An interesting means of differentiating in a market that is increasingly filling up with me-too’s: Webyantra reports that Indian Photo sharing site iTasveer has tied up with Microsoft as one of the service providers to offer photograph prints via a Windows Vista photo printing modile called ‘Online Print Wizard’ (OPW) . The iTasveer OPW module FAQS here.
One thing - the online photo sharing market primarily targets NRIs who want to mail prints to their family and friends in India: from the FAQs, it seems that iTasveer shows up as one of the providers only if the users location is set to India. Limiting service providers to specific countries actually limits the market - not just for iTasveer, but others who have signed up for OPW as well.
Anyway, we keep hearing about companies wanting to acquire real estate on the mobile handset, so there’s an opportunity for iTasveer and other players there for commercial transactions, as well as one on the desktop.
Update: I asked Ashish Goel of iTasveer about the agreement with Microsoft: as present, there’s no revenue sharing agreement, and Microsoft only asked that they offer 10 free prints to Vista users (valid for first 15 days), and maybe add some promotional material from Microsoft alongwith the photos being delivered. iTasveer has a three year deal with Microsoft.