Upgrading a Boomer Dad: Gadgets
By Tony Sims
Published August 28, 2010

My dad is a member of the Baby Boomer generation, born between 1946 and 1964. He has worked at the same company for forty plus years, and is now retiring. Now that he will be free to explore other interests, he needs a bit of updating to the modern times. His employment provided him a computer and a cell phone, if you want to call them that. The computer was a monochrome Tandy, just to give you an idea of its age and the cell phone predated Cingular as a company.

Next is one of the high points of any young geek’s life, my dad asked for my assistance purchasing a new computer, cell phone, and getting connected to the internet. While we are at it, he also wants to update his home theater (since he will be home more) and purchase any other gadgets that will add to his enjoyment of a life of leisure. What could be more fun than buying cool gadgets and electronics with someone else’s money?! The only rule that he has asked of me, is that it must be simple to use. I will update our GeekDad readers on this “journey,” because maybe you have someone in your life that could use a little upgrading too.

Let’s start off with a neat gadget. The Vizit Digital Frame

One thing that has definitely changed in the past few years has been digital picture frames. They are now relatively inexpensive, can store hundreds of photos and run slideshows 24 hours a day. I wanted to go with the most connected and easy frame I could find, so I picked up a Vizit frame from Isabella Products.

Vizit uses the mobile network to offer a convenient wireless experience. Vizit has a SIM card embedded inside the device, just like a cell phone, allowing the frame to have its own identity. Each frame has an email address (ie. SimsFamily@VizitMe.com) which friends and family simply email a photo to, or they can send a picture text message from their cell phone. Photos then arrive within a minute or two on the frame without any action required from the recipient. The photo is also saved in the VizitMe.com personal photo account. From the frame itself, the cellular connection allows messages to be sent from the frame. Therefore, you can use the touchscreen to pick a response to send to the person that sent you the photo, like “Great Pic, Thanks!” which they receive by email. The frame itself also has a card reader and USB port.

Vizit is the first two-way communication device using the mobile network for photo sharing, resulting in a truly interactive experience. Benefits from a cellular connection include an “Out-of-the-box” experience unrivaled by WiFi, Bluetooth, or wired devices.

The Final Word
The Vizit frame is must-have for travelers, large families, and anyone who loves to take pictures and share them. Even if my dad did not have a computer (which he doesn’t right now) he could still share pictures and receive them without any technical help or even internet service. We have had a great time sending photos to his frame for him to enjoy, also other family members from all over can share photos with him anytime.

If you are interested in the Vizit for yourself, click here for VizitMe.com for more information or to purchase.

View Article Here

July 19th, 2010
by Kyle Psaty

Isabella Products is taking their mobile-enabled digital photo frames into the realm of digital signage with the help of Nu Graphics, known for their innovative print communication solutions. Together, these companies are creating a new option for business owners looking to bring real-time digital messaging into stores.

The Vizit (shown left) marries the ease-of-use found in digital displays with the power of the mobile network to create a totally unique and award-winning piece of hardware. The first creation from Isabella Products, a new company based in Concord, Mass., the Vizit launched earlier this year and is changing the way people think about digital photo frames by offering a product that can be instantly updated with new image content remotely.

Isabella Products logoIt does everything other digital displays do, only the mobile technology (operated by a proprietary service provider the company also owns) makes it way more useful. We showed you the Vizit back in March, when it launched as a consumer product. It’s still retailing for $279.99, but service costs as little as $6 per month, so if the company can reduce the manufacturing costs of the device itself, they might have something that really changes consumer habits.

But the creative minds behind the Vizit have other plans for it, as well. They recently announced a partnership with Nu Graphics, based in Woburn, Mass., which will mean way more functionality for businesses interested in on-location, customizable digital displays. Isabella’s CEO, Matthew Growney, hopes this will introduce the mobile world to the potential behind the products they’re developing.

Nu Graphics Logo“Isabella is a mobile device company but really we like to believe that we’ve got this kind of secret backend. It’s called VizitMe, and it is a full content management platform. We’re trying to take what that does for consumers, and replicate it for a whole bunch of other markets,” says Growney. “This deal is going to basically change the entire digital signage business.”

According to Growney, there are two options for businesses looking to deliver digital display messaging to consumers. One is the kind that can be found at places like Home Depot — it involves stand-alone displays that store information on the kind of Secure Digital (SD) memory cards you might find in your digital camera. The other is the sort of digital display you might find in a bar — it usually runs on a television set, and is operated through wifi with support from digital cable providers.

Growney says both of these solutions can be cumbersome at best, and at worst, downright impossible for businesses to deploy successfully.

The Vizit’s unique hardware makes it something that can stand alone and be instantly updated, which is why Isabella Products and Nu Graphics are so excited about it.

“Nu Graphics have created a product called Nu View, which basically runs on the VizitMe platform,” says Growney. “If I’m sitting here in Concord at my computer and I manage messaging at 30 franchises, I can go in and add a coupon to every location’s display in about five minutes. These offers can be extremely dynamic, even offering deals and content during specific certain times of the day. Because it’s a full two-way interface, you can send yourself an offer or a coupon from the device right at the point of sale. With our CMS, companies are also going to be able to track all their in-store digital coupons and vouchers very easily as well.

“We think this can actually be four orders of magnitude cheaper than the incumbent technology that uses plasma TVs and wifi.”

The companies are currently looking for local franchises with multiple locations to test the messaging and introduce store customers to the unique experience the Vizit and Nu View offer.

“[The Vizit offers] a real-time display that is nomadic for the QSR and retail industries that is also cost effective,” said Nu Graphics CEO Wayne Moda in a recent press release about the deal. “Vizit becoming a digital display for advertising is a momentous first, especially in delivering new ads on a store-by-store or regional basis and offering remote management of the display.”

it will definitely be interesting to see what kinds of digital content solutions these two companies will be able to deliver to storefronts and retailers in the next few months. Hopefully the first franchises to adopt the new technology will be New England-based so we can get our hands on them as soon as they touch down.

Meanwhile, what else is Isabella Products working on?

According to Growney, Isabella are currently testing their Vizit devices for use in the home health-care industry. He and his team believe there are some unique applications in the world of elder-care for a two-way mobile device with their simple-to-use touch screen display. Imagine if your grandmother could send you an Email every morning to let you know she was starting her day, simply by touching the Vizit? The technology the team at Isabella have built could even send medication and medical treatment reminders to elderly users with no daily software maintenance from caregivers. Growney also hinted at the development of a new hardware product to compliment the Vizit.

Watch for Isabella to lead the charge into the realm of non-typical mobile devices right here in New England.

What do you think of the Vizit and the directions Isabella Products are propelling mobile technology? Have you had any experiences with Nu Graphics? Please let your thoughts be heard in the comments section below.

Learn more about Isabella Products by following them on Twitter and liking them on Facebook.

View article here.

Media Post News: Marketing Daily
By: Aaron Baar
Published: July 6, 2010

Only two years old, consumer electronics company Isabella Products has just begun to target consumers with its first Internet-connected device, Vizit, a digital picture frame that updates automatically via AT&T’s cellular network. Last month, the product received a boost when the New York Times called it out as one of “Three Upgrades for Late Adopters,” citing its ease of use and connectivity.

But Isabella founder and CEO Matthew Growney says the Vizit is just the first of several so-called Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) that are intended to fill the gap between home computers and cell phones. In a phone interview, Growney talked about the company’s first product, how it plans to avoid being pigeonholed around that product and the entire MID sector.

Q: The frame is awfully easy to use. Why didn’t anyone think of this before?

A: People have. It’s a combination of a lot of stuff that a little company can control and a big company is unwilling to let go of. It’s still certainly very early. We’re very happy so far with the customer reaction. You plug it in, and that’s pretty much it.

Q: What marketing have you done to reach consumers?

A: Our specific marketing story, if you will, for this product is family communications. So there’s a lot we do with moms and the mom-blog crowd, the mom publishing crowd and the home media crowd. In the back half of this year, we’re going to work more with our partners in a much tighter fashion for distribution and co-marketing, like AT&T, Photobucket, TimeLife. The product placement will be exploited a lot more by the larger footprint by an AT&T.com or the AT&T experience store.

Q: How important are these partnerships with a relatively new company and a relatively new product? I don’t suppose you have a lot of capital to spend on an ad campaign.

A: They’re very important to us with respect to being a valuable thought leader to them. We’ve found it very easy because we’ve presented a very compelling opportunity for them, which is to allow them to monetize what perhaps may have been previously categorized as mobile content. We certainly can’t afford to spend a million a quarter in direct advertising, so we’re able to do co-branding and be the hardware solution — the physical interface — for many of these providers like Photobucket. They love that kind of marriage so far.

Q: This is a third device for consumers. They’ve got the computers and the phone. Is this a new area for them?

A: The MID device space, that’s Isabella’s story. We’re not a photo frame company, we’re an MID company. Over the next three to five years, the world anticipates 500 million to 1 billion new devices added to the cellular networks that are not phones and are not netbooks. They are previously unconnected devices. In order to be a successful MID company in the future, you’re going to have to create not just the device experience, but also the service experience. That’s where a lot of traditional consumer electronics companies are going to have problems connecting their unconnected devices, because they don’t understand the service aspect of it.

Q: How do you avoid being defined by your first product?

A: Our second product is really going to look at selling a tablet. I think that’s very different than what a photo frame is. Having additional products in the portfolio that, again, has a different but equally compelling value proposition will have a portfolio effect. It won’t be a deviated step-sister to Vizit. I don’t think people will be wondering why the makers of Vizit will be putting out a tablet.

Q: Who do you see as your competitors both for Vizit and all Isabella products?

A: For Vizit, when you talk about the purely photo frames, there’s two thoughts. There’s one, those who don’t care about being connected. They’re going for beautiful pictures. They’re beautiful, but they’re $900, and they go for that in their marketing spiel. Then there’s the other thought, the Chumby [or] Dash, Internet channel reader and browser. We like to be in the middle, which is where we’re going to introduce innovation, but we’re going to introduce innovation for the subscriber base which is multi-generational, parents of parents, gift-giving. One side is technology savvy; the other is not.

Q: What do you do for the future for reaching consumers and walking that line? You’re still limited in people sending pictures to their grandparents.

A: Previous to today, the photo frame business was still an 80-20 gift marketplace, where 80% were bought as gifts. So far in our subscriber base, 57% bought them for gifts and 43% bought them for themselves. We’re starting to see that this isn’t just going to be for the grandma. The device experience tends to be a more unique one, and when you add new content with news and weather, and everything being hyper-local because it’s cellular, then it becomes a bit of a different experience.

Q: What do you see as the future for these MID devices then?

A: We’re not going to carry more phones, so the only way for operators to make more money is on a variety of new types of devices at a variety of price points. But the services and the interface of the hardware experience are going to be what wins. It’s not just going to be on content of stuff and it’s not going to be on the lowest price point.

View article here

Simply Modern Mom Birthday Week
June 28, 2010
By: Tiffany Bird

Guess what? Simply Modern Mom turns 1 this week. It has been an amazing year. And it’s all because of you, each individual reader of SMM. So I’m throwing you a SMM 1st birthday party. To thank you, I asked some major sponsors to help me celebrate SMM’s first birthday. What’s a birthday party without gifts, right? This is going to be a fun week because the sponsors are giving away some amazing prizes. I know. How great is that?

My first giveaway is by Isabella Products who makes the Vizit digital photo frames. They started sponsoring SMM a couple weeks ago. They are such fabulous company to work with. Vizit is the latest technology in digital frames. Not only can you display your photos on the frames but others can also contribute to your gallery. It uses mobile network to allow your friends and family to send you photos to your frame instantly by cell phone or email. Each frame requires a subscription to their secure online site that provides a place for you to store and organize images that display on your frame. And you are able to control which cell phone numbers and email addresses have permission to send images to your photo frame.

Another great thing about the frame is the touch screen. It makes it so easy to browse pictures and share them with others or reply to the sender of the photos with a thank you note or comments. The frames also come with the option of silver or black. And table stand or wall mount. This is also the perfect gift for moms and grandmas or any relatives who live far away. What a great way to keep in touch.










The Birthday Present

One winner will win a black Vizit frame. Oh my. The frame is worth $279. So boy are you lucky. The winner will have to purchase a VizitMe plan for the frame to work to activate the frame. You have a choice between two plans, basic for $5.99/mo where you can upload about 100 photos a month or the premium plan for $79.99 a year and you can upload about 1450 photos a year.

How To Enter To Win A Free Vizit
To enter, do ANY of the following. For multiple entries, do more than one and make sure you leave a separate comment for each entry. Each option below provides only one entry for a total of 4 entries per person if you do them all. The giveaway ends on Monday, July 5 at 10 p.m. EST. This giveaway is only for those residing in the U.S.

1.Simply leave a comment and tell me… How will a Vizit digital frame help you keep in touch with your friend and family? (1 entry)
2.Go to the VizitMe site and tell me what is your favorite feature of the Vizit frame? (1 entry)
3.Blog about this giveaway. Then leave a link to your post in a separate comment. (1 entry)
4.Share this giveaway by using Twitter or Facebook. Make sure you @simplymodernmom for both Twitter and Facebook. (1 entry, even if you do both Facebook and Twitter)
In celebration of SMM’s birthday week, I have more birthday presents to give tomorrow! Keep coming back for more presents!

Read full article here

CrunchGear.com
by Scott Merrill
June 10, 2010

Click here to Link to Original Article and Contest