Nikon S51C Connected Camera

Last week when I wrote about the Momento Connected Photo Frame, I said in the last paragraph "What we really need now are cameras able to upload photos to Picasa with a press of a button.". Wishes do come true (more on that later...). Here comes the Nikon Coolpix S51C, a compact point and shoot camera, with built-in WiFi. According to Nikon's press release, the S51C can upload images to Flickr. Really exciting!

My Momento frame, ordered a week ago, is still somewhere in transit, I hope to get it tomorrow... And after reading the Nikon's specs on the S51C, I was almost ready to buy one. What a nice couple they would be: snap a photo with the camera, press a button and off it goes instantly to Flickr, where it is immediately pulled from by several photo frames scattered around my family. Imagine myself being in Australia, taking a picture of Ayers Rock and my Mom having it displayed automatically on her photo frame in a matter of seconds. No computers in between. No delays. No hassles. Point - shoot - upload - view.

Unfortunately the above scenario is still too good to be true. The client device manufacturers still have to mess with the web services. Couldn't they just keep their gadgets open and standards - compliant? The Momento frame, while it reads RSS feeds and can be attached to photo sharing sites like Picasa and Flickr, still needs a subscription to the manufacturer's Momento Live service to manage the feeds. Same with the Nikon. Yes, theoretically it can transmit the images to Flickr, but first they are uploaded to the Nikon's mypicturetown.com site. Later you have to use your computer to get to that site and press the "Flickr" button to move the pictures to the Flickr service. Nikon has been so close to the real solution... But they did it all wrong eventually. What is the reason for posting pictures directly from a camera to the Web, when you have to use a computer to finish the process? What is more, both Nikon and i-Mate (the Momento manufacturer) see us subscribing to their crappy services, while we already have either Picasa or Flickr accounts... So much unnecessary clutter...

On the other hand both Momento frame and the Nikon S51C are the harbingers of things to come. I still believe in a few months we will be able to buy a connected photo camera (WiFi and possibly 3G equipped) that uploads stuff directly to a photo site of choice. Nikon and others will realize the awkward way they give us to share the content actually restricts the sales, not boosting them at all (something they must have been envisioning creating the S51C). I still believe in a few months we will be able to buy a connected photo frame that does not require any proprietary subscription and comes preconfigured to connect to the leading photo sharing sites. The law of separation of content from conduit is still in force. Those who understand and obey it will create the winning products and services of the future.