espodesigns

October 15, 2006
Your treasured photos are brought to you by …

As she came down the stairs, took out a glass for orange juice and reached for a bowl for her cereal, a proud Grandma watched as pictures from yesterday’s pumpkin picking of her grandson float over a dazzling silver 8.2 inch LCD screen next to her phone.  

One of the wonderful things about digital photography is that you can take and share photos with people all over the world. But with limited storage space on computers and memory cards, privacy and security concerns of websites and technology challenges for many individuals, CEIVA™ has found a simple, fast, easy way to share digital photos through a CEIVA Digital Photo Receiver™ using their CEIVAMobile™ technology. This program allows anyone to send photos from a cell phone anywhere in the world directly to a CEIVA Digital Photo Receiver™ anywhere in America.  

Grandma’s viewing of digital photos is an end results of packaged, retrievable shared information. In the selected articles that I read this week, a common thread discussed the synthesis of personal information into a format that that can be retrieved for enjoyment at a later time. Various methods such as labeling, Genimap navigation, key word searching and icons were listed to help make this retrieval process possible. But most people are getting accustomed to retrieving information quickly or “Googling in a packaged format that will contain all possible answers to our information. This paper will discuss some websites where not only information is retrieved, but the environment in which information is organized and shared.  

Photos are one of the most common items shared on the internet or mobile phone. It is a form of self expression and used to document loved ones and places. CEIVA™ is one form of technology used to share photos. Another is snapfish.com. This site allows you to post, edit, develop prints, develop personalized stationary, send photos to a mobile device and e-mail photos for sharing with families and friends. It is organized by album title and is saved by month. This site features a centralized location for selected users to share photos, messages and notifications. This tool demonstrates a package format desired by users to organize digital photos quickly. 

Another site which demonstrates the need for organization of bits of data is del.icio.us. This site is a collection of bookmarks and favorite articles, blogs, music, reviews, recipes and more that can be accessed from any computer on the web. Del.icio.us uses tags to organize and remember bookmarks. Del.icio.us is a site that can be shared with friends and family. No longer is a mass spam e-mail necessary to announce a particular article or link; this site allows for real time access of important information with a twist of an organizational element. 

Online banking has helped organize the checkbooks of thousands, if not millions. Most banks offer free online access to accounts, bill payment and notification, transfer of money between accounts, stop payment requests, check order requests and check receipts. Online banking can keep a running total of how much in a given time a payee, has been paid, e.g., electric company.  Encryption used with banks helps assure the customer of trust and security when using online banking. The process of balancing a checkbook has been packaged to offer convenient, current information that can be modified to the end user. 

Sharing of photos, thoughts, sites and bits of information are part of human nature. We love to display what is important and meaningful in our lives. Most people live very busy lives with constant demands. Various websites and technologies that can tap upon our emotions, organize a mundane necessary task or organize massive amounts of information quickly will be embraced as a critical need and desire with technology. In addition, pre-created sites and services that allow for safe, secure, user created and user defined audience participation will define some of the popular organizational packages of the future.  

Citations

Bank of America. Retrieved October 15, 2006 from http://www.bankofamerica.com/index.cfm.

CEIVA.com. Retrieved October 15, 2006 from http://www.ceiva.com.

Czerwinski, M., Gage, D.W., Gemmell, J., Marshall, C., Pérez-Quiñonesis, M., Skeels, et al (2006). Digital memories in an era of ubiquitous computing and abundant storage. Communications of the ACM, 49(1), 45-50.

Gemmell, J., Bell, G., & Lueder, R. (2006). MyLifeBits: a personal database for everything. Communications of the ACM, 49(1), 89-95.

Kangas, E. & Kinnunen, T. (2005). Applying user-centered design to mobile application development. Communications of the ACM, 48(7), 55-59.

Snapfish.com. Retrieved October 15, 2006 from http://www1.snapfish.com/home/t_=47879398.