PN (2)

<p>And new.</p><div></div>

<p>Glenn, <br>

Would it be appropriate to extend my membership for one year for free as a reward for not becoming involved in this thread?<br>

Your patient servant :-(</p>

<p>LOL, Jim.</p>

<p>Jim - much appreciated! Stay out of it! Kidding of course. </p>

<p>Martin I'd have to agree with you - your portfolio is more appealing the further away you get from it. Ba dum tiss...that was way too easy. </p>

<p>I'm so glad I took the time.</p>

<p>Glenn, I thought you were my biggest fan!</p>

<p>@ Fred:<br>

1) We have taken away no sorting function so not sure what you are missing, but Jin has not removed any sorting functions I am aware of.<br>

2) Same as above, no functions have been removed from workspace.<br>

3) Monthly Project - Jackie has taken a break from monthly project, I think she was a little disheartened by the lack of participation. Quite a bit of cost and effort went into those and not much in way of people participating. What are your thoughts on this being done within the forums as opposed to it being article based. Again, look back - participation was light at best. Could use those funds to hire professional critiques? We've got a few notable photographers that are interested in doing public professional critiques - what are your collective thoughts on that idea?<br>

4) Monthly newsletters. Will look into your subscription for you.<br>

5) I miss Lex too. Maybe he'll be back - maybe he won't in the meantime think Steven Stills - if you can't be with the ones you love, love the ones your with. </p>

<p>@ Martin - We will take your feedback and include it with the notes for designer. How we present the portfolios can still be adjusted. Many ask for more personality from me and less corporate, so thats all I was giving you. Apologies for comedic relief on my part - I can remove the entry if you wish so as not to be part internet records for eternity. </p>

<p>Glenn, appreciate your responses. Unfortunately, you're wrong on numbers 1 and 2. Those sorting functions changed probably a couple of years ago. I brought it up at the time in this very forum and you said you would look into then. It's not worth an argument. And my main interest is not bringing back features that I miss. My main point here is that the dwindling participation is demoralizing as is the interminable wait for the redesign. And I hope the redesign is not the sole solution to the dwindling participation participation. What other mechanisms are you considering in order to try to get back members who have left and try to get new members?</p>

<p>Not to worry, Glenn. I've already edited my previous post to fit in with the comedic relief. Continue on with it, as necessary. Martin</p>

<p>As to building the monthly project into the forums, participation is dwindling in the forums just as it did on the monthly project, so I wouldn't see the point. I put a fair bit of effort into some weekly threads that got less and less participation. That could be a matter of the dwindling participation I'm talking about or lack of interest in my threads in particular. But I'm no longer willing to put that kind of effort into relatively low-parkticipation threads. Once I start to see results of efforts being made by the site to reinvigorate participation, I may revisit that.</p>

<p>I agree Fred. But I think we all need to recognize that "growth" will not happen over night BUT its clear to us internally that the new platform will allow us many more levers behind the curtain for "growing the site". If photo.net 2.0 was a jigsaw puzzle it would be the corner and edge pieces put together so your jigsaw puzzle has a frame. <br>

To my mind, "growth" is a broad word and means different things to different people. But to answer your question as quickly and as directly as possible: Our efforts will initially be focused adding value to the subscriber package and providing incentives to free users to subscribe. Advertisers currently keep photo.net running and historically that worked well. That said, we have found that (generally speaking) photographers don't want to see ads next to their work. Beyond that they expect a more intuitive user experience to gain exposure to the community. For example - many new users don't understand that unless you make your photo available for critiques or ratings it is essentially a needle in haystack on the current site - they become discouraged and move on.<br>

Our subscription pricing is (IMHO) very attractive for what we currently offer and we'll only add to it. We have partners lined up and interested in working with us on the new site - once launched we'll introduce them and their contributions to the subscriber packages. One thing is for sure, this space has changed a lot in the last 10 years and we need to be focused on what subscribers want - so we'll be asking you what you want as a subscriber beyond what we currently offer. <br>

Clearly at its core, "growth" is about new users. The new site we believe is much more user friendly to new users. Yes we understand - existing users that know their way around current site will have to re-learn where things are but we feel its very intuitive and we have feedback from numerous new users that have said as much. Isn't it worth learning the new navigation to be able to interact with a whole new subset of users that come to the site? We think so. I can tell you we get at least 12 emails a day from new users asking how to do something that they shouldn't have to ask how to do. We know the current site has its quirks, some love it for that - but its also hindering our new user growth. </p>

<p>Trust me, we understand the redesign is only one phase of the puzzle and the work towards growth is a never ending journey. The resources that we put into the redesign (which have been significant) will then be put into growing the new site.</p>

 

<p>I know you're looking for more - but know we understand it doesn't stop with the launch. There is more to come and 2.0 will allow us to execute those plans. In short - its about providing subscriber value. </p>

<p>So while we're at it....subscribers and non-subscribers - what would you value most in a subscription? </p>

<p>I do not know if this is generally applicable, but my main interest is in photographs. And specifically in finding photos, which now is not that easy, unless I work through the "rating machine", which I do not like anyway and get over the captcha hurdle.<br>

I have started reusing the random image generator and it works better, but I used to remember that there used to be some smart feature of feature tracking.<br>

As Glenn indicated, it would be desirable to have some way to keep track of photographs (and photographers).<br>

Also some interactive notification system of feedbacks on photos.<br>

Features that were there and I now miss are</p>

<ul>

<li>the picture of the week</li>

<li>the noting function of followed members (which is useful to keep track of what kind of photos they make)</li>

<li>the "helpful comment" function</li>

</ul>

<p>I would also like to overcome the 15-photo limit for favourites.<br>

And lots of old contributors to come back. To be honest. But I realise that that's some kind of utopistic desire.</p>

<p>PS what link can I use to look into the beta version of the site?</p>

<p>Luca I will send you details for previewing pre-beta in email. </p>

<p>Current home page: It's a little dowdy, true, but's full of information. See attached (as if you don't know what it looks like).</p><div></div>

<p>Proposed home page. Just a platitude ("where photographers inspire each other") and a graphic of a heart next to the phrase "learn more") and a few more things. Like I said, not my cup of tea. Do other people like it?</p><div></div>

<p>It's fun (for me) to see a picture I've just posted for critique on the home page (so much fun that I'll post almost anything, it's true). I'd hate to see that feature left out of the great leap forward on PhotoNet 2. Is it there somewhere?</p>

<p>Glenn,<br>

I used to participate in the monthly project when it was an assemblage of photos taken that month. There wasn't any discussion, but there were many photos. Then it disappeared, and returned with a person in charge (don't recall the name). There was a subject, and a bit of discussion, but, as I recall, it began in the middle of the month. That seemed to fall apart, and soon there weren't many responses, and the "moderator" didn't do much to facilitate discussion. I wasn't enthusiastic about it at that point. Then it became a contest, and I dropped out completely just for that reason. Images for the monthly project went from being contributions to contestants. I wasn't enticed to join in. I was alienated. Isn't the monthly contest enough for that sort of thing? Just because surveys indicate that people like contests doesn't mean that everyone likes them. It also doesn't mean that turning something into a contest will increase participation. Use the funds for other things. </p>

<p> </p>

<blockquote>

<p>Beyond that they expect a more intuitive user experience to gain exposure to the community. For example - many new users don't understand that unless you make your photo available for critiques or ratings it is essentially a needle in haystack on the current site - they become discouraged and move on.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Move on to where?</p>

<p>Every online photography enthusiast site (with a PN 2.0 design scheme) I could find has their members work as needles in a haystack.</p>

<p>I think PN 2.0 is just fine and will work like any of the other sites that look similar. Take your time and do it right, Glenn. I'm in no rush.</p>

<p>I just found a newly established cinematography site forum with similar PN 2.0 interface design and functionality, but the level of information is less specific and appears to be populated by 20 something newbies who are more attracted to the celebrity of the site's namesake than the subject at hand. They don't ask really pertinent questions and the answers by the site's namesake are way too short and sweet. Quite a few ramble on about movies they like and don't like. Is that the kind of crowd you're attempting to attract?</p>

<p>And I just discovered the dynamics of Facebook's "Like" scheme where I started posting a couple of my photos for the first time on my local park's advocacy group FB page where I received quite a few "Likes" from a string of acquaintances made in a high school reunion years back (not photographers). I never hear from them afterward as was the case before I posted the images. I don't know the level of sincerity and meaningfulness I'm to take away from that. It didn't help me.</p>

<p>Glenn, I hope you really know how the work on PN 2.0 is going to change things for the better. This site like all the other sites I've visited in the past ten years appears to be populated by a lot of people with time on their hands.</p>

<p>Are you hoping to attract those who don't have a lot of time on their hands? Who else is there?</p>

<p>The new home page was designed to quickly convey to a new user what photo.net is all about. Discover, Develop and Discuss we felt answered that question about as quickly and as accurately as possible. We don't know for sure that a new user today - actually gets all that photo.net is when they see the current home page. Sure, if they spend the time to explore a bit they might...but if they don't they'll never know = lost opportunity for new user = growth we spoke of earlier. </p>

<p>If you scroll down you will see featured images from the community. We had to keep the image load to a minimum for speed - no one (new and existing users) likes a slow page. The 3 tabs is our version of streamlining our current navigation. We believe providing 3 tabs instead of 9 tabs is a less overwhelming (9 tabs has been called overwhelming often) and eliminates much of the redundancy that currently exists. Who likes redundancy unless you're talking about money, vices or servers?!</p>

<p>The explore tab is all about the photography and giving it a proper stage to easily be found and enjoyed. Now you can easily browse by most recent uploads from all community members. Sort by category - sort by date, admires, favorites, comments. Trending is a stage reflecting photos that garnered attention within the last week. More attention a photo gets by the community the higher it resides on the trending page. </p>

<p>You can easily curate your own collection of favorite photos and photographers and galleries. The photographers that you follow - you will find their most recent uploads in your member center. So you can create you own circle of influence of photographers that inspire you. See what they're doing, where they're doing it, what they're using and of course even ask them for advice or critiques. Editors' Picks, Photo of the Day and the rest is not hard to find off the Explore tab - again you can easily sort to find what you are looking for. </p>

<p>Learn tab is the aggregation of our 800+ articles. <br>

Community = forums - where photographers ask questions and ideally get answers. <br>

Member Center is much cleaner than the current "workspace". <br>

To answer your question about time. We all know that time is not infinite, we all only have so much - so I think we're trying to build something that accomplish many things we all seek. Growth through new users, is certainly at the core of what we're trying to accomplish. More new users in theory = more engagement, more photos more critiques, more of almost everything we seek in an online community. Certainly can't expect to grow if we have a steady stream of "how do I" questions we get for something that should be intuitive. <br>

But this wasn't only built for new users. 2.0 has more functionality, more intuitive navigation, cleaner presentation that benefits all users. Martin H - you like seeing your photo on the home page ie get exposure - I can almost guarantee that if you are actively uploading not only will your recent uploads be appreciated by more people (because its more easily found) your entire portfolio will get more exposure, which opens the door for meaningful and constructive exchanges with other photographers. You may even find yourself actually out shooting more because you want to try new things, push your boundaries as a photographer, make new friends - young and old..wow....now wouldn't that be great! </p>

<p>I hope this helps if even a little you see 2.0 through our eyes. Again - do we expect it to be perfect, no. Will we continually make what we hope are improvements - yes. Do I think its the end all be all - no like I said earlier - 2.0 is the frame of the puzzle assembled. We will need to fill in the other pieces to complete the picture, I sincerely hope you are all along for the ride. This is supposed to be fun! </p>

 

<p>I think that the reciprocal inspiration is one of the key characteristics of photo.net. So the new caption perfectly fits the bill. I like the home page. My review will be more about how the new website functions, rather than about "what I like". The users are still so many that it is nearly impossible to make everybody happy.<br>

I will take more time to review the beta version, but I would say that to set PN apart from the more "social network-like" photo sites it is more important to find the photos the viewer wants to see, rather than being presented them automatically.<br>

Personally I would not care about seeing my newly posted photo on the home page, also because it might stay there only briefly.</p>

 

I peeked and I like it.

At least on my iPad.

Will check if the desktop version is different.

Nice interface, very nice rendition of the photos.

I also realise that it's a matter of getting used to it, but that's always the case, isn't it?

<p>Glenn, it's time fro another update, given your estimate of the completion date for 2.0.</p>

<p>Update - another set of load testing will be conducted tomorrow at our highest level yet. The testing did reveal coding errors that we had to clean up - but that is to be expected. We're hoping we get no issues with this set of load tests - once we have that we'll be able to provide a definite timeline. </p>

<p>To Lucas point of being able to "see photos the viewer wants to see" will be achieved by following photographers that inspire you - their latest uploads will then appear in your workspace under "favorite photographers" - all of their most recent uploads will reside there. You in effect can very easily curate your own stable of inspiring photographers. </p>

<p> </p>