CUPERTINO, CA--(Marketwired - Oct 25, 2017) - Consumers today are challenged when it comes to effectively preserving, managing and sharing the thousands of photos and videos they capture with their smartphones and cameras. While existing services offer places to keep photos, they don't make it easy or even possible to share story narratives around a set of images. Most services are far from user friendly, and the free ones compromise the original image quality by saving them at lower resolutions. Recognizing these challenges, Keenai, a smart photo management service from Ricoh Innovations Corporation, today announced a new suite of features that makes it possible for anyone to create a personalized space and tell stories through their photos and videos in an easily enjoyable and sharable manner.
The updated Keenai service represents a significant alternative to existing cloud-based storage services. In addition to being a single place where users can store and manage photos and videos from all of their devices -- at their original resolution and simultaneously synced so they are always available-the service is taking the next step to enhance the photo sharing experience. Keenai now allows users to view shared albums in a captioned story layout -- essentially visual storybooks consisting of captioned still images, 360° stills and videos, and video clips that automatically play when a viewer clicks on the album, and are much more compelling than a bunch of images on a web page. Keenai also now supports 1080p video streaming exclusively for paid memberships and RICOH THETA generated videos.
A key new feature is that members can easily invite friends and family to visit their Profile page and view selected albums as if it is their personal photo website: via a single and never-changing link, versus texting or emailing their photos to friends and family, or sending a series of unique album links each time they want to share photos. Adding to this user-friendly sharing approach, Keenai members can now print their images directly from Keenai via the iOS, Android or web applications.
"A picture may be worth a thousand words, but if that picture is buried on a phone or in a folder somewhere, unseen, it is worthless. We created Keenai's new suite of features with this in mind. We wanted to make it easier for users to take care of and share their photos, and more fun for family and friends to experience them," said Bruce Smith, Senior Director, Ricoh Innovations Corporation. "The new Profile feature allows our customers to essentially create a website on our platform, which then becomes the central place for them to share their visual memories instead of hunting for pictures that were sent in the past. We'll continue to refine and add new features that simplify storage, management and sharing. Our aim is to enable Keenai users to build communities around their images and videos."
According to industry experts, trillions of photos and videos will be taken in 2017, creating a huge need for efficient storage. Keenai is perfect for families, travel and action-sports aficionados and photo hobbyists -- anyone who has many photos and videos across different devices -- to store and manage all of their memories on one, agnostic platform.
One photo enthusiast benefitting from Keenai's friendly feature set is Larry Gonzales, who has spent the past year traveling across the country, taking photos, and sharing these with friends and family. From the totality of the eclipse in Oregon to the red rocks of the Southwest's national parks, Gonzales has seen and captured it all, using his iPhone, a point-and-shoot camera and a digital single-lens reflex camera.
"I love that my photos are instantly available in the Keenai app, so I can see and share them while still enjoying the view," said Gonzales. "However I like the idea of being able to create a story with my photos versus having a bland, flat gallery. Keenai allows me to seamlessly build stories around my photos and videos so I can share breathtaking views as well as the many side-splitting, heartbreaking, and edge-of-your-seat stories that go along with them."
Availability
The new features are available now. Keenai is available worldwide in eight languages via web, iOS, Android, Windows and Mac applications. Membership is $4.99/month or $49.99/year. To get started with a free 30-day trial of Keenai visit: https://www.keenai.com/.
About Ricoh Innovations Corporation
Headquartered in California's Silicon Valley, Ricoh Innovations Corporation, a subsidiary of Ricoh Company, Ltd, brings together world-class user experience, technology and business professionals to deliver easy-to-use, technology-differentiated Smart Vision solutions to the market. Smart Vision targets the application of computer vision, image analytics and machine learning to solve social, enterprise and environmental problems. Internal innovation is complemented by Open Innovation projects with a broad range of leading universities and forward-thinking companies around the world.
To learn more about Ricoh Innovations Corporation, visit ric.ricoh.com.
Android is a registered trademark of Google Inc. macOS is a trademark of Apple Inc. iOS is a trademark or registered trademark of Cisco in the U.S. and other countries and is used under license. Wi-Fi is a registered trademark of the Wi-Fi Alliance. Windows and Windows Phone are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corp. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Contact Information:
Contact:
Barbara Hagin
Breakaway Communications for Keenai
408-832-7626 - mobile
