Photo.net Sold !

http://www.stockphototalk.com/the_stock_photo_industry_/2007/10/photonet.html

Great. Does anyone know what might change as a result?

Will look forward towards more news.

Photo.net has been acquired by NameMedia, Inc (www.namemedia.com). NameMedia is located in Waltham, MA and specializes in developing and managing large enthusiast community web sites. They currently operates a number of these community sites, including Davesgarden.com which is the largest and most active gardening community on the web. To be honest though, the only one of their websites that I was very familiar with when I first learned about them was geek.com, a leading tech-nerd gadget site. Davesgardens was a website much like photo.net that was created and built mostly by one person, and that grew to be a leader in it's topic area. I don't think you would find members of davesgardens.com expressing the opinion that the NameMedia purchase changed their site significanty.

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The acquisition happened this past spring and is now being announced. I have enjoyed working with the folks at NameMedia during this period. They are good people and I am excited about the new opportunities that will emerge through their connection with photo.net. NameMedia is committed to preserving the things that have made photo.net a valued resource for photographers over the past 15 years. I have had an opportunity to witness this commitment over the past few months and believe it to be genuine. Most importantly, from my standpoint, is that the acquisition will give us the resources to tackle many of the functional improvements that the community has been requesting over the past few years.

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As we all know, Photo.net's success has been the direct result of the tireless work by the team of moderators, editors, writers, and programmers that maintain and enhance the site. NameMedia recognizes this and has not changed the team of people working on the site, they are only adding more depth and resources.

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If you're wondering what major modifications to expect, there won't be many. Photo.net will continue to be the best community on the web for serious photographers to share, learn, and grow in their craft. Over the coming months, new features will be added to the site, but all of those improvements will be aimed at the continued fulfillment of (or redirection towards) the site's photography education and community mission. In the near future, we will be launching a newsletter and blog to share items of interest with photo.net and to help keep the community better informed of new developments.

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So, while there are some (in my opinion, overdue) improvements on the horizon, for the most part it will be business as usual at photo.net.

Their forums already redirects visitors to the photo.net.

This shouldn't be much of a surprise to anyone that has been here long. Many suspected that Philip Greenspun's return here last year was solely motivated by, and a precursor to, this very outcome.

Michael,

 

It was that and the way the previous manager was mismanaging photo.net's resources. Josh & Co. seem to have done an excellent job of righting the ship.

<i>"Josh & Co. seem to have done an excellent job of righting the ship."</i><P>

Agreed. Credit where credit is due! :-)

Thanks guys. We're working hard.

 

I've been here nine years now, I have no interest in seeing photo.net turn into something else. We are just going to use this opportunity to take advantage of some resources that we didn't have access to before.

Being in Waltham, does NameMedia have anything to do with the former Kodak imaging division there?

 

Ron Mowrey

Rowland,

 

I do not believe so. I think that is just a coincidence. I've been to the offices and haven't seen any surplus yellow office furniture.

From the article:

 

"The Photo.net gallery boasts more than 2.5 million high quality user-uploaded images."

 

Hmm, they most have looked on a day when the 3/3 bots weren't running wild. :)

 

Here's hoping the sale will speed along improvements we'd all like to see here at Photo.Net.

<p />I appreciate Photo.net, and I hope things won't change much as you say. However, to

be honest, I won't count my blessings until I hear the other shoe fall. This often takes

awhile as new owners implement new policies and rules. My only immediate advice is, if it

hasn't been done already, to have a faq on the acquistion and plans, so people if they

want to opt out, meaning transfer their images, they can, because that, and the forum, are

my interests.

 

<p />I say this because the <a

href="http://www.stockphototalk.com/the_stock_photo_industry_/2007/10/photonet.ht

ml">press release</a> I read doesn't sound that hopeful to me as <a

href="http://www.photography.com/">photography.com</a> looks to much like a ad

space with some photography filler, and if the goal would be to merge the two Websites, it

doesn't look good. The two are far different.

 

<p />Damn, I just renewed my dues too.

It is important to remember that the press release was not aimed at photo.net members. It was aimed at news organizations, investors, and business media outlets.

<P>

The press release makes it sound like photo.net is being added or merged somehow into the photography.com system. And that is <b>absolutely</b> not the case.

<P>

Photo.net is the <b>far</b> more important of the two sites in NameMedia's eyes. Photography.com is not the example of what photo.net is to become, it is much more accurate to say that photography.com needs to be more like photo.net.

<P>

As for leaving the site, just as it has always been, users are free to remove their images at any time and mark their account as deleted. As per the Terms of Use, site submissions (forum posts, critiques, ratings, etc) stay on the site as part of our mission to create a lasting database of photographic knowledge. While you cannot remove these contributions, I am happy to help you change your display name if you wish to distance yourself from the account you created here. Just contact me via the "contact photo.net" form below.

<P>

Subscribers will get everything they were told they would when they subscribed. In fact, if I were a betting man, I would wager that in a few months, the subscriber benefits package will have become significantly more valuable due to the new programming and marketing resources that Namemedia has given us.

Thanks for all this information. This sounds like great news for the site and more importantly to those overworked souls that run this place. Congratulations seem to be in order.

Josh, now just so you know. Changing your name will help people on PN not know your name but when you google search yourself you still find yourself right back here at PN.

 

I am still findable with my real name.

 

Does that happen with everyone. If your name (Josh) were really Pierre Toor would we find you here?

 

Just curious. Because I google myself and bam here I am still. (sigh)

 

At least PN people can't google me to find me. LOL

 

Not that I really want to be "not" googled but I think you understand since we talked about why I need to not be found so easily.

Photo.net can't do anything about cached pages on Google or other search engines.

 

Your identity here is actually your user ID number. If different names point to the same user ID number, then it's possible that searches on both names could take you to the same place.

 

There's possibly away around this, but it would only be used in extraordinary cicumstances. That would be up to Josh.

Eventually google will re-crawl the page and update the search results. But it does not happen instantly. I'm not sure what the timeframe is, but given anecdotal evidence, I would say that within a few weeks it is likely that you will stop seeing photo.net results for a search of your old name.

It seems a bit odd though that we first learn about the acquisition from a press release through outside sources not from an "official" announcement within photo.net. Once I learned about this I personally immediately looked if I could find any info on the transaction here at this site but did not find it. Naturally I first looked at the "front page" where this should be placed.

 

If this site is so valuable by the contributions from its members (as it appears in the press release) the members should be the first to know. Well at least the first after the people who get the money.

By the way - who gets the money? Is it shared between PG and the members?

 

The investors must be very idealistic people if they spend a lot of money on this site without control and no change (at least that is the impression I get from this thread) and no income. For the even more idealistic members it should be in order to give a little bit of background information about the financial motives and the money flow from this site. In other words why should any member pay to be able to contribute to this site if large sums of money flow because of the wealth of contributions. Hmm..

I think its pretty lame that Photo.net requests volunteers to build stuff when it has been sold off since March and did not announce to their members. I think its pretty indicative of Photo.net management.

 

As stated in other site's discussion groups the most valuable part of Photo.net is the domain name, the software is antiquated. The forums for the most are not that great and content on this site is very outdated.

 

Call name media for what it is. It is a domain name squatter, just going to their web site reveals that.

 

"As the owner of one of the largest portfolios of domain names, NameMedia is focused on acquiring, developing and selling digital real estate.?"

 

They are just trying make the name more marketable and get a higher Google rank and probably sell it off to some other large company.

 

That's probably why there is really no real new content on this site. Just some superficial changes to the look and feel.

 

The press release is so other companies will get notice and hopefully will get offers.

Thanks for the additional information. I don't see photo.net changing much, but I will still

reserve final judgement for awhile. Large Internet companies buy smaller or speciality

ones for specific reasons, such as content - which there is plenty in member images, users

- lots of serious and professional photographers and a potential new market for ads and

revenues, company resources - ya'll and the many volunteers, and technology - why

Google bought dejanews and Yahoo bought e-group. None of the original smaller

companies remained the same in the look, feel, operation and management.

 

Do I expect the same here? Well, if photography.com now has the forums here, that adds

those members adding to photo.net, or maybe?, added to a merged structure, eg. Google,

Yahoo, etc. I can live with it, although it will likely change the tone and tune of the forums

from the new members, which I occasionally hear has be degraded with the many, like me,

less than professional or commercial photographers. Is photo.net ready for the number of

casual photographers?

 

I can live with it. My only concern will be the change in the image hosting and

presentation on photo.net. I personally like the current system or some improved one. I

just don't like the more commercial ones where there are more ads than images But it

pays to keeps one's options open to alternatives and possibility if things don't go as

thought or planned. I really hope it's just the infusion of resources to enchance photo.net.

 

That's my hope, anyway. And, for now, I'll raise a microbrew to the new photo.net.

Thanks Josh, I saw Yahoo was only pulling up a few things but not google. Not in an extreme hurry but was just wondering. As you know my concern was with both people here at PN being able to go out knowing my name as well as people finding me here. I'm willing to wait Google out. :)

 

~ micki

I can hardly wait for the "FLASHING ADS". GRIN. Regards.

Walter,

 

Regarding the terms of the deal. NameMedia Inc bought photo.net from Luminal Path Inc. If the prinicpals in this do not wish to share information as to what was paid and to whom, then that information will probably not be public. We will just have to chalk it up to the typical business deal line "Terms of the agreement were not disclosed".

 

As to why you are "learning about it here" rather than in some grand announcement. The press release went out just a few hours earlier than this thread was started. I had spent the morning announcing and discussing the news with the moderating crew (who truely were the ones who deserved to know first). After david b saw the press release and made this thread, I didn't bother to stomp all over his sharp eyes to make a new post of my own. I just replied to this one.

Sam,

 

Namemedia has two distinct divisions. As you point out (and is hardly a secret) domain "real estate" is one of those. A bunch of good people work in that area of the company, but to be honest, I don't ever deal with them much. I more frequently deal withe the people from Namemedia's other division, which is made up of websites like geek.com, davesgardens.com, tarot.com and now photo.net. There are a number of these large "enthusiast" websites with active communities and interesting information. Given the work that goes into producing these websites, I highly doubt that Namemedia is just building them up to get rid of them.

 

It is fair for users to question what will happen to photo.net in the future. But really, only time will tell. I fully believe that this is a positive step for photo.net. I think that Namemedia's experience with other sites in similar situations proves this. And I am not at all worried about the new ownership going forward. On the contrary, this move has given me a chance to work on the problems that everyone has been complaining about. It would have been nice if the timing could have coincided with a few of those projects being completed. That way I could have said "Hey, look what we were able to do because of this". But why should my job start to get easier now?