As a business journalist, I have to confess that I love it when money starts changing hands. I can get excited about all sorts of new and upcoming technology, but until people can find ways to create real value and get paid, it’s kind of hard to take seriously, like the 25-year-old married to your 60-year-old boss. So that’s why two startups launching at DEMO caught my eye.

Photrade is a platform on which photographers can post pics and track their use across the web. As part of that tracking, they can set fees for their photos and/or control which sites can use them. If the photo has been taken from the Photrade site, licenses can be revoked and updated at will. There are a few problems with this model, such as convincing people to use it in the first place — both to put quality images on it and pay for said images — but it’s a step in the right direction.

The other is MixMatchMusic, which not only enables online musical collaboration between artists and but payment for such collaborations. The service allows users to record a track of music, input meta data associated with that music and then search for other music that has similar meta data. analyzes it and suggests other music on the site that might compliment it. Musicians can use this to collaborate remotely, or meet musicians whose work they like. They can also create entire songs on the site and list them for download or commercial use. If someone buys the music, musicians get 85 percent of the revenue. Again, the site will have to get both buyers and sellers to particpate.

We hear plenty about all the people willing to work solely for their 15 minutes of fame on the web, and so far most efforts to help people cash in on their 15 minutes have fallen flat, but it’s good to see startups trying hard to address this problem. Maybe users will start taking them up on the solutions.

I have submitted this photo to the This Week in Photography photo contest. The theme for the contest is Circles.
When you click on the photo it will take you to the contest website and then you can vote for my photo.
Thanks!
EH

Sell photos on photrade | By Genuine240

I took this photo at Veterans Acres after an ice storm. There was a clear small frozen drop on the end of a branch and a lot of others on the tree branches in the background. They were catching the suns rays and causing the beautiful circle pattern.

UPDATE:
Voting closed for this image 9-7-08.
Here is a link to the winning photo: Umbrellas

Hey there… I’ve wandered off for a bit… work, and life in general got a little crazy… but i’m back, with a few things to share.

Sell photos on photrade | By MSchoonmaker

Sell photos on photrade | By MSchoonmaker

check out photrade, btw.  its awsome.  but in closed beta… through This Week In Photography, you can get in though (see blog roll)

* Partial quote from a comment made by timsdd to this blog post a few weeks ago.

Any of you who have been reading my blog (and those of you who know me personally have probably gotten an earful from me about it, too) know that I’ve been thoroughly enjoying the “share” and “protect” parts of the Photrade experience.  The recent addition of the expanded photo stats, contests, groups, and events sections has only enhanced an already great service and I’m loving it even more.

“Share” is what photographers always want to do.  Scott Bourne has stated many times that for a photographer to be successful, they have to do three things: (1) Show the work, (2) Show the work, and (3) Show the work.  In the Web 2.0 world that means some kind of photo-sharing website like Photobucket, Flickr, Smugmug, and now Photrade.

“Protect” is what photographers need to do regarding their copyrights.  Unfortunately, in this Web 2.0 world of ours copyright infringement has been rampant not only where photos are concerned, but with just about everything from software to books to music.  Photrade is serious about helping their patrons protect their copyrights.  The focus on security and emphasis on copyright protection through their HyperPhocal learning center shows that they not only pay lip service to the idea of copyright protection–they put actions to their words!

“Get Paid” is what we all want.  For some the amount is important.  For others, its the respect that a customer shows by actually paying for the right to possess a copy of the photographer’s work.  Both philosophies should be happy because Photrade has made it possible for the photographer to set his or her own price structure for their work.

That brings me to the point of this post.  As of today, I can fully comment on the full statement that timsdd made because I made my first two sales through Photrade this morning.  They came from out of the blue and from trading messages with the buyer, I’m sure it is a mutually satisfying experience (after I took care of the one technical glitch that was totally MY fault.  Thanks, John!  May they bring you as much enjoyment as they’ve brought me!).

Photobucket….only had my photos stolen and received no response from them.

Flickr….only had my photos stolen and received no response from them.

Photrade….was paid for prints of my images and hear from top management from time to time.

‘Nuff said.  Photrade rules!

Over at TWIP they are running a new Photo assignment called Circles. Here’s my entry

Vote for my photo! Mahalo!vote

If you want to participate, Here’s the link
TWIP Photo Assignment

The advent of digital and the lowering of the threshold on entry into our industry has raised the bar. No longer does being a good photographer make it…you have to know how to market yourself in the digital age.

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Technorati, YouTube, flickr, MySpace, Friendfeed, Stumbleupon, DEL.ICIO.US, DIGG, Mybloglog, Photography Voter, PictureSocial, Zoomr, Photrade, AllTop, Ning, and contributing to various forums are all considered to be part of what we are now to do. How do you decide which of these is right for you and your business? Does your brand play well with these technologies? Are you sure you want to be a wedding photographer? The new shape of the industry will allow only the most relevant and strong to survive. It is like Darwin’s theory only for Web 2.0.

5 Things that will help you build a brand that will stand the test of time and help you stand out from the crowd!

1) Brand Your Business :: Actually hire a professional to help you do this! Your brand should reflect your own insights and personality, not just what you think your customers want to see.

2) Develop Your Brand :: Be consistent with your message. Each contact with your clients or potential clients should reinforce your brand’s message.

3) Showcase Your Brand :: Website, Blog, Newsletter, Email Template, Business Cards, Studio, Mailers, and Products should all shine with your developed brand image.

4) Market Your Brand :: Create viral touch points. Here is where the new shape of the industry comes into play.

5) Grow Your Brand :: Allow your clients to help promote you! Update your images on your site and blog often. Remind your ambassadors what you are up to, ie newsletters. Do what you do best…shoot!

When design firms are looking for images for projects, they typically go to Getty or other more traditional stock photo sites. When bloggers need an image, they use their own or likely go straight to Google or Flickr. If all goes well, they find an image they can use legally. In other cases…. well, let’s just say there are a lot of pictures being used today that violate the owner’s copyright.

Photrade, a new site still in private beta, is set on protecting photographer’s rights while changing the way bloggers and online publishers find images in hopes of creating a win-win environment for the publishers and photographers alike.

According to the site:

Photrade is where photographers reclaim ownership of their photos. Photraders decide how, when, where and at what cost their photos are used online. We provide unprecedented protection for photos and offer a free photo marketplace where photographers can sell stock, prints and merchandise or use our Adcosystem (TM) where photographers get paid for every view of their photo, anywhere on the internet.

At the core of it, Photrade offers users the ability to create a profile, browse photos, upload photos, create galleries, protect images with watermarks, sell photo merchandise, sell stock images and turn on ads to earn revenue from photo views. How does that last piece work? Here’s an example. I uploaded an image to Photrade, grabbed the code they supplied for blogs and embedded it here. There were some options for size and borders, and to turn the ad on or off. I turned it on so you can see the small ad link at the bottom of the image and links to Photrade. Thanks to you all, I’ll make a few bucks off this cute little dog from Costa Rica. I can use the stats page to track views and money earned, and get my earnings next month via Pay Pal. With any luck I’ll earn enough to go back and visit the little guy…so keep clicking!

Sell photos on photrade | By Noreaster

Competition has been out there for a while, but mainly in the form of either online stock agencies or white label galleries & storefronts. And from what I’ve noticed, they tend to attract the more professional photographer (eg, Digital Railroad), or the amateur hoping to make a few bucks on the side (eg, Zazzle). I asked Photrade who their primary target audience was and learned about “prosumer photographers” who, according to Krista Neher, VP of Marketing at Photrade, “…are taking great photos and are interested in making money from them. This group ranges from enthusiast photographers (like me with a DSLR) to semi-pros or pros that are new to online. Additionally, we have received positive feedback from bloggers who like the protection features (especially when sharing their personal photos online), the monetization features, and the fact that when they need a photo they can get free legally licensed images from our site.” That said, their competitors seem to range from Flickr and Photobucket to Smugmug and iStock.

To further differentiate, Photrade is focusing on new protection options like setting a custom watermark across all of your images and disabling the print screen button on large image views. And yesterday they launched a redesign which puts more focus on the images and allows groups, events and contests. The platform allows anyone to setup and run a contest complete with judges, rules and prizes and enables voting, more social interactions and discussions.

In terms of my experience with the site, setup was simple, creating a profile was fast and uploading photos was easy. I did get some errors causing it to take extra time getting images online (it is beta…). An offline tool for batch uploading such as Flickr’s uploader would be extremely helpful. Surprisingly, I didn’t see any EXIF data associated with any images, which might be useful for targeting ads, but maybe that’s part of the plan down the road.

It’s nice to see that they’ve included a basic stats area so you can keep tabs on activity and earnings for each photo. If this takes off, I can see people very quickly wanting more detailed stats – on galleries, search terms, tags and more.

On the social side, you can view people’s profiles and leave comments, but they don’t yet have a way to favorite images or follow people or topics. They do offer two blogs you can subscribe to though: HyperPhocal (photography tips, tricks, news, reviews and features) and Photrade News (updates from the team about the product and its users).

Overall, I’m enjoying the small beta audience but am anxious to see the site and it’s tools evolve. I’d love to see more integration with Flickr and open API’s to encourage broader distribution. I think they have an uphill battle getting people to change their habits – that said, if the benefits are big enough for the majority of their customers (and not just a few extraordinary users), they’ll have an entire audience of marketers working for them and spreading the word.

If you’re a photographer, keep your eyes open for their upcoming Aperture Nature Photography Workshop contest with over $100,000 worth of prizes. If you participate, let me know if you’re a winner!

The month of July has just flown by.  Between work (both the typical stuff and special projects), moving my portfolio to Photrade, making the final push to finish the initial pass through the images from the Ocracoke trip last month (see my Ocracoke 2008 gallery at Photrade), and trying to figure out the best (and cost-effective) backup strategy for my images…well, this month has just about exhausted itself.  It seems like it wasn’t that long ago that Bea and I left Ocracoke…but it was almost a full month ago!

The first thing was work.  The first week of every month is always rough because of monthly scheduling.  Totally expected but still a rough week.  The good news was that there was a holiday at the end of that week. Four day work-weeks are always good.  I even got the chance to do a bit of shooting (camera, not firearms) that weekend.

After that there was the whole thing with Flickr/Myxer and the sense of urgency in getting my portfolio moved to Photrade.  At first it was a case of “gotta get everything from Flickr to Photrade” that kept me busy (my wife probably thinks the word obsessed is more appropriate) this week.  Then it changed to “gotta finish the initial pass through all of the Ocracoke images for processing” (that took some time because I shot about 1200 images during the week).

While doing that, I’ve been listening to various podcasts and realized my need for a good backup strategy for my images.  That’s what I’m thinking over now and the task seems quite daunting to me.  Oh, well, I’ll figure it out today and hope to get started on it sometime this weekend….as well as get out and shoot more images.

Which leads me back to what started this rambling post.  I just realized that all of the images I’ve shot since the Ocracoke trip are still on the camera.  I’ve not touched a single one of them and, frankly, don’t remember exactly what all is on there.  I guess I’ll find out this evening when I get home from work and download them to see.  I’m guessing there will be a bit of “what the heck is that?” and “what was I thinking?” but there is also likely to be a bit of “oh wow! I don’t remember doing that!”

Life’s too short for it to pass by this quickly.  Where’s the brake!  Shoot something so you can remember the fast times when you reach the slow times.  We have these memory machines for a reason–don’t just let yours sit there.  Use it!  Even if you wait a month or more to see what you’ve captured.

After the lack of response from Flickr regarding the copyright infringement fiasco by Myxer (see prior post) and asking the opinions of some folks in whom I have a lot of confidence, I have decided to move my online portfolio to Photrade.  Photrade is currently still in beta so getting in may take some time (due to having to get an invite either from someone in the beta or from the site itself), but it looks to be worth the wait.  I first heard about Photrade on the This Week In Photography (TWIP) podcast (#33, “Mostly Lisa”, June 13, 2008).

In addition to having galleries (not very different from those at Flickr), Photrade is set up to allow their users to sell prints and other merchandise (Have you ever thought of having your photo immortalized in the form of a ceramic tile mural?  Neither had I!), earn ad revenue from the site, and sell your work as stock.  Not only that, Photrade has structured their site to help protect the copyrights of their users.

Sounds ambitious, doesn’t it?  Well, I think so, too.  However, because it’s still in the beta stage the developers are seriously looking at the feedback that users send in.  This means that WE get to have some degree of influence (small, large, whatever) over how this site develops.  I don’t know about you, but I like the idea of the decision-makers listening to what I have to say about the service they offer.  Especially when the service offers the potential that Photrade aspires to attain.  I plan to stick around to see if they succeed.  If I manage to sell some of my work and make some money along the way…WOOHOO!  The biggest selling point for me is that they are doing something to protect their user’s copyrights!

For those of you who have managed to make it this far into this post, here’s the potential reward:  I have ONE Photrade invite left and will send it to the first person to comment here and email me at DBJohnsonPhotography (at) gmail (dot) com (make the appropriate changes so it looks like a real email address).

[UPDATE:  Due to lack of response here, I have given the invite to an old friend of mine from college.  Welcome aboard, Willie!]

Sell photos on photrade | By MSchoonmaker

Posted using ShareThis

this photo made it on to Chris Bergman’s Blog over @ http://www.hyperphocal.com.  This photo has recieved something like 1700 hits since he posted it, heh.  Thanks Chris

My Photrade Galleries…

I’m still getting settled into photrade… i’m debating fully moving from flickr to photrade… slowly maybe, but i’ll wait for some of their planned features… groups and contests…

also, as you can see above you can NOT post a photrade photo w/o their watermark… and an amazon ad on the bottom, heh.  the ad i don’t mind much… but i’d like the option of posting w/o a watermark for my own blog/site/ect… but the security of it is nice.

I really can’t wait until photrade is out of beta and public… i think it will be a great oportunitiy for photographers to have a stock site, that also is a good sharing/community site…

Sell photos on photrade | By americanuck

Posted using ShareThis

Tom showing off his juggling skillz at the park a few years ago. I got a freebie 1 year membership at photrade (which is in a private beta right now) and I signed on up. It’s a cool place to store my fave photos and who knows maybe someone will like one of em and want to have it for their very own. The site allows you to have galleries, custom watermarking and of course the almighty tagging. I sent one of my three invites to Tom and I’ve got two left to give away.

This Post Has Been Moooooved to Schoon Multimedia – Tech’s New Home.

To The Post

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This Post Has Been Moooooved to Schoon Multimedia – Tech’s New Home.

To The Post

To The Blog

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http://www.schoonmultimedia.com/tech

This Post and all other Tech Review posts (past/present/future) have been moved over to my sparkling new tech blog.

The Post @ Schoon Multimedia – Tech

The Schoon Multimedia – Tech Blog.

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Just thought I’d post a little round up of different reviews I’ve done…

Photography
Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Review
Photrade.com…
Gimp 2.4.6 Mini Review

Technology
First Take at the Roku Netflix Player
$499 Dollar Ethernet Cable

Music
3 Albums to Buy… Now.

that is all. more to come.

So… I’ve recently (tonight) joined a photo sharing/istock like sight named Photrade.  Its in beta, closed(ish) beta…

Photrade is definitely heading in the right direction… set your own prices (it seems you get everything above their (padded) cost)… for ordered prints, shirts, car stereos, flags… okay, i went a bit far.  but shirts, prints, traditional digital rights (5 different licenses)…

Also, Photrade seems to take on some of the trains of flickr as well… i haven’t gotten to play with Photradevery thoroughly… I do get distracted quite easily don’tcha know.  But i’ll be sure to throw in an occasional mention, if not here then on Twitter (eeeeeee)

This Post Has Been Moooooved to Schoon Multimedia – Tech’s New Home.

To The Post

To The Blog

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http://www.schoonmultimedia.com/tech

This Post and all other Tech Review posts (past/present/future) have been moved over to my sparkling new tech blog.

The Post @ Schoon Multimedia – Tech

The Schoon Multimedia – Tech Blog.

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So… I’ve recently (tonight) joined a photo sharing/istock like sight named Photrade.  Its in beta, closed(ish) beta…

Photrade is definitely heading in the right direction… set your own prices (it seems you get everything above their (padded) cost)… for ordered prints, shirts, car stereos, flags… okay, i went a bit far.  but shirts, prints, traditional digital rights (5 different licenses)…

Also, Photrade seems to take on some of the trains of flickr as well… i haven’t gotten to play with Photradevery thoroughly… I do get distracted quite easily don’tcha know.  But i’ll be sure to throw in an occasional mention, if not here then on Twitter (eeeeeee).

My Photrade Profile (its broken) (its in beta, and permalinks don’t exist yet)

On a side note, the shooting of albany was canceled for this evening… rain.  thunder.  lighting.  minor detail in my opinion, but it was out of my hands  sad.

Ойлаңыз, Алматының әсем табиғатының немесе Астанадағы жаңадан бой көтерген ғимараттың суретін түсіріп алып Flickr.com сияқты сайтқа қойдыңыз. Бітті, суретіңізге “right click”, сосын бірнеше сайттардан көресіз.

Егер маманды фото-суретші емес болсаңыз, менің суретімді қолданыпты деп бір қуанып қаласыз. Бірақ авторлық құқығын қорғағысы келетін фотосуретшілер үшін бұл үлкен бас ауыртарлық жайт болып саналады. Сондықтан суреттеріңіздің авторлық құқығын сақтай отырып, сонымен қатар сатуға да болатын бір сайтты ұсынамын.

Photrade.com қазір бета түрінде бұл қызметтерді ұсынады. Блогыңызға жақсы бір суретті сатып алып қоюға да болатын шығар, егер Гууглдан іздегеннен жалықсаңыз. Төмендегі суреттен түсінікті болар.

Жаңадан тіркелу үшін тіркелген мүшелерден шақыру күту керек. Мен әзірге 3 шақыру жібере аламын. Керек болса хабарласыңыздар.