Cheap digital cameras create an all-seeing “I”

The number of consumers equipped with digital cameras globally is reaching eye-popping proportions. Driven by the explosion of camera phones, projected sales for 2008 are one billion units, according to the NY-based International Imaging Industry Association (I3A). The tipping point where most people will have the tools for instant visual communications at their fingertips will soon be reached.The impact on media and culture will be profound, going well beyond the imaging business, says Alexis Gerard, founder of Future Image Inc. in San Mateo, CA. "Humans think in visuals, not text," he says. "This will change how people behave. They will start communicating in images and have visual conversations."Already, new types of content businesses are already springing up around this trend to solicit, sort, combine and aggregate images snapped by ordinary people for newspapers, stock photo companies and other content creators and buyers, he says. The opportunities are particularly ripe in the news business. Newspapers are overwhelmed by the number of images submitted by viewers - but can't afford to miss historical shots by eye-witnesses such as Saddam Hussein's hanging. "You can easily be looking at about 5,000 images daily," says Graeme Roy, director of news photography at Canadian Press (CP) in Toronto.But he says few camera phone snaps are currently used because the image quality is poor. "Shots like Saddam are rare - and in those instances, the quality of the image takes second place to its news value," he says. "But camera phones will only get better as time goes by, not just in the of mega-pixels you can stuff into them but also the quality of the optics."Rugged new technology such as the liquid lens, which consists of a bubble in a casing that uses an electric current to change its shape, is being developed to improve the optics, says Gerard. "There's nothing to break, it's fast and cheap, and meant for the masses."Momentum is also building in multiple industries to improve camera-phone image quality. "It's the number one issue inhibiting use of the images people capture," says Lisa Walker, the I3A's president. "And poor image quality tops the list of customer complaints in our research." The I3A is working on initiatives to develop common standards and metrics. Camera phones differ significantly from one manufacturer to another, making comparisons of image quality difficult. "Telecom network carriers have to make major purchasing decisions for handsets, but have no way of measuring these factors," she says, adding industry players are cooperating to resolve these issues. In two to three years, camera phone images will be more useable, and news agencies such as CP are planning their strategies for dealing with an influx of images from such sources, says Roy."Odds are, the more these tools are out there, the more people are going to capture something really spectacular," he says, adding that this comes with many headaches. "When you bring in pics from unknown sources, you have to worry: Is it real or fake? Is the person working for the organization that's staging the event?" To deal with this, news organizations are looking into visual search tools for triage and forensic imaging techniques to ensure pixels haven't been altered, but the technology is not yet robust, he says. And even when it is, he believes there will always be a need for independent photojournalists - and news agencies. "Camera phones will have an impact on the way information is exchanged, but it doesn't make those images news. You still need to evaluate what's newsworthy."But the actual nuts-and-bolts of news-gathering is being increasingly disintermediated from mainstream media outlets, thanks to new "crowdsourcing" or "participatory media" Web businesses that are springing up to collect and assemble images and stories from eye-witnesses at the scene, says Michael Tippett, one of the founders of NowPublic Technologies Inc., a Vancouver-based start-up. "News organizations are losing the lock on that monopoly - but there will still be a place for them around analysis."NowPublic has developed a participatory news network on a Wikipedia-type platform over the past two years to collect information from its 100,000 contributors, and has a partnering arrangement with Associated Press (AP), a New York-based global news wire service, says Tippett. "Our goal is to build the largest news organization in the world."Camera phones and crowdsourcing are bringing radical change to the way news is collected, Tippett says - the eyes of the news are everywhere. "When the Katrina hurricane hit, we had 2000 people in the area," he says. "Compared to Reuters, AP and so on, we had more people than they have on staff globally, and got coverage they wouldn't have otherwise gotten. And when the Gonu cyclone hit the Persian Gulf, we had footage before AP could roll its trucks."NowPublic avoids the term "citizen journalist", he says. "That's like saying "citizen dentist" - it's intimidating." Instead, the company is building a public profile around making it easy and fun for people to send in their stories and photos, with the potential for payment if they're picked up by AP and other buyers if they're deemed newsworthy. The authentication of images is a persistent problem throughout the news business, he says. NowPublic uses the same mechanisms as e-businesses such as eBay, where people are certified by the organization after establishing a track record for reliability. "We see the same thing evolving in reportage."These alternative news-gathering models will ultimately strengthen the media's relationship with its audience, he says. "The big winners are consumers," he says. "They'll have more choice and the ability to engage in conversation, and not just be spoken to."Beyond the news business, Tippett sees blue-sky opportunities evolving in travel, real estate and other areas. "People will have access to a global presence market that allows them to find information or look at a picture anywhere globally," he says.NowPublic's model could be used to commission images from people on the scene for various purposes: checking resorts before travel plans are finalized, Florida properties owned by distant Canadians that are damaged in storms, or even high school reunions people can't attend, he says.

Cheap digital cameras create an all-seeing “I”

News | 07/06/2007 4:04 pm EDT

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