E-Color Develops Method For 'True-Color' Delivery
December 12, 2000
Software program enables products to appear accurately for online customers
SAN FRANCISCO – When setting up shop online, textile companies have come face to face with a glaring limitation: the Internet's failure to convey the feel of their products. While that can't be changed, San Francisco, California-based E-Color, Inc. is staking its name on its ability to meet a secondary cyber-challenge: assuring consistent color online.
"We've invented a way to show color consistency with the Web," said E-Color VP of products and marketing Peter Bernard. "We're trying to help make the Web a more compelling place to do business." Part of that is developing color consistency.
Bernard, who has a degree in computer engineering from Boston University, said that E-Color's software, True Internet Color®, ensures accurate product color online. The software enables an exchange of information about the image, between the supplier's and the buyer's computer. In short, the supplier's computer server 'knows' how the customer's computer is showing color: If the colors are inaccurate, the True Color software on supplier's computer corrects them.
So, when someone is browsing through the online offerings of a company that has retained E-Color's correction services, he will see a link that he can follow so that color is corrected. (Some companies have this link on the homepage.)
When the viewer clicks the link — the E-Color logo — he's prompted to answer a series of questions about how the colors are appearing on his computer. This information is immediately sent back to the supplier's computer for processing. The supplier's computer then serves up an image with absolutely accurate color, Bernard said.
Bernard calls the process by which the viewer provides color information "the clicks." "The good thing about 'the clicks' is that you only have to do it once," he said. "From then on, any site you visit that has True Internet Color will automatically serve up the color-corrected images."
Another benefit of the software is that it is complementary to any of a company's previous Web work. "It's a seamless, easy way that it works," said Bernard.
"If you're really going to address branding, you have to have to correct color. On the Web, you can't replicate the brand-buying experience that you get in the retail space because you're working through the computer screen, which is a piece of glass."
SAN FRANCISCO – When setting up shop online, textile companies have come face to face with a glaring limitation: the Internet's failure to convey the feel of their products. While that can't be changed, San Francisco, California-based E-Color, Inc. is staking its name on its ability to meet a secondary cyber-challenge: assuring consistent color online.
"We've invented a way to show color consistency with the Web," said E-Color VP of products and marketing Peter Bernard. "We're trying to help make the Web a more compelling place to do business." Part of that is developing color consistency.
Bernard, who has a degree in computer engineering from Boston University, said that E-Color's software, True Internet Color®, ensures accurate product color online. The software enables an exchange of information about the image, between the supplier's and the buyer's computer. In short, the supplier's computer server 'knows' how the customer's computer is showing color: If the colors are inaccurate, the True Color software on supplier's computer corrects them.
So, when someone is browsing through the online offerings of a company that has retained E-Color's correction services, he will see a link that he can follow so that color is corrected. (Some companies have this link on the homepage.)
When the viewer clicks the link — the E-Color logo — he's prompted to answer a series of questions about how the colors are appearing on his computer. This information is immediately sent back to the supplier's computer for processing. The supplier's computer then serves up an image with absolutely accurate color, Bernard said.
Bernard calls the process by which the viewer provides color information "the clicks." "The good thing about 'the clicks' is that you only have to do it once," he said. "From then on, any site you visit that has True Internet Color will automatically serve up the color-corrected images."
Another benefit of the software is that it is complementary to any of a company's previous Web work. "It's a seamless, easy way that it works," said Bernard.
"If you're really going to address branding, you have to have to correct color. On the Web, you can't replicate the brand-buying experience that you get in the retail space because you're working through the computer screen, which is a piece of glass."