Posted by Peter Radsliff on Thu, Jul 01, 2010
Presto subscribers have asked if we could develop a way to more easily get photos to their Presto Printing Mailbox users. That easier way is now here -- announcing a new free service: Presto DailySmile™ which lets you deliver a photo-a-day from Facebook or your computer to a Printing Mailbox.
If you are a Facebook user, you just tag photos from your albums or those you have access to, and they will automatically be added to a DailySmile "Photo Queue." Photos from that queue are then automatically delivered to your Presto user one per day.
For people who don't use Facebook, just upload photos from your computer at the Presto DailySmile website ( http://www.PrestoDailySmile.com ) and they likewise will be delivered one per day.
Facebook users who use Facebook Mobile will be able to add photos to their queue from their cell phones. And, you can even subscribe to certain albums which will post any added photos directly to the DailySmile Photo Queue.
It's tremendously easy to set up a week's, month's, or year's worth of photos and once you set it, you can almost forget it (because you get daily delivery confirmation emails and an “out of photos” alert email).
Since many people under a certain age primarily use Facebook to stay in touch with friends and family, Presto DailySmile can go along way in connecting grandkids and their grandparents. And it's free!
Visit http://www.PrestoDailySmile.com and sign up now. See how easy it is to keep the love flowing to your Presto user.
Peter Radsliff, Presto CEO
Posted by Peter Radsliff on Thu, Dec 10, 2009
[above photo: examples of email delivered using Presto’s pre-formatted email templates]
If you think email for seniors is the same as email for the rest of us, think again. If you are in your forties or fifties and worked in an office, you probably remember “getting the memo” of when electronic mail training would start. I remember saying “E-mail? Who needs that?! Another thing to check in addition to my in-box (the physical one), voice mail, and pager messages. How am I going to get all my work done when I spend most of my day communicating?!”
Well, it was soon thereafter that I realized email allowed me to leverage my work day and delegate tasks to subordinates very efficiently. It allowed me to keep projects moving, regardless of time zone, country or whether project team members were in the office or not. And, once my pager was replaced with a cell phone, then my productivity really went through the roof (whether these tools made for better quality work or a better lifestyle will be the subject of an entirely different blog post).
This is the way most of us see email. Efficient, effective, productive, plus sometimes a hassle and a burden, but indispensible nonetheless. Email has become essential to our lives. Even if email for some is being eschewed by messaging on Facebook, it’s still electronic communications and basically the same thing in a different wrapper. This is the viewpoint most of us have when thinking of email.
And when adult kids think about email for seniors like their parents, they view it from their own experience. “Will it be a hassle?” “What about phishing scams and spam?” “Will they print out hundreds of pieces of paper? That’ll cost a fortune in ink.” “How about identity theft?” Let alone having the patience to be their computer tech.
But this viewpoint is not at all correct when considering email for seniors. Think of the example above when email was new to the office, and those encountering it (like me way back when) started to explore its uses. After the initial imposition to the standard set of office work tools, it became an incredible adventure. Like setting off into the jungle for the first time, although instead of incredible flora and fauna one encountered chain letters, jokes and the occasional inappropriate cartoon.
Just like in those early days, today when someone provides email for seniors, the elders go through the same wide-eyed wonder. Seniors are floored to receive digital photos the same day they were taken. Or when they get a letter from a child across the globe. To them, email is much more like an instantaneous post office than like a replacement for the office memo.
And, as with letters in their sidewalk mailbox, what seniors really want is to receive incoming mail, not to be required to write a response for each as is the custom with email. When a response is required, research has shown seniors are happy to respond back in any of a number of ways: in person, by phone, by mailed letter. Few seniors who use a computerless email solution instead of a computer felt incomplete not being able to respond in kind to each electronic missive they received.
With simple, hassle-free (and low cost) computerless solutions like Presto, email for seniors takes on a whole new meaning which doesn’t need to include the complexity or cost of a PC with Internet service. Bottom line, gifting email for seniors is one of the greatest things a family can do. It will invigorate the senior’s mind, while making it far easier for the rest of the family to stay in touch.
Posted by Peter Radsliff on Tue, Nov 10, 2009
Presto has this phenomenal product and service that is in essence an email machine that delivers email for seniors. It is resoundingly loved by Presto subscribers (adult children) and users (seniors) as is evidenced by customer satisfaction surveys we have conducted and user reviews on Amazon.com and Drugstore.com.
But what is the best way to inform people who could benefit from Presto and how it helps combat elder loneliness and facilitates long distance caregiving? Presto has advertised on television, on radio, in newspapers, in magazines and online. We have been on The View, The Martha Stewart Show, Montel, iVillage and many other TV and radio shows.
All of these things have brought us success, but they are expensive for any company to pursue. We've also done lots of direct mail and email campaigns and these, too, have been successful. But in this economy, it's very difficult for any company to continue to have expensive advertising campaigns.
So I thought I'd open up this question to you! What do you think we should do to spread the word about Presto to people who could use it? Please put your comments below. I'll send something nice in return for any one we use.
Posted by Peter Radsliff on Mon, Oct 26, 2009
It's funny how people in the high tech sector refer to the target recipients of elder technology as "those people who didn't grow up with technology." Nothing could be further from the truth. I'd like to see how the Facebook generation would cope with the first telephone, the first automobile, the first airplane, the first telephone answering machine, or the first electric typewriter…all within the first half of their lives. And what about the first calculator, the first teletype machine, the first facsimile, the first computer terminal, and of course, the first personal computer.
I actually think of my Dad's generation as the original "early adopters" of technology. Think about it, besides all of the marvels listed above, in his lifetime, he has seen the building of the Interstate highway system, international air travel, jets, space travel and man setting foot on the moon. Not to mention the Apple I computer, the PC AT and XT, plus DOS, Word Perfect, CalcStar and Lotus 1,2,3.
But after a certain age, people get lumped into the “they just don't ‘get it’” category not getting credit from the technorati of the day for their mastery of the phenomenal forward strides in technology they experienced throughout the 20th century.
So before we write-off our seniors as being too dimwitted to “get” Facebook, remember that they had "party lines" when they were kids and they knew how to socialize and make new friends in person, and they even knew it was the chicken's way out to send a “Dear John” letter (and it's still wrong to do so, even by text message).
Some of them choose Presto computerless email, because they think it's “cool” to get letters and photos faster than snail mail and without the hassle of Windows 7 upgrades, virus definition updates or Comcast triple play fees. And they might just know what they're doing using a system that let's them get incoming email without any expectation of written responses.
So cut grandma and grandpa a little slack. Recognize them for being the cool, early adopters that they were. And maybe listen closely when they don't get all excited about the latest tech gadget unveiled on Gizmodo (maybe, just maybe, it really wasn't that “cool” to begin with).