Scan Digital can put a lifetime of memories on a computer. Literally.
The El Segundo-based startup most recently scanned 60 years of photographs that had been stored in shoeboxes and albums for a Malibu woman. The total was 15,000 pictures.
“It’s one thing to scan one or a dozen photos at home on your home printer,” said Anderson Schoenrock, the company’s co-founder. “We scan thousands of photos, negatives and slides with professional-grade scanners and have a team of graphic designers and photographers who touch them up.”
Customers who don’t want to rummage through old albums can simply pack them up and mail them all to the company. If the photos are not permanently glued to the albums, Scan Digital removes the photos, scans them into a computer, retouches them and places the digital files on CDs. The customer gets the album back in its original condition and the disks.
“The idea is to protect your photos from natural decay. It’s about being able to enjoy your photos again and not have them trapped somewhere in a shoebox,” Schoenrock said.
The photos can also be uploaded to the company’s free online gallery, which can be shared with friends.
The company charges anywhere between 48 cents to 88 cents per photo, depending on the resolution of the scanned images. Slides and negatives cost more.
Scan Digital deals with mostly L.A. design firms and studios that need to scan production photographs. The company also serves doctors who want to digitize medical slides and architects who need high-end scans of large negatives.
Launched in June, the company of 14 employees is led by Schoenrock and Mike Mothner, also the chief executive of El Segundo-based Wpromote, a search engine marketing startup.
Scan Digital, which is not venture backed, has about 2,000 registered users on its site.
Document Site
Social networking around business plans?
Docstoc.com, which launched last week, is built around people uploading every kind of professional document to the site.
Documents include business plans, nondisclosure agreements, legal case summaries and wills. The site, which has been testing privately for two months, already has more than 12,000 documents.
“It’s like a YouTube for professional documents,” said Jason Nazar, chief executive of the company. “We have all these resources on our computers laying dormant that could be really helpful for someone else. What if some of us started sharing these files with the world? That’s what Docstoc is. Let’s democratize business and legal documents and make it free for everyone.”
Revenue is expected to flow from advertising on the site. Also, customers can purchase copyrighted content, such as research reports via the site’s e-commerce component. The company also has plans to spin off a lead generation business from the site.
Docstoc has received an undisclosed amount of funding from investors Louis Graziadio; Robin Richards, founding president of MP3.com; Rick Smith, former managing editor at Palomar Ventures; Scott Walchek of Integrity Partners; and Brett Brewer, co-founder of Intermix. The company’s chief technology officer, Alon Shwartz, formerly led product development at MySpace.
Video Demand
Demand Media, a Santa Monica-based upstart pumped with $330 million, may help users earn some money on one of its sites.
ChannelMe.tv is a site where users can buy a dot-tv domain name and create their own “channel” to play online videos. It’s one of a slew of enthusiast Web sites the company owns that it monetizes with advertisements.
The video site has just been equipped with what’s called a “User Advertising Program” that allows Web channel owners to cash in on advertisements on their sites. Demand Media will display two advertisements on channels that sign up for the free program. Users will specify ad categories that best match their content.
Earnings through this program will vary based on the channel’s traffic, categories and the number of campaigns running on the advertising platform.
“Some people may make a few extra dollars, while others might cover their annual cost of owning a dot-tv channel, and for the more serious Web publishers, we should see some meaningful earnings,” said Bill Jeffries, co-general manager of ChannelMe.tv. It costs $24.95 a year to own a channel.
Earnings of $10 or more will be paid monthly; amounts under $10 will be carried over to the next month.
Strong Start
Hulu, a much-anticipated online video site developed by NBC Universal and News Corp., launched last week and has enjoyed positive reviews.
Analysts have reportedly been impressed with the two media companies permitting a wide-ranging distribution of their copyrighted content through Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft’s MSN and other hosting sites. The site also allows NBC and Fox television shows, as well as content from 15 cable networks, to be excerpted and embedded in discussion blogs on Hulu.
The venture is backed by a $100 million investment from Providence Equity Partners.
Staff reporter Booyeon Lee can be reached at (323) 549-5225, ext. 230, or at [email protected].
