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Ask HN: Is there room for another photo sharing service?

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Re: Ask HN: Is there room for another photo sharing service?

#11

Post by Maro »

There are probably a lot more of these sites out there than the "big ones". I estimate in the tens, but possible 100+. I'd spend a few days enumerating and categorizing the competition in terms of approach taken, features, etc. learning what their Google footprint is, whether they're mentioned in blogs, what Alexa says about them, etc. This would give you a better picture about what your chances of success are. Without actually doing this research, I'd say it's a crowded segment, so your chances of succeeding are probably relatively low. I'd wait for a better idea / differentiator.

Good luck!

Re: Ask HN: Is there room for another photo sharing service?

#12

Post by ojbyrne »

eterno wrote: post #8

I think photo-sharing services need to verticalize and create niches. I see a clear case for a photo-sharing service specifically designed to host high-resolution images (big size) images which are rapidly becoming the norm with higher resolution cameras rolling out. What would it take: 1. Uploading will take more time. Should happen in the background. 2. Browsing can be made better - by showing reduced resolutions o…

Just allowing bigger files would be a start. I have a Canon 5D M2, and I keep ending up trying to upload > 10 mb jpegs to flickr, which has a 10 meg limit.

Perhaps expensive though.

Re: Ask HN: Is there room for another photo sharing service?

#13

Post by sokoloff »

ojbyrne wrote: post #12
eterno wrote: post #8

I think photo-sharing services need to verticalize and create niches. I see a clear case for a photo-sharing service specifically designed to host high-resolution images (big size) images which are rapidly becoming the norm with higher resolution cameras rolling out. What would it take: 1. Uploading will take more time. Should happen in the background. 2. Browsing can be made better - by showing reduced resolutions o…

Just allowing bigger files would be a start. I have a Canon 5D M2, and I keep ending up trying to upload > 10 mb jpegs to flickr, which has a 10 meg limit. Perhaps expensive though.

What do you think the user tolerance for paying to host large images would be? Obviously bandwidth and storage cost money, and if a site is to allow 4x larger photos (driving 4x larger costs), the site needs to make 4x more money somehow.

Page views and ads and referral arrangements to photo printers aren't going to automatically scale with photo sizes for a free site.

Re: Ask HN: Is there room for another photo sharing service?

#14

Post by catone »

My buddy Allen Stern (of CenterNetworks) said something recently in a podcast that I liked and is relevant here. Paraphrasing, he said something like, "In New York City there are a thousand pizza places and new ones opening up all the time. Many of them are successful and some of the new ones will be, too."

Or, in other words, there is always room for new startups that do the same thing. Just do it better or differently -- have better crust, better toppings, faster delivery, free breadsticks, etc.

As you said, "there are always people who are looking for a better solution." You just need to make it.

Re: Ask HN: Is there room for another photo sharing service?

#15

Post by whatusername »

pclark wrote: post #2

A lot of users want to share their photos and are blissfully unaware of FaceBook/Flickr. You said it yourself: >But there are always people who are looking for a better solution. Don't dive straight in, work out what users want that flickr/etc doesn't offer - and do that.

blissfully unaware of fb? considering photo tagging (and then showing up in the news feed) is just about the killer app on fb - and its 150mil users growing at 10mil per month -- I'm tipping this is a reasonably small market...

(ie - savvy enough to use/explore your site while not knowing about fb/flickr/etc)

Re: Ask HN: Is there room for another photo sharing service?

#16

Post by pclark »

whatusername wrote: post #15
pclark wrote: post #2

A lot of users want to share their photos and are blissfully unaware of FaceBook/Flickr. You said it yourself: >But there are always people who are looking for a better solution. Don't dive straight in, work out what users want that flickr/etc doesn't offer - and do that.

blissfully unaware of fb? considering photo tagging (and then showing up in the news feed) is just about the killer app on fb - and its 150mil users growing at 10mil per month -- I'm tipping this is a reasonably small market... (ie - savvy enough to use/explore your site while not knowing about fb/flickr/etc)

what % of the web use facebook?

my mother and father both use online services (eg ebay) and have never heard of facebook - they've both rang me up and asked me how to share photos they took online.

(I told them to use the me.com services, fwiw -- that'll be a huge competitor to "mom and pop" photo services)

Re: Ask HN: Is there room for another photo sharing service?

#17

Post by matthias »

flickr etc = images + community... so go create images + technology.

that photo stuff we hear about from time to time, like face recognition or stitching together photos or turning them into videos or building 3d models of landmarks from tons of user photos... are any of those on photo sharing site yet?

Re: Ask HN: Is there room for another photo sharing service?

#18

Post by Avshalom »

ojbyrne wrote: post #12
eterno wrote: post #8

I think photo-sharing services need to verticalize and create niches. I see a clear case for a photo-sharing service specifically designed to host high-resolution images (big size) images which are rapidly becoming the norm with higher resolution cameras rolling out. What would it take: 1. Uploading will take more time. Should happen in the background. 2. Browsing can be made better - by showing reduced resolutions o…

Just allowing bigger files would be a start. I have a Canon 5D M2, and I keep ending up trying to upload > 10 mb jpegs to flickr, which has a 10 meg limit. Perhaps expensive though.

How about a service that allows you to upload raw formats like .DNG, and do basic non destructive editing on them, nothing fancy just crop, heal, contrast, color, that sort of thing. to serve as both an online backup service, easy way to share images when you don't have time to really fiddle with them, or they're just not good enough to bother. as well as yes just sharing you're best.

Re: Ask HN: Is there room for another photo sharing service?

#19

Post by whacked_new »

catone wrote: post #14

My buddy Allen Stern (of CenterNetworks) said something recently in a podcast that I liked and is relevant here. Paraphrasing, he said something like, "In New York City there are a thousand pizza places and new ones opening up all the time. Many of them are successful and some of the new ones will be, too." Or, in other words, there is always room for new startups that do the same thing. Just do it better or differen…

It's very misleading to compare pizza places to web businesses.

Every new pizza shop adds tangible value to the system. It has a physical presence and sells a physical good that fulfills a basic need.

A web shop, without marketing, adds basically zero value to the system. It's not like you can "walk by" and discover that it provides something. And I don't think any pizza shop bootstrapped its business by offering pizza for free until it got a critical mass of popularity.

The message makes sense, but the example does not.

Re: Ask HN: Is there room for another photo sharing service?

#20

Post by whacked_new »

theklub wrote: post #9

Yeah, it's tough when facebook is becoming the default for everyone uploading their pictures. If facebook expands that aspect of their business it might hard between them and flickr already being huge.

I don't understand the downmods on this comment; theklub makes a perfectly valid point. I would agree that the market for the masses in this area is much too competitive (if you think you can trump Google in search, well, go for it), even with just two players (ignoring SmugMug and the tail).

I would agree that niche, if at all, is the way to go. Niche of the upper upper pros, who already pay for Flickr pro but find it limiting.

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