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Hitwise Intelligence - Sandra Hanchard - Asia Pacific

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Kodak re-brands to embrace Digital as Photography websites grow

January 19, 2006

One of the headlines on B&T (subscription only) that caught my attention today was 'Kodak Has Snappy New Look'. The gist of the article was that Kodak is overhauling its marketing to better associate its brand with the digital age in the minds of consumers. This could not come at a more pertinent time when Internet users are increasingly visiting photography websites to store and share their images, thereby utilising yet another online channel to form social connections.

Hitwise data over the Christmas period last year show that visits to Entertainment - Photography sites increased by 10.2% between weeks ending November 19, 2005 and December 31, 2005. Visits increased by 5.6% during the week of Christmas (week ending December 31, 2005), presumably as users jumped online to upload images from their Christmas toys – digital cameras. This is supported by the fact that 'digital cameras' was amongst the top 10 product search terms to Shopping and Classifieds websites for the 12 weeks ending December 10, 2005 (when online shopping peaked). A similar pattern is observed in LeeAnn's post on increases to music download sites following interest in iPods and mp3 players around the holiday season.

Kodak's Easy Share Gallery has plenty of competitors in the online space, notably Flickr which ranked as the 3rd most visited Entertainment -Photography website by Australian Internet users for the week ending January 14, 2006. Flickr's use of tags (which is why I was thinking about photography websites in the first place) makes the navigation of the site particularly user-friendly, a feature that should be adopted by more net community websites ahead this year.

Kodak Gallery ranked at 11th position amongst Australian Internet users in the photography category for the week ending January 14, 2006 in contrast to its ranking of #3 in the US market.