Polaroid Wires Kids With MP3 Digital Camera
By Greg Scoblete -- TWICE, 1/29/2001
LAS VEGAS -It used to be that a wired kid simply had a belly full of Pixie Sticks and left a trail of toppled furniture in his or her wake. Now, in the spirit of the digital age, the wired teen is hopped up on digital devices, as well as sugar.
It is this youthful scamp that Polaroid is targeting with the company's new PhotoMAX MP3 digital camera, announced at CES earlier this month.
"We're looking at our products almost like Internet appliances," said Chris Baker, group marketing manager, Polaroid Consumer Electronics. "Our target audience is teenagers who are active in photo-sharing and MP3 swapping, and so we combined the two technologies into an affordable package, the PhotoMAX MP3 digital camera."
The VGA-resolution camera will start shipping in the second quarter for a suggested retail of $249.95.
Unlike some competitors that have bundled MP3 playing technology with higher-resolution (and thus higher-priced) cameras, Baker said, Polaroid's philosophy is different.
"We really think the target market for this combo technology is teens, and so we've kept the resolution lower for easier e-mailing and kept the price down," he explained. "If other [manufacturers] think they can sell a high-priced MP3 camera to a higher-end market, that's their prerogative, but I think they may be missing the core market for this technology."
The PhotoMAX MP3 camera features a full-color LCD monitor and comes with earphones, four AA batteries and a camera case with belt clip. It also comes bundled with a 16MB CompactFlash card, USB and video cables, Nullsoft Winamp MP3 software, and Polaroid PhotoMAX Image Maker software.
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