Great idea for a product to work on. Ballsy too, taking on hardware production & dealing with all that physical production, economies of scale, ploughing fields & the rest of that 19th century stuff. I can see a lot of potential for this.

Nice thing is that you have a product and you can just sell it, in exchange for money. Just like any web retailer. On that note, you might want to take advantage of some of this PR for SEO and give your site a quick once over.

I see that for digital photo frame, picwing appears 6-7 time in the first 100 Google results via reviews & press but your site doesn't even come up if you search 'social photo frame'.

How about a version of this with an OLPC daylight-readable screen that doubles as an eBook reader? (How about a deluxe version in 8x10" format?) I could imagine one on the nightstand, the end table by the couch, or on the coffee table. It would be in a convenient place to pick up. You could make this touchscreen, but you wouldn't even have to do that. Just have simple D-pad navigation, perhaps behind the frame.

An add-on with some simple remote control facility would make it a 3-use device. (It should be possible to control a MythTV, Tivo or Front Row with this.) Again, it would be in a convenient place.

Aww, common guys! Change the casing! You'll have the best of everything, but that casing will kill you. Your outside has to be the very best part of your frame, because it's decorative. Right now it's too big, the screen is depressed. People have to pick up the case and love the device. Right now it looks a bit...ugly.

I'm not an industrial designer, so I can't say how you can make it better. But I can say that the picture does not really appeal to me. It's not sexy just looking at it. That's what you need to change, because if you are offering a premium product, first make sure it LOOKS premium!

Hey Max,

Thanks for the feedback. As with most beta products, we know that the design isn't great just yet. Design is really important to us, but we've been concentrated on having great functionality and usability for the past 3 months at YC.

With that said, I promist the final product WILL look much better in the end!

Okay, good that you guys are still going to improve the casing. If I were you, I'd take a look at the frames that really expensive paintings usually are in. Those frames are gorgeous, and your product should have something like that.

And please don't put "Loading..." when it starts. Make ripples or water droplets falling or even just a white line passing through like an EKG...

How about interchangeable frames? Can upsell to existing customers with decent margin leftover.

And who are these common guys of which you speak?

that's a great idea. One other person on hacker news suggested laser engraving on the frames, which I think is awesome!

Think hard about that one. Do people really want it? What's the percentage of ipods with engraving vs the percentage without? How much of a priority is this? If it's not there, will people miss it?

Aww, common maxklein! Say something nice just once!

I do say nice stuff when things impress me. Like that guy with the love affair site, muxtape, etc.

But for funded products who are working towards making it big in the real world, giving words of encouragment like "nice idea" is too late. They already know it's a nice idea. What I do there is point out what I felt was wrong on my first impression.

I could do the sandwich - good, bad, good, but frankly, I can't be bothered.

Just curious: what websites impress/impressed you?

One of the most entertaining parts of working at a big company was seeing the HR people & other managers do the sandwich during employee reviews. Painful.

This is a kickass product. Wish I had thought of it.

This came as quite a surprise to us, but hey we're glad it happened!

Who's buying the things at this point?

I'd be putting money on people buying them for their mums. Could be a huge Mothers Day hit. Not beta friendly though.