Veering slightly away from our usual subjects to talk about ink jet printers. The economics have been (with one exception, Epson) that the printer itself is sold to you at a low price, possibly even a loss, so as to tie you in to the use of the expensive ink, where the profit lies. Each manufacturer makes sure that their own catridges are hedged around with patents so that no one can clone them. There have been court cases to stop people refilling them too.

This has become so extreme that for some models the printer with a cartridge costs less than a replacement cartridge.

So along comes Kodak with their offering for the print market. Obviously they need to do something now that digital photography is wiping out their traditional market. They’re launching a line of printers where the replacement cartridges are more reasonably priced: $9.99 for a black one for example. Now, if they can get over to people that message about lifetime costs, (something of a big if actually: Australia has recently outlawed the incandescent bulb as they believe that people are too stupid to grasp the point that flourescents have lower overall costs) they might well be on to something.

However, the bit that they actually want me to tell you about is their site here: http://www.youtube.com/inkisit

Billed as "as funny as ink can be". A mix of podcasts, free games, competitions etc. Clearly they know vastly more about marketing to the masses than I do but it does seem a tad odd that they’re not playing up their unique selling point.

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