I have been spending a small fortune on Photoshelter during three years. After just six month traffic (and sales) on my SYS site is already 10 times of what it was last on Photoshelter (and I have only 1/3 of my port up, yet).



@Pilens,

Why is this? What make SYS have better traffic than Photoshelter? Is it something different that just having a large collection of images?


My social network + marketplace idea, would show up much higher than SYS in google, I'm sure, if that's the only basis.

@noodle

I don't understand why you think it's nonsense. I'm just trying to get feedback on some existing ideas and some of my own ideas, before I waste time doing them. Why would you call this nonsense? I should of course ask photographers what they think; this is like common sense. I had one guy PM me on here, discussing his agreement with me. He told me he was scared to agree with me, as others in this community would vehemently disagree, just to disagree. Not that I agree with him. But still, we should be allowed to discuss ideas, openly, etc. on here. And I don't think I've been obtrusive or offensive in anyways. Just gave my thoughts, context, research, etc. If the conclusion from this, is that I shouldn't make a social network and marketplace, then I've learned something valuable.

Anyways, anyone have any other thoughts or ideas?

To be honest with you, I could make something like SymbioStock in less than a week, to give you an idea of where my skills are.

I think you are taking the piss reading the parts in bold. This is where I go in lurker mode.


I have no idea what you mean by this, honestly.

I'm not trying to copy the ideas.

I had this idea, along with my social network + marketplace idea, and then noticed there were some competitors, even after I did a lot of research on landscape.

I'm not looking for people to agree by any means. I'm just looking for people's feedback.

My initial thought was making a social network + marketplace, and letting contributors keep 70+ percent and branding it sort of like an Apple model, would resonate will in some regards, to the community.

I mean that's also why I reached out to photographers. I wanted their opinion.

According to this: http://barwickphoto.wordpress.com/tag/getty-images/

The largest market in stock, is creative stock, by far. Which would be in line with that marketplace.

No, I'm not from Pixoto. I have no idea why would draw the conclusion, looking at my posts.

I was thinking about starting a similar site, before I discovered pixoto, 500px, photorankr, etc.

I was wondering from photographers if they think any of these sites will have successful marketplaces.

Eg, 500px just launched a commercial marketplace, with a 5 year plan.

Figure out something that attracts a new group of buyers.


Do you guys think that what pixoto is doing is innovative for buyers? http://www.pixoto.com/

They sort content.

My thought is that if I build a large enough number of content providers and had a lot of supply, the demand would come eventually.

I see a lot of ways to make money. In stock photography, in selling prints, in possibly making a hiring a photographer directory, etc.


I think the key is to just get the photographers on board.

I mean, build something like Zoomr, that never came to fruition: http://rising.blackstar.com/an-interview-with-thomas-hawk.html

What every happened to that?

Combination of social network and marketplace.