App Helps Large Labs and Printers Benefit from Facebook Photo Book Boom

Program hits sweet spot with consumers, says Ecce Terram

Auckland / Oldenburg, Germany (04/12/2012). Ecce Terram, a globally active digital imaging solutions company (“Photo2Lab” software suite) with head-quarters in Atlanta, GA and Oldenburg, Germany, has launched the newest version of its successful photo book app for Facebook. The white-label application enables Facebook users to create and order photo books from their favorite photo services provider, which are generated directly from Facebook photo albums.

Members of the social network can install the free app developed by Ecce Terram on their Facebook page. Launched only four months ago, the user-friendly application has already helped generate an order boom for photo books on Facebook. As a result, a new, more powerful follow-up version of the software is now introduced in short order, to meet the demand for additional features and functionality.

The new photo book app is capable of converting even low-resolution pictures from Facebook’s photo albums into elegant photo books. In addition, Ecce Terram has further simplified the app’s user interface, to guarantee the same short and convenient photo book order process that Facebook users liked about the software’s first generation.

"We can proudly say that our photo book app has set new technology, time-to market and usability standards for our industry on Facebook,” said Ecce Terram President and CEO Frank Simon. Facebook users, said Mr. Simon, are rapidly adopting new ways to transform visual memories that were uploaded to the social networking platform into valuable gifts that withstand the test of time outside the digital sphere.

"We took a risk when we launched our photo book app last year,“ said Mr. Simon, who is the company’s founder. “The result is that for large retailers, photo labs and printers, it’s a no-risk proposition now. They can benefit from our industry expertise and immediately start generating high-volume orders through the new channel without delay, by deploying a robust app that is already consumer favorite."

From the perspective of large photo service providers, selecting a proven Facebook app solution that is open towards future technological shifts is essential in order to be able to compete, according to Mr. Simon. He said that Ecce Terram feels encouraged in staying its course by the results of a new survey, which was published recently by 6Sight, a leading the photo industry market research firm.

The analysts found that users of photo sharing platforms upped their photo upload activities from mobile devices (smartphones and tablet computers) by about 40 percent over the past six months alone. "This confirms that Ecce Terram’s Facebook app is fully in sync with what consumers demand,” said Frank Simon. He pointed out that his company’s photo book app for Facebook is based on the new web programming standard HTML5 basiert, which guarantees that it can be accessed from smartphones and tablet computers.

HTML5 is supported by Facebook and other industry-leading players, like Google and Apple. As a result, Ecce Terram clients – large retailers and photo service providers – are shielded against the delays and high software development costs which impact companies who invested in proprietary photo processing and ordering solutions and apps.

"We see the new market data as a full confirmation of Ecce Terram’s decision to optimize solutions like the Facebook app for HTML5,” said Frank Simon. The acceptance of the new Facebook order channel is so encouraging, he said, that Ecce Terram is already developing a new photo service solution for Facebook, in addition to the photo book app. Mr. Simon said that more details will be announced shortly.