Data Recovery at Kiosks

Printer-friendly version

How to drive consumers to photokiosks through added value services.
 
LC Technology is a company which specialises in data recovery for flash and hard drives and other storage media. They have an interesting business proposition for the photokiosk market which they are currently discussing with various manufacturers of photokiosks. With their technology, they aim to address the issue that while there is a growing installed base of photokiosks, there still remain challenges in driving consumers to the photokiosks.
 
This is a challenge that most of the photokiosk manufacturers are already well-aware of and are targeting in various ways. Companies like HP are trying to convert users of HP computers into users of HP photokiosks by providing photo editing software as standard on all new HP computers while Fujifilm’s new cameras enable users to tag on the camera which photos they would like to include in a photobook which they can then print at a Fujifilm photokiosk. While these are some of efforts being made to maintain and exploit brand loyalty another way in which companies are trying to win business in the photokiosk market is to add more customisable services and products at photokiosks.
 
LC Technology proposes to increase footfall to photokiosks by delivering added value in the form of a new handy service that can be integrated into photokiosk software with the existing hardware. They are able to integrate flash card and USB drive data recovery into photokiosk solutions, giving customers an additional reason to use photokiosks. As anyone who has lost data on a USB or flash device knows, this can be a highly frustrating and distressing experience, particularly if the data lost is photos from a holiday or special event that cannot be recreated. Having encouraged the consumer into the store to rescue their images, it is then highly likely that the customer will want to print these photos out so that they have hard copies of these priceless images. In this way, LC Technology’s solution can deliver business into the hands of the photokiosk manufacturer.
 
 
Managing Director Ken Carter explains, “We believe that such a unique value-added proposition could make a real difference in the photokiosk market in terms of the number of people currently utilising photokiosks and therefore in the profitability of existing installations. By increasing the number of users of the photokiosk, the number of prints would also increase and the achievement of an ROI on such projects could then be speeded up.”
 
They are currently in talks with a number of leading manufacturers of photokiosk solutions to discuss the advantages of this proposition and how it could be integrated into the software of next generation photokiosks. Because photokiosks now come with a wide range of media input slots – from flash cards, memory sticks, SD cards, CDs and DVDs to USB keys – the hardware integration would not present a problem. All the common types of media storage can already be inserted into a photokiosk.
 
Indeed as far as the photokiosk market as a whole is concerned, the hardware is largely mature; most of the work and innovation in recent years has been channeled into the software. At photokina 2010, Cewe launched version 4.7 of their ordering software and Kodak launched Smartfit technology for photobook creation, amongst many software innovations. It remains to be seen then which manufacturers will decide to integrate data recovery services in their photokiosk software releases of the coming years.