Company Review - ScanDigital
Saving memories, one picture at a time
Not too long ago, there existed a world of darkrooms, negative reels, and chemical development of pictures. A frightening place where pictures and memories were developed in dark closets filled with chemical baths, just to be left on the bookshelf to gather dust. But somehow, people endured this difficult age. Through determination and innovation, people were able to break away from these dark times and into the golden era of digital photography- an age where no picture would grow dust on the bookshelf, or so they thought.
Unbeknown to the people of the golden age, photographs of the past continued to hide on bookshelves, in shoeboxes, and within picture albums. Oblivious to this, the memories of the people’s past continued to fade. But one day, a ray of hope entered the old bookshelves, the hidden shoeboxes, and the forgotten picture albums. There came an entrepreneur, a young innovator, who would take up the quest to save these people’s memories. ScanDigital would convert people’s pictures to digital form.
ScanDigital, an LA area based
company started in 2007, does exactly that: they scan old printed photos,
optimize them, upload them onto an online gallery, and deliver them back as a
CD / DVD. The ScanDigital idea is definitely a useful one. As Anderson
Schoenrock (CEO) explains, it could take the average person hours, if not days,
to digitally convert her old photos. Essentially anyone who is currently
shopping around the internet still has countless old photographs just hidden
away somewhere. Unfortunately, the vast majority of these people just do not
have the time to start scanning every picture since Uncle Ernie’s 3rd wedding.
And that is where ScanDigital comes in.
The ScanDigital service focuses on
doing as much as possible, so that the user doesn’t have to. In fact,
ScanDigital offers an option in which all the customer needs to do is send the
photos in a box; no need to count, pre-sort, or organize images. Once the
photos are received, ScanDigital will scan the photos and then touch them up
through cropping and color correction in order to get the photos looking as
close to the original quality as possible. After this, ScanDigital uploads the
refined images onto a custom online gallery. Here, users can share images with
friends and family, organize the photos, upload other digital images, and order
reprints and other print products using the now well-organized digital images.
Finally, ScanDigital puts all the user’s photos onto a CD/DVD and delivers it
back at no additional cost. 
In addition to scanning traditional
photos, ScanDigital also accepts entire photo albums, slides in carousels,
magazines and protective slide display pages, negatives, and video film. Through
the film option, ScanDigital will convert old home movies to digital format and
put them onto a DVD.
However, the true selling point of the ScanDigital service is its simplicity. With user-friendly interface and a well-communicated tracking system for transactions, ScanDigital attempts to help customers by simply allowing them to understand what they are paying for.
Overall, the ScanDigital concept is both convenient and appealing. Although the
world of non-digital photography will soon be forgotten, in the meantime,
ScanDigital will continue to help the people in their transition from the old
dark times to the golden age.
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Photobucket is the most popular site on the Internet for uploading, sharing, linking and finding photos, videos, and graphics. Your free Photobucket account can store thousands of photos and hours of video. Photobucket also offers free tools for making slideshows of photos, videos with music. You can share your photos and videos with friends by email, IM and mobile phone. Plus, you browse through Photobucket's huge online library of photos and videos to find the latest and best photos, images and videos. Finally, Photobucket's online store lets you print pictures, as well as add them to shirts, hoodies, mugs, calendars, stickers, wall posters and more.
Photobucket was founded in 2003 and acquired by Fox Interactive Media, Inc., a division of News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) in July 2007. The company is headquartered in Denver, Colo. with offices in Palo Alto, Calif.
ScanDigital, Inc.
Startup/Business
Joined Vator on
ScanDigital provides a service to help consumers convert old photos, slides, negatives, photo albums, videos and movie film into digital format.
When customers place an order with ScanDigital, they simply set up an account at www.scandigital.com and the service will automatically generate a UPS shipping label to send images and video to their headquarters. Photos are scanned and then individually cropped, oriented and color-corrected. The service also removes dust, minor scratches, blemishes and red eyes. Videos are transferred to digital and then reviewed for quality.
The digitized images and video are returned on CD, DVD or a hard drive along with the originals, usually within a week after the materials are received at ScanDigital. Image files are also uploaded to a free online gallery for viewing, sharing, and purchasing reprints as well as mugs, key chains, greeting cards, t-shirts, and other merchandise. Customers can also upload images directly to their gallery from a digital camera and computer to unite new and old images for one seamless photo archive.
ScanDigital also sells Digital Photo Frames which can be preloaded by the Company with newly digitized images. The Company has developed a unique Slideshow creation tool which allows users to have more control over the customization of a digital slideshow, but removes the time intensive, technical work.
rmbr
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rmbr is a funware application that combines the best of social multiplayer games and digital photography to maximize fun, stickiness and virtual item revenue. Unlike current photosharing sites, rmbr is designed to be easy and engaging: it works with existing social networks, automatically synchronizes your photos while ensuring the best ones come to the surface, and allows you to instantly message, doodle and play photo games with your friends and family. The company was founded in April 2007 by veteran startup technologist Christopher Cunningham and online game pioneer Gabe Zichermann. rmbr is headquartered in New York City.
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