If Technology and Innovations Enable Free Photo Scanning, Why Not Also Free Access MasterCard and Visa’s Payment Network?

[Free Photo Scanning for Social Networking Sites]

Technology and innovations are generating nationwide buzz for our super-fast photo scanning and Ecommerce digital imaging services.  Now, it’s free.  ScanMyPhotos.com has pioneered super-fast and affordable photo scanning, and today it is free [see link for article]. 

We are scanning up to 1,000 4×6″ photos without charge (pay just for S&H – $19.95) for all members of Flickr, Facebook, MySpace and Blogger because Kodak technology is that efficient [see link to Kodak.com profile].

What does this have to do with out merchant interchange battle? Everything.  Unlike MasterCard and Visa and its thousands of member banks, we are taking advantage of technology to lower costs.  This model makes sense because ScanMyPhotos.com is asking members of these four leading social networking sites – representing the most cutting-edge and innovative group of consumers – to post reviews on their ScanMyPhotos.com experience.

If we can provide free and super-fast photo scanning, why can’t the two leading credit card associations also adjust  their fees to also reflect today’s shared technological efficiencies for super-fast electronic payments?

  

 Want to know more about lead plaintiff ScanMyPhotos.com?  Click here and read their daily blog: Tales from the World of Photo Scanning

Tales from the World of Photo Scanning

Sometimes, it’s helpful to understand the business model of those most impacted by interchange fees. Today, much of our business is ecommerce and electronic, so we are fully affected by the anti-competitive and enormous 80% market power wielded by Visa and MasterCard. 

For an understanding of how different our businesses are, where technology and efficiencies led to steep price reductions at ScanMyPhotos.com [30 Minute Photos Etc.], visit our blog: Tales from the World of Photo Scanning. 

The blog updates help showcase how we were able to pioneer and commercialize a new technology to help consumers, while Visa and MasterCard continues to operate an antiquated payment system that harms and costs billions.  We are lowering prices while the thousands of credit card associations’ member banks are enhancing theirs.  The interchange fees impact our entire economy.  These are supra-competitive, hidden and obscure fees that amount to nearly $40 billion each year.

This week, as the world’s financial markets face a near melt down, we cannot help but examine how much of the cause was related to the financial institutions mismanagement with the housing market. 

Their funding games are a lead cause for this earthquake-like tremor that is plaguing the world markets.  

Their involvement along with Visa and MasterCard, with illegally fixing merchant interchange fees is another concern.

Just think how helpful that $40 billion annual tax would be if it was not sent to the banks – to help fund their other write-offs – but, instead saved by consumers and retailers if the antiquated payment scheme was terminated.

CES: ScanMyPhotos.com CEO Goldstone Speaks at Consumer Electronics Show

Goldstone to speak in Las Vegas at the “Spotlight on Imaging” CES panel on Tuesday, January 8 from 3 – 4 p.m. in the Renaissance Hotel, Ballroom 1

Last update: 8:51 a.m. EST Jan 8, 2008

IRVINE, Calif., Jan 8, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) — ScanMyPhotos.com, announced that president and CEO Mitch Goldstone will speak again at the 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) as part of a panel discussion entitled: “Spotlight on Imaging.” The session is cosponsored by Picture Business Magazine and the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) which produces the 2008 International CES – the world’s largest consumer technology trade show.

The panel discussion at the 2008 International CES will take place on January 8, at 3:00 p.m. at the Renaissance Hotel, Ballroom 1, in Las Vegas, NV. It will include essential topics about the future of the photo imaging industry and the commercialization of new digital imaging technologies to inspire and enhance the consumer photo imaging experience.

ScanMyPhotos.com, a division of 30 Minute Photos Etc. operates a retail and ecommerce-based photo imaging company that provides super-fast nationwide digital scanning and related photo imaging services. Goldstone and partner, Carl Berman, well-known leaders in the photo imaging industry founded 30 Minute Photos Etc. in 1990 as a retail-based photo center in Irvine, CA.

Today, the company and its ScanMyPhotos.com division provides a variety of photo memory services and products to help picture-takers preserve generations of family memories. These include services using: “Perfectly Clear” photo enhancements by Athentech, professional DVD data discs produced by Microtech’s robotic DVD publishing system, Lucidiom self-service digital photo kiosks, and KODAK’s award-winning i660 document imaging scanners – the engine behind the company’s capacity to digitally scan 1,000 photographs in under ten-minutes.

ScanMyPhotos.com helped commercialize the KODAK document imaging scanners for the photo industry and is profiled on the Kodak.com website. The photo entrepreneurs created a local walk-in and “fill-the-box” scanning service for consumers to order prepaid USPS Priority flat-rate boxes which are mailed out the same day it is ordered. Consumers fill the co-branded USPS and ScanMyPhotos.com prepaid boxes with as many pictures as it can hold (more than 1,600 4×6″ photos). All orders are processed and digitally scanned as jpeg files at 300 dpi and mailed back the same day. The prepaid box costs just $99.95 – consumers also receive a free box when they purchase two prepaid boxes so they can have more than 5,500 photo snapshots scanned for $199.90.

ScanMyPhotos.com, has scanned nearly four million pictures from around the world and was recently profiled or mentioned in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Chicago Sun-Times, The New York Times, Reader’s Digest, Women’s Health Magazine, The Orange County Register, Family Tree Magazine, Popular Photography, Direct Marketing News and scores of other media and Internet / blog coverage.

Click here for complete Special Events CES listing.

Supporting Hollywood Writers and Broadway Stagehands

Click Here For BusinessWire Release.

During the Writers Guild of America and Theatrical Stage Employees’ Walkout, Watch Your Own Pictures: Says ScanMyPhotos.com

Free Photo Scanning for all WGA and IATSE Members

IRVINE, Calif., Nov 16, 2007 (BUSINESS WIRE) — “Hollywood and Broadway might be dark, but people can still be entertained,” advised photo industry entrepreneur, Mitch Goldstone.

“People should revisit their own, long overlooked shoeboxes of snapshots, have it digitally preserved and be entertained while they share and watch their own pictures during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend and beyond,” said Goldstone, ScanMyPhotos.com president and CEO.

Support for the Writers and Stagehands

The entertainment industry strikes have impacted many, but none more than those walking the picket lines. The shutdown is causing widespread hardship. To help show support from the business community, ScanMyPhotos.com has been providing 250 free photo scans to all members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE). But, not to the corporate chieftains and industry tycoons who reap much of the revenues gained by those behind-the-scenes workers.

To take advantage of the 250 free photo scans, members of the WGA and IATSE are visiting ScanMyPhotos.com. The ordering information includes a link for accredited members to have 250 photographs digitally scanned and mailed back without charge.

Today’s digital world has triggered a revolution of change in the entertainment industry and beyond. From the film and television writers’ walkout in Hollywood, to the dark marquees on Broadway, technology is creating havoc, but also opportunities. For the photo imaging industry, consumers can now have generations of photo snapshots digitally preserved in minutes at a cost much less than even the balcony seats at an off-Broadway play.

ScanMyPhotos.com helps people watch their own generations of family photographs with its super-fast ecommerce photo scanning and retail digital imaging business. They scan 1,000 pictures in ten-minutes for just $49.95, and have prepaid fill-the-box service – the carefree way to have more than 1,600+ 4×6″ snapshots scanned and mailed back the same day for just $99.95.

ScanMyPhotos.com and its parent company, 30 Minute Photos Etc., are longtime advocates for supporting important causes. After “9/11,” the company brought 5,000 people to the Big Apple to support commerce and the city’s recovery (EPICCUSA.com). More recently, they are known as the first lead plaintiff in the merchant interchange antitrust battle against Visa, MasterCard and leading member banks, including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Wachovia and others. A daily website with news and commentary updates on the antitrust litigation is co-edited by 30 Minute Photos Etc. cofounders, Carl Berman and Mitch Goldstone. (WayTooHigh.com).

ScanMyPhotos.com has a treasured history of trust. As well-known photo imaging industry leaders, Berman and Goldstone operate a nationwide ecommerce and retail photo center.