Pixelpipe joins ShoZu as paid-for service

After the vehement discussions I’ve been hearing from quite a few corners of the internet regarding ShoZu‘s decision to introduce a paid-for application (£2.99 in the Apple App Store), I just noticed that Pixelpipe their apparent competitor on the Android platform, has started charging too ($1.99).

I was actually searching for a Twitter client on the Android Marketplace — and saw Pixelpipe in the results. The Pixelpipe Media Uploader Pro application now available for $1.99.

It’s certainly understandable that these companies need to charge. They have to recoup their costs somehow. All those 5 megapixel images being fired across ‘unlimited’ data plans each month are going to start increasing bandwidth costs at some point.

I remember back in the day when sending more than 10mb a month up to ShoZu (for distribution to Flickr or the like) was an exception.

Now, I might do that in a given hour if I’m having a particularly busy afternoon of data consumption (like walking around San Francisco in the sun snapping interesting scenes that my wife will later sensibly delete as irrelevant).

I’ve long maintained that I’d pay a subscription service for the likes of ShoZu. I’d pay a monthly fee for priority uploading, backup of absolutely everything I send and more customised options and possibilities.

My experience with Pixelpipe hasn’t been brilliant. I found the Android interface they created rather clunky to the point of annoyance. It did work though. Which made it a lot better than the Flickr Upload app I bought.

Like everyone else on the Android planet, one of the first things I did when I got into the Android Marketplace for the first time was attempt to download ShoZu.

I couldn’t find it so downloaded Pixelpipe.

Indeed I’d go so far as to suggest that Pixelpipe owes a heckuvalot to the fact that ShoZu aren’t present on Android. It’s given them a good foothold on the platform. And you know what, there’s not that many photo/media upload applications available in the store anyway.

I’d like to know who the bright spark was at ShoZu that decided not to create an Android version. Utterly ridiculous.

The trouble with media upload services, as they’ve both discovered, is that, unlike a fire-and-forget ‘iFart’ application, media upload/transfer services require an array of on-going infrastructure (bandwidth, services, human IT admins) to continue delivering service — unless, that is, you can connect the app directly to, say, Facebook, or Flickr. But, particularly in ShoZu’s case, they have some significant back-end facilities to maintain in order to deliver the brilliant functionality that they offer.

So both Pixelpipe and ShoZu are now paid-for. What next?

Well I’ll definitely upgrade to the next iPhone app version for ShoZu.

I’m a little bit more reticent with Pixelpipe. Paying cash changes the value proposition for me so I’d like to see a lot of updates to the UI before trying it out.

And I also need to get hold of an Android handset with a decent camera.

Meantime… if you’re running an application or service that requires on-going cost to maintain and deliver (and you can’t amortise or fund via any other means), it’s clear you’ll need to charge consumers. I’m not sure a one-off charge should be the only option.