Comments on: Photo albums are all but dead

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 15 May 2008 09:41:43 +0000

Well as a keen photographer and Family Historian I must say that Photo Albums have been an invaluable resource for doing the research into our families past. So if they are indeeed really dead then it is a sad day indeed for genealogists every way.

I do use a Digital Photo Frame as well, having a new son its a great way to keep the Grandparents appraised of the lil mites progress, especially with the advent of wireless frames like the eStarling that you can email pictures to directly. (learn more here http://www.udiggit.com ).

Is the Photo Album really dead, I dont think so just yet.

By: Brian D. Goodman

Brian D. Goodman — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 12:09:48 +0000

It is true that the scrapbook market is probably passed the photo album torch, however there are larger shifts that characterize my comments. While the scrap market size is almost unbelievably large, consider than just the amateur file market in 1997 was $2.7 billion. Katie Hafner wrote an article for the New York Times called Film Drop-Off Sites Fade Against Digital Cameras in October of 2007.

The rate of decline is apparent from film sales — since only people who buy film need to have it developed. Over the last four years, the sale of film has been dropping at a rate of 25 to 30 percent each year. In 2006, 204 million rolls were sold, a quarter of the 800 million sold at the peak in 1999.
There is no dearth of images. In the heyday of film, said Mr. Liem, some 25 billion images were not just captured but printed as well. By 2009, as the use of digital cameras continues to grow, some 135 billion images will be captured, but far fewer printed. Instead, those images tend to stay on people’s computers in electronic shoeboxes. The challenge, say companies like Kodak and Fujifilm, is getting people to print those images out.

At the end of the day, a market approaching the entire size of scrapbooking has seen its slice of the pie shrink considerably. Film processing is down which means less photographs exist past pixels. The people making up the scrapbook market are spending more money on bedazzelers, die cuts and glue.
I am still stunned that so many people scrapbook!

By: Frank Jania

Frank Jania — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 17:20:38 +0000

I’d have to disagree that photo albums are all but dead. I’ve met a few people, some in their mid-twenties, who were “into scrapbooking” after moving down south and discovered this whole scrapbooking sub-culture.

You’ll also see home shopping segments devoted entirely to scrapbooking gadgets and materials. Once you have it in your RAS scrapbooking seems to show up everywhere.

I did a quick google search and suggestions are that scrapbooking is a $1-$6.5 billion industry.