Get Your Photo on the Kodak Times Square Picture Wall

Many years ago I stopped by the Times Square visitor’s center in Manhattan. They offered a program which offered to take a photo of you (or your group) and put it up on the huge screen at the north end of Times Square. It was totally cool and a great way for tourists to say they were on top of Times Square.

Kodak is now offering something similar but with a much better screen.  It’s also a lot more advanced than the previous attempts at photo on a big picture wall. Kodak is promoting the screen as part of the New Year’s eve festivities in Times Square tomorrow evening. Seems like a fun way to ring in “two-thousand ten” (sorry MG not twenty-ten).

With this new service, you email your photo to Kodak and within 24 hours you will receive a notification if your image was approved. Kodak notes that the images must be “appropriate”. In the notification email, Kodak will include a text code.

When you get to Times Square, you send a text message to the address provided and your picture, with caption, will show for 10 seconds. Assuming Kodak can get the word out about the program today (since it takes 24 hours for approval), I can imagine how many people will want their image to be displayed on the screen at exactly 12:00am on January 1st. I guess anytime during New Year’s eve would work as well.

It looks like the service will be available past New Year’s so if you are planning a trip to New York, you could send in your photos now and just use the text code once you arrive. Maybe you could use the screen to propose to your significant other?

As a side note, the Times Square visitor’s center is still a great place to go if you are coming to NYC for the first time. They have loads of maps, discounts, free Internet access and clean toilets.

Lastly, walking around Times Square today I noticed Yahoo is still advertising above the police substation. I wonder how long that ad will be there…especially since it’s never changed in all the years it has been there.