MINDING YOUR
BUSINESS
| SHOTS SEEN 'ROUND THE WORLD By Lynn Miller |
How does it feel to be a tiny company battling a giant multinational? Ask Phil Garfinkle, president and CEO of PictureVision. His Herndon-based company is competing with Eastman Kodak -- the 800-pound gorilla of the photo field. |
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 artwork by Michael Goodman
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Both companies are counting on busy but wired families who want to share the
memories right away. PictureVision's service, PhotoNet, allows photo processors to scan
photos and upload them to a secure area on the World Wide Web. For an extra $5 per roll on
top of regular processing, customers share an access code with friends and family who then
check out the photos and order reprints on-line if they wish. Alternatively, consumers can pick the photos they want the folks to see and e-mail them the images. Photos stay on-line for 30 days at no extra cost and may be downloaded onto a computer, e-mailed or even touched up. As usual, consumers still get their prints and negatives. |
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PhotoNet is available at 8,000 photo-processing sites worldwide. Garfinkle says the service reaches 150,000 new consumers and processes close to 5 million images each month. By comparison, Kodak has more than 30,000 retail photo outlets that provide a competing product called Picture Network. "We've been extremely successful in competing with [Kodak]," says Garfinkle. Founded in 1995, PictureVision's sales jumped from $137,000 in 1996 to about $2 million last year. The company employs 50 people, including 15 who do research and development in Israel. To provide the PhotoNet service, retailers need a $10,000 digital mini-lab that puts photos on-line or on a disk. PictureVision gets a small licensing fee for each roll retailers upload. Everyone is benefiting from the new service, says Garfinkle: PictureVision collects its fees, retailers sell 30 percent more reprints, and doting grandparents get to see little Johnny's kindergarten pictures before he graduates from college.
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