Enter the Sphere

ExpressKiosk supports WiPics

2009-02-18T17:02:00.012-05:00

ExpressKiosk now supports both WiPics and WiPics Mobile. Now you can completely automate your workflow: as you shoot, your photos are instantly ready for sale on your kiosks.

It's simple; connect your WiPics device to your camera, your pictures get wirelessly transferred to your computer and ExpressKiosk automatically publishes them to your kiosks.

In addition, we added new features to ExpressKiosk that leverages WiPics' barcode and magnetic card functionality. Now you can make it easy for your customer to find their photos on your kiosks.

Scan a barcode using your WiPics device and take a picture

Your customers can easily view their images by entering or scanning their barcode number.

Combine ExpressKiosk and WiPics to unlock a powerful workflow for your sporting events, county fairs and even amusement parks. The possibilities are endless.

Work in Progress

2009-02-03T10:29:00.004-05:00

We are working hard to update our manuals. If a topic of interest is currently not covered, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Here are the latest versions:

New Features: Processing Orders Faster

2009-02-03T10:17:00.005-05:00

The engineering team was fast to respond to the great feedback you gave us. Here are some of the new features added on February 2nd:

New Order Export feature which allows ordered photos to be copied into a folder for quick fulfillment. Best practices for Darkroom users will soon be published to show how to link ExpressKiosk to Darkroom and speed up fulfillment.
New Receipt feature will automatically create a receipt for printing.
More detailed Order Sheets which now include detailed pricing and customer’s information.
Test Kiosk now automatically connects with ExpressManager.
Improved stability and performance between ExpressManager and ExpressKiosk.

Try ExpressKiosk Now

2009-01-27T09:17:00.002-05:00

It is finally here. Go ahead and sign up to download ExpressKiosk. Tell us what you think. We can't wait to get your feedback!!

Thank you

2009-01-20T15:59:00.000-05:00

Thank you to all of those who visited us last week at the ImagingUSA tradeshow and discovered our newest product: ExpressKiosk. The first self-serving viewing station system that works with your workflow applications such as ExpressDigital's Darkroom.

We are excited to announce that next Monday (January 26th), you will be invited you all to download a free trial of ExpressKiosk.

Sneak Peak

2009-01-09T22:29:00.001-05:00

As you now know, PicSphere is launching ExpressKiosk this weekend at ImagingUSA! If you are in Phoenix visit us at booth 1347; we hope to entice you with this screenshoot of the redesigned shopping interface. For all the others, don't worry: the count down for the website launch has already started.

See you at ImagingUSA!

We are launching ExpressKiosk at ImagingUSA

2009-01-06T02:17:00.001-05:00

PicSphere is launching ExpressKiosk this weekend at ImagingUSA! If you are in Phoenix, be the first to see it in action at booth 1347. We can’t wait to show it off!

ExpressKiosk is the first self-serving viewing station system that works with your workflow applications such as ExpressDigital’s Darkroom. It lets your customers view and order their photos on the kiosks (they can even buy packages and templates), and lets you capture emotional sales.

If you won’t be at ImagingUSA, don’t worry. More information about ExpressKiosk will also soon be sent to you and on our return, you will all be invited to download a free trial of ExpressKiosk.

See you at ImagingUSA!

A New Version, A New Name, A New Product

2008-08-16T17:58:00.001-04:00

We would like to thank you all for downloading and using MetaFlow, the first workflow solution to combine kiosks for professional photographers. We have exciting news and we want you to be the first to know. Soon we will be launching a new version of Metaflow called ExpressKiosk. ExpressKiosk will help you increase your sales using self-serving kiosks while still using your favorite workflow software.

As a photographer, you do everything you would normally do in your workflow solution (such as ExpressDigital Darkroom, or Abode Lightroom). Your customers view and order their photos on the kiosks. It even lets customers buy photos with borders and templates (like multi-photo posters or collages). In the background, ExpressKiosk links both systems together automagically.

As soon as ExpressKiosk is available, we’ll be sending you information to download your free trial. In the meantime if you have any questions or comments please contact us..

The PicSphere Team

Serve more customers by organizing your images (Part 2)

2008-04-02T17:45:00.001-04:00

If you haven't had a chance to read part 1 of my series (Serve more customers by organizing your images) I highly recommend taking a look at it before reading this post. Serve more customers by organizing your images (Part 1)

In this article, I wanted to talk about sorting images using multiple CF cards during events. This type of sorting technique is extremely useful for team and group events. With the prices of CF and SD memory dropping each year, it is now easier and more affordable to buy multiple memory cards, properly label them and associate each card to a specific team, location or whatever type of organization level you wish to create.

Doing this can save you time and stress of trying to organize all of your images; especially if you try to organize all of your images taken on one large card at the end of the day.

Here are a few tips to keep in mind

You don’t need a large inventory of cards
If you’re shooting a large team event you don’t need to physically have one memory card per team. With proper prep time before your event; you can easily label your cards and manage your day’s events by knowing when and where teams play.

Keep a good ratio of shooting and dumping on your computer
It is sometimes difficult to know ahead of time when you can run by your computer and dump your images. But keeping a good flow between taking images and dumping them on your computer will make sure that you always have a fresh batch of images available for your customers to view. This is also another good reason for shooting with multiple CF cards.

Keep it simple
Trying to over-organize your images can become a burden. When preparing for an event, try to find a good balance. Sorting too narrowly will take up too much of your time. Not sorting images, will make it too difficult for your customers to view their pictures.

Usually a double sort is a very simple, yet efficient way of organizing your images.

Try to combine two types of sorting information such as:

Team Name + Age Group
Game # + Field / Location of Game
Team Name + Day of Game (for weekend tournament)

Double sorting makes it easy to sort using memory cards and provides your customers with that extra information to make their viewing experience much quicker and more enjoyable.

Serve more customers by organizing your images (Part 1)

2008-03-27T17:32:00.001-04:00

My next series of blog postings will focus on the benefits of properly organizing your images when selling onsite during events. I will discuss various techniques that can help you maximize your onsite sales while eliminating some of the headaches usually associated with selling your images onsite.

Every time I attend a conference or seminar about selling images onsite, the main focus points when looking at maximizing sales are the location of the event, the age group of the participants and how much money is spent to participate in this activity or event.

One subject that I feel is often left out; is how to convert customer interest into a sale. What does this mean? Let’s say you are at an event with great exposure and parent are eager to buy images.

What needs to happen for you to get a sale?

Images need to be presented to the participants
Participants need to place an order
Payments need to be collected.

If by chance any of these steps take too long, customer interest will drop and the sale might never happen; which means you lose money.

3 keys to closing the sale

Allow your customer to quickly view their images
Allow your customer to easily place an order
Make sure you or your staff can easily view orders and collect payments.

So what’s the big deal with organizing your images? For a customer to buy his or her images, they need to be able to quickly see the images you have to offer. Having to browse through thousands of images will make them lose interest and diminish your chances of making a sale.

By organizing your images, you will make sure that your customers will be able to view only their images. Quickly viewing their images also leads to a faster checkout; therefore allowing your viewing stations to handle more volume.

Benefits of organizing images

Keeps your customers' interest level high
Convert your customers' interest into more actual sales
Quicker checkout allows you to handle larger volumes of customers.

A powerful workflow system that allows you to easily organize your images, combined with self-serve viewing stations is the most effective way of achieving your goals. Keep this in mind the next time you cover an event. If you feel it can generate a lot of customer interest; make sure you focus on key points that convert interest into hard sales.

How can PicSphere help you?

PicSphere is proud to launch a brand new feature designed to help photographers convert customer interest into actual sales. This feature was inspired by your feedback and we want to thank everyone who has participated in the creation of this ground breaking addition to our solution.

Visit our website to learn how ExpressManager with its new Customer PhotoFilter feature can help you.

4 viewing stations using one computer

2008-03-10T15:25:00.003-04:00

In February, Pascal (our CTO) started testing devices from NComputing. They have some really useful technology that makes it simple and affordable to build viewing stations.

NComputing's multi-user terminal boxes allow you to add three users to an existing PC. Each terminal box connects to its own screen, mouse & keyboard. These small terminals are then connected to a desktop using a normal network cable.

Basically it creates a mini network of terminals and shares the computing power equally among them. Each terminal works independently from the other. Here is an overview video:

Pascal has tested the X300 and the L230. Both hardware models worked with PicSphere's kiosk solution, but he recommends the X300. It is simply less demanding on the network and that is a big advantage. A local photographer chose to try it out at a recent event, so we jumped in to the car to witness it in a "real-world" environment; they ended up working great. Here is a review of using NComputing's X300 to run viewing stations.

Pros:

Very affordable.
Easy to install and setup.
Compact to transport and display.
Low power consumption (the network cable supplies power eliminating the need for separate power adapters).

Cons:

Not touch-screen compatible.
The maximal screen resolution is 1024x768 (we updated the PicStores Kiosk to run on that resolution and it looks great).
If something happens and the host PC goes down, you lose the linked stations.
The maximum distance between the units to the host PC is 10 meters (15 feet).

Note that most of these limitations do not exist for the L Series Ethernet-based access terminals.

Price:
Tigerdirect is selling the NComputing X300 3 User Expansion Kit for $219.99 and 3-User Terminal Computing Bundle for $734.99 (included 3 screens, mousses and keyboards). You will also need one desktop computer.

Overall, it is a very affordable and a practical way to run viewing stations. It will suit the needs of most of our users but as always feel free to discuss your particular needs with our engineers before you make a hardware purchase.