What are photo.net's goals?

[bens]

The recent changes, along with the recent management statement in a

previous post in response to my query that essentially indicated that

photo.net makes comments possible but does not particularly encourage

them, leaves me baffled as to what photo.net's management is

attempting to accomplish. I don't mean this is in a negative way, I

simply feel confused and in the dark more so than I ever have in the

three years or so that I've been a member.

 

This leads me to ask, does photo.net have any particular goals for

the coming year or two? Do you have some kind of guiding mission

statement? If you have either or both, would you please share them?

 

I know you are not a public company, but given your reliance on

interactivity, I would hope you see the wisdom of sharing some

information as appropriate so that your membership can appreciate the

context of the site's decisions, and its general direction. Its the

kind of information often shared by public companies, educational

institutions, non-profits and the like in such things as annual

statements.

 

Thank you for your consideration of this.

[pmj]

The <a href="http://www.photo.net/about-us">About Us</a> page has a section called "Objectives and Content". Maybe that helps? Since I'm not photo.net management, I can only point to publicly available sources. Maybe Brian can elaborate some more.

[mottershead]

I would say that the "photography learning community" aim set forward on the About Us page is a succinct statement of the site's goals.

 

An important feature of "community" that is possibly not apparent from that short description is that the site aims to provide information resources valuable to the members of the community that are created and contributed by the members of the community themselves -- that photo.net is a web site where photographers help one another to improve their skills and become expert on photography. With few exceptions, the content is entirely community-generated, rather than being produced by paid, professional, writers and editors.

 

The types of information resources that we provide, and the features of the site, have not changed significantly during the last three years. The main changes have been in the content, structure, and character of the site due to an increase in scale and participation.

 

The main change in the forums has been that we have considerably increased the number of different forums and de-emphasized the previous "General" forums. In 2002, there were five forums (Archived and Unarchived General Photography, Nature, Medium Format, and Costa Rica). Today there are over 40 different forums. This was done to involve more people in sub-communities focusing on specific topics and interests, allowing us to scale to 75,000 forum posts per month, compared to 25,000 per month three years ago.

 

The photo.net Gallery has also not changed very much in the last three years other than to increase substantially in scale. This growth is due not to major new features being introduced but simply to a growth in the use of digital cameras, which has dramatically increased the number of people interested in, and capable of, putting their photographs on-line for mutual critique and rating. In 2001, almost every Gallery photographer owned a scanner and therefore, almost by definition, was a very serious photograher. That is no longer true. Most of the changes in the Gallery have been tweaks to try to deal with issues created by the increase in scale and the broadening of the audience.

 

Other features of the site, such as the Classifieds and Member Recommendations, have not received as much attention from "management" as the Forums and the Gallery. Articles have been added to the "Equipment", "Learn", and "Travel" sections at the previous rate, but given the growth in the Forums and the Gallery, they are relatively less significant than previously.

 

The site's "management" has welcomed the increase in scale of the site; indeed we have done what we can to encourage it, and we spend most of our time coping with the technical issues that it creates. Though it creates work for us, the increase in scale is welcome because the site was not economically viable at the scale it was in 2002. At that point, it was already too big to be run as Philip Greenspun's hobby (as it was up until around 1999), but it was not generating enough revenue to pay its expenses. Indeed, in early 2002, the site was within a few weeks of closing . So, increasing the scale of the site and generating more revenue from subscriptions and advertising have been major preoccupations over the last three years. Surviving is not an inspiring-sounding "mission", but it is certainly a goal.

[bens]

Thanks Patrick, I've read that. I'm thinking more about strategic goals over the next period of time. Also, I don't see photo.net's recent approaches as particularly consistent with the emphasis in that general statement on "learning" and "comments," at least with regard to the photo critique forum. Its partly what has me confused.

[bens]

Oops, Brian, I was responding to Patrick as you were posting. Yes, surviving is a very worthy goal in these times. Thanks for the response and insights.

[joe604]

Thanks, Brian, for a very good review of the site's evolution.

 

Do you have some thoughts about the future trends that you could share with us? If one were to ask how this site might die, one possibility is that it becomes a victim of its own successful growth and collapses under the weight of mediocrity. I assume that the continued expansion of the small point-and-shoot camera market will continue to grow the casual hobbyist's ranks. That's not a bad thing per se, but the down side may be that the more serious photographers drift away to more discriminating sites.

 

If this is true (and I don't know that it is), then it would make sense to provide inducements to keep the long-term, upper tier of folks here so that they continue to support the site with their expertise and talent. I don't have any ideas except perhaps to promote communities of friends -- to add enhancements that make it easier for members to communicate with and track the activity of their friends. --Joe