• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, August 8, 2007

Startup technology firms trying to get the attention of the biggest-box retailer could take a tip from Sequoia Media Group. After showing Wal-Mart through a teaser Web site how successful its service is, the Draper, Utah-based company on Tuesday launched its service in the retail giant's stores.

The myMovieMaker service, available in Fujifilm photo kiosks at Wal-Mart stores, lets customers turn digital photos into personalized DVD movies for between $12.86 and $16.86. "We're targeting a market really underserved--the photo mom, the chief memory officer out at daily events," says Terry Dickson, Sequoia Media's vice president of marketing and business development. "They're busy. They can be at the soccer game one day, the dance recital the next, taking photos with a phone or digital camera and then take the photos to your retail store or workstation at home and create a memory."

Sequoia Media in July launched a teaser Web site that let consumers create a mini movie for free. They could upload up to six photos and choose from six templates. Creators could share the movie with friends through e-mail, but not save and download the content from the site. About 225,000 people have viewed the movies made by the 28,557 people who have tested the service on the site.

Now at Wal-Mart stores, myMovieMaker lets consumers create personalized movies in just a few minutes. The steps are simple. Customers can transfer the digital pictures from a memory card, thumbnail drive or CD into the kiosk and choose a theme; add photos; and select a music soundtrack. Each DVD accepts between 40 and 100 pictures, depending on which of the 64 template themes are chosen.

MyMovieMaker automatically creates the DVD movie with personalized case cover, DVD label, and thumbnail insert. Sequoia burns and ships the DVD to the consumer.

Francie Mendelsohn, president at Summit Research Associates, which tracks kiosk use worldwide, estimates there are more than 100,000 photo kiosks in the U.S. at big-box retailers Best Buy, Target, Wal-Mart, and others. "The secret of success to these kiosks is signage that lets people know where it is and what it does," she says. "Companies like Best Buy keep making the mistake of not putting up signs year after year, and then they wonder why usage is lousy."

Mendelsohn says the growth for services through kiosks won't come from printing 4 x 6-inch photos, but rather in scrapbooks, photo books, and multimedia services.

Sequoia Media plans to offer alternative products like scrapbooks and multimedia services, but not all will rely solely on big-box retailers to turn a profit. The company's plans for myMovieMaker service will likely come from launching a revenue-sharing model with consumers who create movies, Dickson says.

In this model, consumer goods companies like Lucky Jeans, Roxy or Quicksilver would have an opportunity to choose a user-generated movie created on Sequoia Media's site for an advertising campaign. Sequoia Media would share the profits from the agreement with the movie creator.

Sequoia Media began developing the photo service in 2003. Soon after, it introduced a prior version of the software online through Photomax, and then in May closed an $8.8 million round of funding with equity partner Amerivon Holdings LLC.