I'm doing this mostly from press release materials, but I think I've got this right. Canon today announced a couple of WiFi equipped compact cameras. One of the headlines in their press release was "Sharing made easy," so of course that catches my attention.
The good news is that you can upload to iOS devices (iPhone, iPad) and the Canon CameraWindow application can then share to Facebook, YouTube, or via email. The bad news is that Canon has also launched Canon Image Gateway (CIG), which is where they want you to really put your images (and then share them socially from there). (Nikon has a similar myPicturetown, which I'm sure will be the destination for any WiFi equipped Coolpix.) Indeed, CIG is the simplest "communicating" function the cameras support: no computer or other device necessary, you just need access to a Wifi network.
Put another way, this is "hey, we want some of that social networking and cloud pie." The problem with this is that it's the wrong approach, and always has been. Proprietary gateways are just another workflow block that complicates the user's life. The camera phones are educating users to take a picture, then press a button to say where it should go. Simple. That's different than "take a picture, upload it to someplace else, then tell us where you want it to go." Indeed, when phrased that way, all we're really taking out is the card reader or USB cable to replace it with WiFi, and we're adding a new proprietary program that's not the one you're already using (iPhoto, Lightroom, etc.).
So let me state it emphatically: if your primary business is selling hardware, your goal on the software side is to be agnostic and simplifying. This is actually one of the reasons why "programmable" is part of my Camera Redefined definition: if you truly have an open API, the social sites can all provide their own solution (program) for you. Again, that's what's happened on the phones/tablets, and that has progressed to "bundle applications" as well as add-on applications.
None of the Japanese camera companies have proven to be a good software developer (other than perhaps camera firmware, and even there I have some major quibbles). That they think that they can keep up with operating system changeovers (Nikon certainly can't) is laughable, but that they think they can program at Internet pace is so absurd I'm wondering if I've woken into a parallel universe.