Picaboo co-founders Howard Field and Kevin McCurdy approached Codesta in 2003 with an idea to capitalize on the rapidly growing consumer interest in digital photography. No longer solely the domain of professional photographers, the ranks of digital photo enthusiasts were growing rapidly. Research firm IDC reports that camera sales hit a record 34 million in 2007. This global market included everyone from grandparents to teens.

Consumers were snapping photos like crazy, yet the inability to view and enjoy those images beyond the LCD screen was becoming a source of aggravation to many. Consumers did not want to spend hours editing and archiving. They wanted to grab desired images and start sharing right away. Recognizing this emerging bottleneck, Picaboo teamed with Codesta to design and develop a new application that would allow photographers to easily and quickly share photos both on and off the desktop.

Picturing a Process

"When we started working with Picaboo the team consisted of visionary architects, not engineers. They had an idea, funding and dedication. We offered technology expertise, product development and project management skills," said Andrew Mutz, Founding Director of Codesta. "Our charge was to design an easy-to-use photo sharing application that worked on a variety of platforms and synchronized with both online and offline actions. Features needed to be simple to understand and tools had to enable community amongst users. Most of the contemporary photo services and sites were web-based; we designed an application that bucked the trend as a desktop application."

A prototype was developed in 6 months. Said Field, "Codesta rapidly provided a vigorous working platform. Their design and development speed allowed us to begin testing and validating business assumptions right away. We were able to fine tune, improve and launch the final product ahead of schedule." The Codesta deliverable, a unique peer-to-peer image sharing application that allowed secure access for multiple users. Ahead of the social network site frenzy today attributed to companies such as Facebook and MySpace, the Picaboo framework was also forward thinking in its community-building underpinning. "We helped take a vision of easy photo sharing to online users through offline tools," said Mutz. "Compared to the competition, we greatly eased the process for creating photo albums. And Picaboo customers don’t wait several months to see their finished photo product; it’s a matter of weeks."

Forward Thinking Design

Recently, Picaboo made a strategic decision to shift its business direction to embrace customer photo printing and product development, not just image sharing. "Today we help customers create beautiful photo books and cards in seconds," states Field. Even with this significant business shift, Codesta’s technical contributions continue to be a key element in Picaboo’s portfolio of technologies. "As we grow, Picaboo will continue to rely on local software to speed and streamline our customers’ product creation process," said Field. "Codesta invested time and talent into developing our framework and remains an ongoing partner with a vested interest in seeing our company succeed."

About

Picaboo, based in Menlo Park, California, is a premier provider of photo books and photo cards. The Picaboo service allows consumers to create beautiful photo books and cards in seconds using their own personal digital photos, plus easy-to-use desktop software available for free on their web site. The Picaboo process frees the photo lover from spending hours uploading photos as they create custom photo books and cards. Consumers can build a complete,  ready-to-order book or card in seconds. Picaboo is a privately held company with customers located globally. Funding partners include several premier Silicon Valley venture capital firms. www.picaboo.com

Codesta offers emerging companies such as Picaboo design and development services to create great software products. We use a balance of people and process to turn ideas into innovative solutions. Our clients want to produce new products quickly and collaboratively using whatever toolset is needed to get the job done. We take an extreme amount of pride in our ability to contribute to our clients’ success by building robust, well architected applications. With offices in Palo Alto, California and Toronto, Canada, Codesta has built new products for companies across North America in sectors ranging from mobile to pharmaceutical to consumer imaging. www.codesta.com