Reintroducing photo.net Personal Home Pages

Around 5000 photo.net users have personal home pages (also known as

web spaces) hosted on the photo.net servers. Although links to this

feature were removed from the user interface more than a year ago,

the feature itself has continued, and some of these home pages

receive tens of thousands of hits per month. For example, many of

the people currently using photo.net webspaces use them to provide an

on-line gallery or portfolio of their photographs. Knowledge about

how to take advantage of this somewhat "hidden" feature has passed by

word of mouth, and the home pages were not officially "supported".

 

We are planning to relaunch this feature in the near future, enabling

photo.net users to have personal home pages here.

 

In conjunction with the reintroduction of photo.net personal home

pages, we are planning to make them a feature available only to

subscribers, part of the package of benefits that come with the

$25.00 per year photo.net subscription. Very heavy use of the

feature (currently affecting only a couple of dozen users) will

require payment of additional charges.

 

This is a preliminary announcement so that current users of the

feature have time to obtain or renew their photo.net subscriptions.

We will also be contacting them by email as our planning becomes more

firm.

<I>Very heavy use of the feature (currently affecting only a couple of dozen users) will require payment of additional charges.

</i><P>

Any idea of a cost on that?

We haven't decided. None of the current users are extremely heavy. I think the maximum usage is currently around 10K hits per month. We would probably have a sliding scale with almost all of the current users not having any charge over the subscription fee, with perhaps a couple of dozen only having a charge of a few dollars per month. This assumes that nobody increases their usage of storage and bandwidth dramatically. If they did, we would have to charge more, because storage, and especially bandwidth costs photo.net a pretty penny.

 

Do you have any input on what would be fair charges?

And could we have a definition of "very heavy use" and also some idea of how large these webspaces could be? And would they be limited to photos, or...

 

Waiting with bated breath,

<i>Do you have any input on what would be fair charges?

</i><p>

Sorry, I don't.

Jeremy, we are still planning it, and we would be happy to have input from people who are interested.

 

Right now, the thinking is that the "free" (to subscribers)

allocation of space would probably be 5-10Mb, and bandwidth might be the equivalent to a couple of thousand hits per month (assuming a mix of HTML and images). We haven't worked out the scale for additional charges yet, but it will be very competitive. We are also in the process of setting up a method for virtual hosting so that people will be able to point their domain names (or the www host within their domains) to their webspace on photo.net. So, you would be able to have www.steinphoto.com (for example) hosted through your photo.net webspace.

 

People may not be aware that we are already providing hosting services for some professional photographers, the most well-known being Elsa Dorfmann (http://elsa.photo.net)

 

Further down the road, we are also thinking of a system where people could set up a "Gallery" and sell their photographs and photo-based items like calendars and cards on-line with photo.net providing the infrastructure for on-line payment and fulfillment.

Hurray!!! I really like this idea.

 

I've been very impressed with the layout of nearly everything photo.net does and hope subscribers have the option of uploading photos to a couple of already designed formats. I would like to see the existing desgin of individual galleries as one of the options. A few slightly more stylish designs would probably be worth developing. I'm aware that some do-it-yourself webpage designs are probably available, but I don't have the time to investigate which is "best." I trust and understand photo.net's way of operating and if you give it a couple of choices and some nearly idiot-proof instructions on uploading images to the webpage I am a sure subscriber.

 

One option that is a "nice to have," but not is not a "must have" is the abiity to password protect certain folders. I know photo.net would not want to guarantee the folders couldn't be accessed by a determined hacker, but some simple password system would be nice. In my case, the reason for password protection would be to make some folks more comfortable about having their photos (or their loved one's photos) on the web. Maybe an extra fee for this option would be required?

 

I do a fair amount of spec work (middle school and high school sports) and placing images on the web would allow for the potential customers to view images with a minimum of hassle. Would this permitted as long as the amount of traffic didn't exceed the traffic limitations mentioned above?

Great idea. I have been trying to get a web designer/programmer to emulate photo.net's structure for me. Even with all the freebies at greenspun.com I can't find anyone who can create a "community database" that would:

 

1. Allow me to easily add, delete and revise articles that I write.

 

2. Allow me to link to other addresses on my site or outside my site, and for others add a comment or to add a link.

 

3. Maintain links in my articles and the links that people add

(like Phil describes with Boohoo http://www.greenspun.com/).

 

4. Allow others to pose questions and to present answers.

 

5. Sort by users assigning a category (that I create).

 

6. Allow me to administer and moderate where I can easily modify categories of questions, and delete others' inappropriate questions, answers or links.

and of course,

 

7. Post photos.

 

I would be happy to pay for this.

 

Jonathan Kroner

 

p.s Everthing I need to know about web design I learned from Phil & Alex guide....

Chris, we would not get involved in what people used it for, although I am sure our lawyers will make you click through a Terms of Use where you promise that your usage is legal and photo.net is relesed from liability if the service isn't available, etc, etc.

It would be nice if you could get a photo.net subdomain, like "pierrephaneuf.photo.net" or something like that.

Pierre, that is a nice idea. We do that for Elsa (elsa.photo.net), but to do this we have assigned her one of our 27 IP addresses. We are currently working on a flexible way to do it.

HTTP/1.1 "Host" header-based virtual hosting would do, IMHO, no need for IP-based virtual hosting for that! If some people come and have browsers that don't send an Host header, then it's just too bad.

Jonathan: $250,000 to $500,000.

Jonathan: <a href="http://www.openacs.org/">www.openacs.org</a> lets you run ACS without buying an oracle license.

Jonathan, you should be aware that greenspun.com is

planning to discontinue services at one point. You

could replicate photo.net by using the openacs.org software,

but frankly the complexity is great and the hosting expensive

and problematic.

The most complex component of greenspun.com, Lusenet, is

being rewritten at the moment in

a much more portable php/mysql framework which will be

tested for the LF Forum soon, and will most likely be

released as open-source. If you don't have too much

traffic, you'll be able to run it on a $30/mo account.

The main developers are Bjorn

Nilsson and Josh Wand, both photo.netters. Eventually there

are plans to replace Boohoo and Loquacious.

Tuan/<a href = "http://www.terragalleria.com">Terra Galleria photography</a>

I welcome this idea, and think it's a great way for photo.net to increase membership and revenue.

 

I currently use the personal home pages to profile mine and others' images that are already hosted on photo.net through a customized interface.

 

One feature that I do miss however, which I hope will be part of the new system is access to the photo.net feedback engine - i.e. allowing other users to add comments at the bottom of my pages.

Will you support JSP on your webhosting? If yes, I am very interested. Also, will I have telnet access or just ftp?

Stik, what would be your JSP application? At this point, we

are not planning on supporting any scripting engines. Besides serving static files, users will probably have the ability to plug into various photo.net features such as comments and private forums. There will most likely be templates which people may optionally use to create their galleries. We intend eventually to provide some additional services such as shopping for photographs and related items.

I too welcome this. I've been planning for some time to take advantage of this great feature. This should cetrtainly drive membership, as well as an increase in revenue. I think it would indeed be a great enhancement if each user could somehow have their own sub-domain. Thanks again for all your hard work, Brian - and everyone else at svc.s p-net.<P>

 

Doug

As of recently, we have the ability to provide virtual hosting

based on host headers. We are piloting this with photo.net

user Marika Buchberger, who will be using her photo.net webspace

to host newsletters and other information for the Atlantic

chapter of the Royal Photographic Society. The host name

<a href="http://www.rps-atlantic.org">www.rps-atlantic.org</a>

within the RPS Atlantic domain is an alias for www.photo.net,

and our software uses the host headers sent by most browsers

to route requests to Marika's photo.net webspace. Other users will

be able to do this soon.

This sounds very good but still sounds a little rusty. Of course this is only the first announcement.

 

I'm curious, if we're paying the $25 a month, and we're not using the web space (I ahve my own web page) what will the limitations be on images to be stored our portfolios. I clean mine regularly, but it does [very] slowly grow. I assume that normal portfolio hits will be a given, and that storage will be set at a reasonable limit, with 'upgrades' available. A usage meter for the amount of space the images I have uploaded are occupying would be nice, and maybe a way to see how big the images are, like a little internal file browser of sorts. Maybe just dreaming there. The reason I ask is that most of my time here is in the forums (which I assume we will have un-restricted access to) and in the images I upload. But I don't plan to ever use the web site hosting abilities etc. How will this all be set up for such usages?

 

I suppose I eagerly await the next installment of this "what's next" newsletter.

<p class=MsoNormal>That's fantastic.<span style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  </span>How

<span class=GramE>do</span> the photo.net Terms of Use apply specifically to

members who use this feature?<span style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  </span></p>

 

<p class=MsoNormal>Currently, the Terms of Use state that members:</p>

 

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'>��grant photo.net a perpetual

non-exclusive world-wide royalty-free license to modify, publish and reproduce

that material for the purpose of operating, displaying, distributing and

promoting photo.net.�</p>

 

<p class=MsoNormal>I�m not an arm chair attorney, but I do run a business based

on intellectual property law and have extensive experience with exactly these types

of agreements and licenses.<span style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  </span>There will

be those that are sure to chastise me for even bringing this up (�if you don�t

like it, leave��).<span style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  </span>But, it�s clear from

the 101 postings of �I put my lens on backwards and I can�t get it unstuck�

mentality that people don�t always pay attention to the details, much less read

the fine print.</p>

 

<p class=MsoNormal><b style='mso-bidi-font-weight:normal'><u>I�m not trying to disparage

photo.net�s business ethics or intent</u></b>.</p>

 

<p class=MsoNormal>But, as the Terms of Use read <span style='font-family:Symbol;

mso-ascii-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-hansi-font-family:"Times New Roman";

mso-char-type:symbol;mso-symbol-font-family:Symbol'><span style='mso-char-type:

symbol;mso-symbol-font-family:Symbol'>¾</span></span> in a court of law <span

style='font-family:Symbol;mso-ascii-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-hansi-font-family:

"Times New Roman";mso-char-type:symbol;mso-symbol-font-family:Symbol'><span

style='mso-char-type:symbol;mso-symbol-font-family:Symbol'>¾</span></span> this

is virtually an unlimited license.<span style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  </span>If

you wanted to publish a coffee table book of <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:

normal'>The Best of Photo.Net</i> or open your own stock image library, these

Terms of Use would allow you to do that.<span style='mso-spacerun:yes'> 

</span>You and your attorneys could easily argue that publishing a book was �promotion��that

opening a stock image library was �necessary for generating revenue required to

support the <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>operating</i> of the site.�</p>

 

<p class=MsoNormal>It�s one thing to post a few dozen images in the member

directory or critique section.<span style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  </span>It�s

another for those members that are going to build extensive sites, maybe even

some who will use this as their commercial site for their photography business.</p>

 

<p class=MsoNormal>I think this has the potential to be a great feature for

many people.<span style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  </span>Maybe your attorneys threw

this language in and no one questioned it or paid attention to its potential

implications.<span style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  </span>But, given this new

feature set that you are making available, maybe it�s a good time to �question�

the existing terms as they don�t seem to be in alignment with the intent of the

offering.<o:p></o:p></p>

Gary, if people don't trust us to respect the copyrights of what they upload under the Terms of Use, they shouldn't upload stuff. We have the terms of use so that (a) it is clear that the copyright stays with the submitter; (b) it is also clear that we get to use the stuff on our site; © we aren't liable if someone else steals it off our site.

 

You may read the Terms of Use as a scheme to steal people's images and publish coffee table books and start stock photo agencies, but (a) we don't plan on doing anything remotely like that; (b) we'd be stupid if we did, because we would have law suits against us left and right; © we'd probably lose the lawsuits; (d) we'd lose all our of members.

 

As for the Terms of Use for the web pages, as I said, we expect there to be different Terms of Use for the webspaces.

carl,

 

YOu can get some of the information that you are talking about by going to a Folder and clicking "Display as text list". This gives you the size of the photos.

 

As for whether we are planning to limit the number of photos that people can upload in their regular portfolios, at some stage we're going to need to "clean up" images that were uploaded a long time ago and which are not being accessed by anyone. We also don't like the photo folders being used to serve images for postings on auction sites and other forum sites that don't support uploading of images. But doing something about those things is independent of the web spaces.

I'm very interested in this thread because I've been thinking of getting some web space to set up a gallery of both my photos and scanned in old family pictures. Then I saw this line:

 

"Right now, the thinking is that the "free" (to subscribers) allocation of space would probably be 5-10Mb"

 

Even sizing the images down to 100K each, that's still 50-100 photos. If you're just wanting to show a sampling of your work, that's fine, but if you want an extensive gallery, that's way to small. Especially if you want to put some larger images on there, like panoramics.

 

I realize that hard drive space is always at a premium, but if you want to attract people with photo-heavy websites, you'll need to offer more space. If that means paying more, that's reasonable, since $25 is peanuts for a year of web hosting + all the wonderfullness that is photo.net. (Yes, I know I'm not a paying member, yet, but I plan to be once my current financial situation improves.)

 

Michelle