director, InfoTrends Inc.

GS1: Digital Photography and the Connected Generation

The digital camera market has reached middle age and a mid-life crisis is looming. More than 3 in every 4 households own a digital camera now; coupled with a slowing economy means that 2009 will be one of the toughest years for digital camera vendors and retailers. However, ultra active, photo-centric consumers exist. This session will look at digital capture market, the present and future, and then drill down to active segments, like the 18-24 year olds whose lives center around photography and communications. We will take a deep dive into end user data looking at how this segment is developing and consider the role that photography plays in their lives.
Speaker: Ed Lee, Group Director, InfoTrends Inc.

GS2: Prints, Books, Calendars and Cards: From Niche to Mainstream

Digital photo prints and merchandise have proven their staying power in a gloomy economy by continuing to appeal to consumers that are keeping a close eye on their finances. This session will give a market overview of the digital photo printing and photo merchandise markets, present findings from recent InfoTrends consumer surveys, as well as look at the factors that will influence the market over the next few years. InfoTrends most up-to-date forecast data for the digital photo print, photo merchandise and photo printer markets will also be shared.
Speaker: David Haueter, Associate Director, InfoTrends Inc.

GS3: It’s All Starting To Come Together

Not too long ago, capturing, storing, sharing, and printing photos were discrete activities. Now, thanks to wireless technology and built-in networking, the digital imaging ecosystem is an important part of consumers’ connected lifestyles. This session will discuss how this connectivity helps enable anytime anywhere access to collections of personal photos and video.
Speakers: Yuval Koren, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer, Eye-Fi
Art Garcia, Senior Mobile Print Marketing Strategy Lead, HP
JP Wollersheim, Sr. Product Manager, Microsoft

GS4: The Four Screens in the House – Electronic Viewing Emerges

Looking at pictures has always been a favorite family pastime. The most popular methods used to be prints and slide shows. While the behaviors have not changed, the viewing methods have. Now more than ever consumers have choices. Viewing of photos today can be done on the many screens in the home: computers, televisions, digital picture frames, and even mobile phones. A battle for eyeballs in the home is underway. Many questions are arising. Which methods will be most popular? What barriers exist? How do vendors monetize the viewing behaviors? Come hear what some of the leading vendors have to say about the opportunities that present themselves in the world of electronic viewing.
Speakers: Gene Ornstead, Director, DTV and Business Development, ViewSonic Corporation
Matthew Growney, Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Isabella Products, Inc

GS5: Organization of Photos for Long Term Preservation and Easy Retrieval

Multiple tools for managing, preserving, organizing, and retrieving photos are on the market, either for free of for a fee. However, most consumers have no systems in place for looking after their invaluable collection of photos. Nevertheless, they expect to pass on at least half of these photos to future generations. This session considers the impact of consumers losing track of their photo collections and what can be done to help consumers to better label, tag, organize, preserve, and retrieve photos.
Speakers: Chris MacAskill-CEO & President, SmugMug
Robert Carter, Director of Product Management, Kodak Gallery
Anderson Schoenrock, CEO, ScanDigital

GS6: Consumer Trends in Online Photo Sharing

There are more options than ever before for consumers who want to share their photos online. While some sites compete, others cooperate, but do any sites meet all the needs? This session will present an overview of several different online photo services along with highlights of InfoTrends’ 2009 research covering consumers’ use of social networking sites (with an emphasis on photo sharing activities) and more traditional online photo services.
Speaker: Alan Bullock, Associate Director, InfoTrends

GS7: The Convergence of Online Photo Services and Social Networks

Consumers are sharing hundreds of millions of photos each month on social networking sites, where output opportunities are generally limited. Online photo services, on the other hand, produce billions of prints each year, along with countless other custom photo gifts and merchandise, but lack many of the social features that attract users for sharing and viewing. In this session, representatives from both sides will discuss ways that they can work together to offer a more complete solution for their users.
Speakers: Rick Patch, President & CEO, LifePics
Peter Pezaris, CEO, Multiply
Erik Weitzman, Senior Director of Products & Services Strategy, Shutterfly
Kyle Hall, CEO, PNI Media

GS8: Making the Right Equipment Choices in the Retail Photo Market

Vendors in today’s retail photo market have a wide assortment of photofinishing products and services they can choose from, with choices that have to be made between dry and silver-halide minilabs, self-serve or satellite photo kiosks, or a combination of everything. In this session, our panelists will discuss the benefits and challenges involved in this decision making process from their perspectives. They will also discuss how they are helping their customers make the right choices in photofinishing equipment, as well as placement and product workflow.
Speakers: Kirk Sidley-President of N&S Photo and the Chairman of the Board of IPI
Kalle Marsal, Director of Product Management, Retail Publishing Solutions, HP
Rafael Soltero, General Manager, Marketing Support Division, International Sales & Marketing Unit, Noritsu Koki Co., Ltd.
Rowan Lawson, Director of Worldwide Marketing, Kodak
Bing Liem, Vice President of Sales, Imaging Division, Fujifilm

Collaborative Sessions

CS1: You’ve Shared or Printed Your Photos. Now what?

Most digital camera owners today are knowledgeable about printing and sharing their digital photos, but few are doing a good job of archiving their most important photos. This collaborative session will deal with the topic of digital photo archiving, addressing questions such as: What can be done to improve consumer knowledge on digital photo archiving? What are the best methods to save and archive photos that you want to pass on to future generations? Are prints the best way to archive photos since technologies and formats will likely change over the next few decades? This should be an interesting discussion, as this is one of the most misunderstood areas of digital photography for many consumers.
Moderator: Frank Baillargeon, f/22 Consulting, President

CS2: Spotlight on Generation Y and Z

The current generations of young adults and teenagers have grown up with the computers, the Internet, cell phones, instant messaging, and digital photography. They embrace technology and are not intimidated by it. In this session we will address questions such as: What influences their decisions? How do they communicate? How do you communicate with these groups? What methods work and don’t? This session will be a lively discussion about designing products and selling to these fast growing consumer segments.
Moderator: Jeff Hayes, President, InfoTrends Inc.

CS3: Reigniting the Market for Digital Cameras

Digital camera sales have peaked in the U.S. Without an intervention, the forecast is for a slow decline in sales. Many camera companies and retailers still rely on camera sales to bring in revenues and profits. What will it take to get digital camera sales jump started again? During this collaborative session we will investigate how to get the camera market back on track. Some topics up for discussion are the role of marketing versus technology, the evolution of the retail channel, cameras in 2012, effects of cameras phones, wireless technologies, device convergence, and more.
Moderator: Ed Lee, Group Director, InfoTrends Inc.

CS4: Driving Home Photo Printing

Home photo printers have been losing ground to retail and online sites in photo print volume, but remain an important part of the imaging ecosystem that most people still use on a regular basis. In this session, we will address questions such as: What would it take to get consumers to print more photos at home? Is it only a print cost issue that’s keeping people from printing more at home? Are there any technologies that would drive home printing that are not in the market now? What’s the future of the snapshot photo printer? This session will gave those with interest in the home photo printer market a chance for a lively discussion on these topics.
Moderator: David Haueter, Associate Director, InfoTrends Inc.

CS5: Camera Phones and Mobile Imaging

Camera phones have become ubiquitous in today’s world, but the camera has become just another function on the mobile phone instead of a truly legitimate competitor to a dedicated digital still camera. This collaborative session will focus on questions such as: How will camera phones and digital cameras co-exist over the next 5-10 years? Will camera phones ever have the performance to replace a digital camera? What would make consumers print more camera phone photos? Will the need for a zoom lens also be holding the camera phone market back?
Moderator: Pierre Barbeau, CEO, Moblico

CS6: Working with Retailers

Retail stores are the “front lines” of the consumer digital photography market, where many are buying their products and making their prints and merchandise. In this collaborative session, participants will discuss how to best work with retailers to sell products and services. Topics may include how to best work with retailers on product placement and awareness, best ways to approach retail stores about selling a product or service and how to work with retail stores from an online perspective.
Moderator: Rob Shadowens, Senior Buyer Photo and Communications, Meijer

Special Interest Sessions

SI1: The Pros Have It

Professional photographers understand that the digital imaging market is still about photography at its core. For them it’s about taking a great picture and ultimately selling it for a profit. Cameras, software, and services are just tools for the job. Nevertheless, they are very important tools. Imaging vendors seeking new profit opportunities would be wise not to ignore the pro market. Come hear what challenges pros are facing today and how they can overcome them, how the web can be used as a business tool for photographers, and more.
Speakers: Jerry Grossman, Editor-in-Chief, Photo Industry Reporter and Demystifying Digital
Serge Timacheff, Official Photographer – International Fencing Federation, Corbis & Olympic Games
Kevin Gilbert, CEO, Blue Pixel

SI2: Camera Phones – They’re Not Just For Taking Pictures

Despite the buzz around the newest batch of camera phones with five, eight, and even twelve megapixel resolution, the real value of the camera phone in the digital imaging ecosystem may lie in photo viewing and sharing. In this session, panelists will discuss the mobile phone as a complete digital imaging appliance.
Speakers: Andrew Erlichson, CEO, Phanfare
Dr. Sean Varah, President & CEO, MotionDSP
Gary Pageau, Publisher, Content Development and Strategic Initiatives, PMA

SI3: B2B Opportunities in Photo Merchandise & Publishing

Consumer photo books, calendars and cards have given a real lift to the photo output side of the market, but there is a lot of untapped potential in business-to-business photo merchandise and publishing applications. These products could include everything from product portfolios and promotional post cards to directories and yearbooks. This B2B side of the market could provide a lucrative opportunity for vendors that successfully promote their products and services to target this market and can provide a new revenue stream to supplement the consumer business. In this session, our panelists will discuss the ways that they are pursuing the B2B market and the opportunities and challenges involved. They will also discuss how vendors that have been focusing on the consumer market can transition to effectively start catering to business customers as well.
Speakers: Kim Miller, VP of Marketing Retail Publishing Solutions, HP
John Lacagnina, President & CEO, Color Centric

SI4: Spotlight on Moms

Moms take, share and print more photos than the average digital camera owning consumer. This session will focus on reaching the “mom’s network” by answering questions such as: How can businesses market most effectively to mom’s? How are moms sharing information through networking and how can I most effectively use that in my marketing efforts? How do the habits of moms change as kids grow older? Participants in this session should leave with some good ideas for catering more to this important segment.
Speaker: Maria Bailey, Author of "Mom 3.0: Marketing with Moms by Leveraging New Media and Technology" and CEO of BSM Media

SI5: Where are the Clouds? Send in the Clouds

More photos, larger image files, and digital video all add up to increasingly large collections of personal digital content. Where should that collection reside for an optimum combination of accessibility, connectivity, safety? Cloud Storage may be the answer, but several questions remain: Where does the cloud reside? How many clouds are there? How are multiple clouds managed and synchronized? How and from where can the clouds be access and managed? This session will discuss various solutions available for consumers to store their collection of photos and video.
Speakers: Laura Yecies, CEO, Sharpcast
Rob Hruska, Senior Product Marketing Manager, NewBay Software

SI6: The Convergence of Still and Video Capture

HD Video is one of the hot features of the year for compact and digital SLR cameras and pocketable video cameras. The proliferation of videos on the Internet and camera vendor and retailer hype are fueling consumer interest in video capture. Evolution of the feature is putting digital still cameras and camcorders on a collision path. During this session a panel of leading vendors will discuss the market and the opportunities and challenges that HD video creates, such as consumer acceptance, technological advantages, software, workflow, and storage issues, and who the winners will be.
Speaker: Jan Piros, Product Management, Corel
Mike Sonders, Product Management, MotionDSP