The camera weighs only 5 ounces. It comes with a variety of interesting features, including automatic face and smile detection, as well as a Smart Album feature that organizes images by date, location, and people. It also includes a number of editing features built in, allowing for cropping, red-eye reduction, resizing, and color correction. In addition to the built-in wi-fi, the camera also includes the option to connect to other devices via Bluetooth, and to access the internet via cellular data connection. What’s more, since the camera runs the Android operating system, it includes access to the Android app market.

Digital camera makers have increasingly found themselves in competition with smartphones. As the cameras on these phones have gotten increasingly better, people have found that they need their standalone digital camera less and less. By and large, the camera industry has had a great deal of difficulty stopping this trend. Polaroid’s solution is intriguing. Indeed, it is even a little poetic: the camera industry fares poorly because manufacturers are putting cameras in their smartphones, so Polaroid put a smartphone in its camera. The SC1630 offers users all the advantages of taking pictures with their phones – ease of upload, mainly – but also gives them the opportunity to take far better pictures than their phone ever could.

The camera’s price has not yet been determined, though Polaroid expects availability sometime this year.

What do you think? Can Polaroid convince people to start carrying their cameras again? Sound off in the comments.

[Source: Polaroid Press Release]

Pollock discussed how many individuals, including artist and photographers, showed their appreciation towards the Polaroid camera, and pleaded for its return. In November of 2009, Polariod made the announcement that it was bring back classic film.  Pollock said this camera “really represents Polaroid.”

Polaroid’s new Creative Director, Lady Gaga, stated she was excited to help Polaroid take its Instant Film into the digital age.

The New Polaroid offers:

• flash
• red-eye reduction
• self timer

The new Polaroid will be available in sliver or a wooden look right around the holidays this year. The price has not been established. 

While we were there, we had the opportunity to speak with Polaroid Chief Marketing Officer John Pollock, who talked about some of Lady Gaga’s duties with the company. "She’ll be in charge of directing us creatively, and she’ll also be in charge of working with us on a co-branded line, a Polaroid-branded sub-brand with a lady Gaga twist to it," he said.

"I am so proud to announce my new partnership with Polaroid as the creative director and inventor of specialty projects", said Lady Gaga said upon the original announcement. "The Haus of Gaga has been developing prototypes in the vein of fashion/technology/photography innovation–blending the iconic history of Polaroid and instant film with the digital era–and we are excited to collaborate on these ventures with the Polaroid brand."

"Lifestyle, music, art, fashion: I am so excited to extend myself behind the scenes as a designer, and to as my father puts it–finally, have a real job," she added.

The products that will come from Lady Gaga’s partnership with Polaroid are expected to be available in late 2010. On a related note, Polaroid also gave WebProNews an exclusive look at its new photo sharing site PolaroidStudio.com.
 

Related Articles:

> Looking at Polaroid’s Photo Sharing Service

> A Close Up with Sony’s New Personal Internet Viewer

> The World’s Smallest USB Drive and Portable Hard Drive

You can use the service to upload photos or videos, but it offers a unique feature in that you can customize what your photo albums look like. You can choose backgrounds, pick how many photos you want to display across, up and down, etc.

Social media hounds may particularly like the Facebook app, which lets you easily import the photos into Facebook from Polaroid Studio. The site also has a store right in it where you can purchase various items with your photos on them. If you want a coffee mug, a Calendar, playing cards, or whatever, look no further than the site where you are already keeping your photos. That’s kind of convenient.

The service is still young, but so far it claims already over 62 million photos. They are also about to launch a pro version for professional photographers that they will be able to take and brand as their own.

Related Articles:

> Checking Out Boxee’s Version of the Future of TV

> A Close Up with Sony’s New Personal Internet Viewer

> The World’s Smallest USB Drive and Portable Hard Drive

 Google Search Results For Polaroid T730 Compact 7mp Digital Camera

Two things I learned: 1. When writing a review, don’t be an ass; 2. If you’re going to spend a lot of money on competitive keyword advertisements, it’s likely a best practice to give the searcher what they are actually searching for.

The top organic spot for those keywords doesn’t belong to Polaroid, as one might expect. Actually, Polaroid is nowhere to be found on the first page, organic or paid. Way to be in charge of your brand, there Polaroid.

Had the company been more proactive about SEO – yes, they actually have a website, and even a product page for the T730—interested customers would not have to suffer through number-one-spot squatter Woot.com’s excruciating review by "WOOTBOT," which earned the number one ranking as of midnight this morning. Despite the stupidity of it, I was still miraculously interested in learning more about the camera*, mainly because WOOTBOT didn’t mention a price.

Back to the search results, then. Not willing to brave another organic, non-Polaroid page on the product, I turned to the retailers who popped up for the keywords, who surely would have detailed (unbloviated) product information that included pricing, especially since I had to spend their money to find it.

Top result: Circuit City. Of course they’ll have all that. No, they don’t. In fact, clicking on the top paid search result directed me to a listing for Bissell Pet Odor & Removal Formula with Scotchguard, which retails for $12.99, in case, unlike me, you actually have a pet or find yourself in need of that information on The Price Is Right.

 Circuit City’s Paid Search Destination

Good job capitalizing on that ad spend, Circuit City. I’ll bet Office Depot knows how much it costs. Nope. Their paid link takes me to a landing page advertising 10% off, well, anything I guess. So if I ever actually find the camera and learn the price of it, I can save some unknown quantity of money.

Shopping.com? Close. Polaroid T730 memory cards, but no camera.

Amazon? Blank white screen. Service unavailable.

BizRate? Everything but that particular product.

Target? Enter your zip code to see the Target Weekly Ad. No thanks, and go screw yourself.

 Target’s Sign Up For The Weekly Ad

Wal-Mart? Polaroid TVs, cameras that perhaps are similar, but no trace of the T730.
 
Back to the organic results, then. Byrev.net had a much less BS-ified review, but still no price. DealsPlus: jackpot. $74.99, $5 shipping. Too cheap for me to be proud of as an expectant father, and I’m way too invested now to be disappointed with general affordability. I’ll dream about that $850 Canon listed below, and eventually buy something in between.

But here’s the point: Every one of the major, corporate retailers failed the search marketing test. None of them SEO’d their sites well enough to pop up in the top 10 organic rankings where searchers automatically associate credibility—until they read something written by WOOTBOT—and none of them actually capitalized on an interested buyer via great, relevant, and/or useful landing pages.

Lesson: Shoppers, especially during the discovery process, will give you, maximum, ten seconds (more like four) to earn their visit and/or business. They need information, not fluff, redirection, malfunction, or similar/related product pitches. Give them the right landing page and you’ll not only not waste your daily ad spend, but you may just earn a loyal customer who’s very tired of the BS.

_{*My best guess was that the review overall was positive, after sifting through stories of fat men and vacuums, and obscure Latin and German phrases nobody searching for camera information on the English version of the Internet needs to ever, EVER know.}