AT&T, Yahoo! Deliver New Online Photo Services to Millions of Broadband Users

SAN ANTONIO and SUNNYVALE, Calif., Aug. 17 /PRNewswire/ -- AT&T Inc. and Yahoo!(R) today announced the launch of the new AT&T Yahoo! Photos, a Web-based service designed to make it easier for people to enjoy and share their growing photo collections with family and friends. In addition, results from a survey commissioned by AT&T Inc. show that the new features of AT&T Yahoo! Photos arrive at a time when digital photo users are demanding more from online photo services, including an easier way to share digital photos with friends and family.

The upgrades to the new AT&T Yahoo! photo experience mirror the growing use of online photo services. According to InfoTrends, the total number of online photo service users is expected to grow from 55 million in 2004 to 83 million in 2009. And Nielsen/Net Ratings cites that 62.5 percent of Internet-connected U.S. households now have broadband, a factor that lends to more interactivity with online photos.

The new AT&T Yahoo! Photos addresses this demand, offering desktop-like functionality in a Web-based service. It delivers new features like photo-tagging -- or labeling -- for easy viewing. It provides Smart Albums, or online "playlists" of photos that detect newly tagged photos and automatically recognize and add tagged photos to online albums. The service offers deeper integration with leading AT&T Yahoo! services, including e-mail and Instant Messenger (IM), among other options. Users can also order professional-quality prints online for pickup at local stores, place ship-to-home orders, or order personalized photo gifts via the new service.

The new AT&T Yahoo! Photos brings a Web 2.0 experience to AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet subscribers, featuring the next generation of Web-based services and social media that enable people to collaborate and share information online. It moves beyond static online album structure, to dynamic, flexible and smart photo organization, and it provides the ability to save photos to more than one album. The enhanced service brings tagging capabilities to the mass consumer audience, and it extends beyond the PC, to mobile devices (such as AT&T Yahoo! Go for Mobile).

"The new community-based photo features -- like photo-tagging -- foster user interaction in ways that weren't possible before for AT&T Yahoo! broadband customers," said Kieran Nolan, vice president, AT&T Broadband. "For example, as photo collections continue to grow, they can become more difficult to manage. With tagging, users can label photos -- their own and those shared with them -- making them easier to organize and find later. Features like these mean that customers can now exchange comments on shared pictures, add tags to help organize photos and rate them for simple searching."

Unlike other Web-based services, the new AT&T Yahoo! Photos functions much like a desktop application but offers the combination of remote access from any Web-connected computer, with no software download required.

"AT&T Yahoo! Photos enables users to spend less time maintaining their photo collections and more time viewing and sharing them with family and friends," said Will Aldrich, director, Yahoo! Photos. "Whether they are online photo-sharing enthusiasts, or first-time digital photographers, next-generation capabilities like tagging, search and comments will change the way millions of AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet subscribers enjoy their pictures online."

A new survey commissioned by AT&T provides feedback on using digital photos with online tools, ideas on digital "photo personalities," ways to share and reasons why people like working with digital photos, among other topics.

WHAT USERS WANT

The AT&T survey revealed that currently more than one in five respondents already move their digital photos from a camera to their computer to enhance, edit and create their own visual content; however, eight in 10 (80 percent) of survey participants indicated that they would share digital photos with friends and family more often if they had the needed features, tools and know-how. When asked what they would do with online photos if they had additional skills, knowledge and tools, 74 percent of survey respondents aged 18 to 34 said they would save to an online album or create a personal Web site with their photos.

PHOTO PERSONALITIES

The AT&T survey results also revealed several unique "photo personalities" that people used to describe the way they work with digital photos.

* Personal Paparazzi. Thirteen percent consider themselves to be people who take lots of self-portraits and then share the photos with everyone they can. * Shoot and Run. Ten percent of respondents classified themselves as digital photographers who store their photos on a portable device, such as a digital music player or cell phone, and show them to friends and family on the go. * Webmaster of Ceremonies. One in five respondents described themselves as people who not only take digital photos but also store them on a computer, create slide shows, post photos to Web sites or make multimedia movies or DVDs to share their photos with friends and family. * Lens Cappers. Less than one in five (17 percent) of survey participants classify themselves as people who take digital photos but usually leave them in the camera. * Underexposed. Thirty-seven percent of those surveyed describe themselves as people who take digital photos and store them on their computers but don't share or know what to do with the pictures.

The new AT&T Yahoo! Photos is available beginning today and will continue to roll out in the coming weeks to AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet subscribers. AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet offers consumers a unique broadband experience, including virtually unlimited photo and e-mail storage, Instant Messenger with webcam capabilities, commercial-free Internet radio, and a suite of powerful online security tools.

This survey was sponsored by AT&T to gather insights into how American consumers are taking advantage of digital photography today and where they want to go tomorrow. The survey was conducted through the ORC Caravan(TM), a nationwide telephone omnibus poll, from July 14 through July 17, 2006. Results for the AT&T Summer Photo survey are based on responses from 965 adults (from a total sample of 2,000 Americans) who have a digital camera. For this sample of 965, the margin of error because of sampling is less than plus or minus 3.1 percentage points at a 95 percent confidence interval for values at or near 50 percent.

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About AT&T Inc.

AT&T Inc. is one of the world's largest telecommunications holding companies and is the largest in the United States. Operating globally under the AT&T brand, AT&T companies are recognized as the leading worldwide providers of IP-based communications services to business and as leading U.S. providers of high speed DSL Internet, local and long distance voice, and directory publishing and advertising services. AT&T Inc. holds a 60 percent ownership interest in Cingular Wireless, which is the No. 1 U.S. wireless services provider with 57.3 million wireless customers. Additional information about AT&T Inc. and AT&T products and services is available at http://www.att.com/ .

Subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. provide products and services under the AT&T brand.

About AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet

AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet is provided by AT&T Internet Services with customized content, services, and applications from Yahoo! Inc. Yahoo!, the Yahoo! logos and other product and service names are the trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Yahoo! Inc.

Subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. provide products and services under the AT&T brand.

For more information and detailed disclaimer information, please review this announcement in the AT&T newsroom at http://www.att.com/newsroom .

About Yahoo!

Yahoo! Inc. is a leading global Internet brand and one of the most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide. Yahoo! seeks to provide online products and services essential to users' lives, and offers a full range of tools and marketing solutions for businesses to connect with Internet users around the world. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California.

About Yahoo! Photos!

As the No. 1 photo sharing service worldwide, Yahoo! Photos (http://photos.yahoo.com/ ) makes it easy to enjoy, share and preserve memories. Users can order professional quality prints online for pick-up at a local Target store within one hour, place ship-to-home orders or order personalized photo gifts such as photo stamps, books and cards. A free service with unlimited storage, Yahoo! Photos is the most complete photo sharing service and includes deep integration across the Yahoo! network through leading services such as Yahoo! Mail, Messenger, Mobile and 360 degrees.

Yahoo! and the Yahoo! logo are registered trademarks of Yahoo! Inc. All other names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners.