The Interesting Economy

Sure it could be its own reward, but perhaps the reward you get for posting interesting stuff is a service that allows you to see other people's interesting stuff.

You know, with attention being the new currency and all that.

Flickr interestingness is easily gamed by just adding your photo to as many groups as humanly possible.

Interestingness is probably the least interesting feature of Flickr.

Oh, and of course, if you're just interested in making money from your photos, you won't have them on a public photo sharing site in the first place.

"But interestingness in Flickr doesn't pay."

It pays in "props" which sometimes is more powerful than a dollar.

Quote: A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon

Hashim is exactly right: the payoff in Flickr is purely in social capital, which for many people is a very powerful incentive.

I actually wrote something about almost this exact thing just the other day:

weblog.scifihifi.com/2005/10/17/recombinant-podcasting/

One point of clarification: if you have a pro account, no-one sees ads on your photos :)

Hmmm. Stewart seems quite emphatic about that point. :)

Good point, Stewart, I probably should have been more emphatic than "Non-pro users are seeing ads around my photos".

And to be clear, I think it's perfectly fine to put ads around there to support the service for non-paying users. I'm just trying to understand the balance of the economics.

I just make sure and never post anything interesting to my account. God I love sticking it to the man. Oh, didn't you hear? Flickr's hot, so they're the new "the man," just like Google.

More on the point, doesn't having your blog linked from your profile help drive a little traffic your way? At least their scratching your back a little bit there.

As someone who gets a reasonable amount of attention at Flickr, I think I'm getting more than my fair share of the deal.

Thanks Stewart and Caterina and keep up the good work.

thomashawk.com/2005/10/flickr-caterina-fake-anil-dash-wealth.html

good post, Anil...it's interesting that Typepad allows it's users to share in the fruits of peer production via contextual ads and the tip jar.

Photographers have a long tradition of being paid for their work. If you get good ratings and feedback and accumulate a fan base on Flickr, that can translate directly into building a business.

e.g. www.myraklarman.com , murn's photo business.

Anil: "I probably should have been more emphatic than "Non-pro users are seeing ads around my photos"."

What I'm trying to say is that they DON'T see ads around your photos, so no more emphasis was required ;)

Anil: "I probably should have been more emphatic than "Non-pro users are seeing ads around my photos"."

What I'm trying to say is that they DON'T see ads around your photos, so no more emphasis was required ;)

Not directly related to the thread ... but somewhat connected ....

There is an overwhleming number of web-based technical solutions that small businesses can use to advertise/sell and provide customer service ... Blogs, IMs, web-based IVR, podcasts, autoresponders ... too much cool stuff ....

(I know Flickr aint it, but got me thinking)

I find it hard to keep track of and rank/trust these solutions, which can actually yield competitive advantage for a small business ...

(Currently, it is thrilling for me to be able to run a small business out of a garage with just a ThinkPad, broadband, and a cellphone. My suppliers ship directly to a 3PL provider in New York, from where merchandise is redirected to end-buyers. I just manage the online shopfront.)

I wish there were one site or blog that could track all these cool tools ... (how do i send multiple SMSs using a PC?) .. and suggest how small businesses can use them and what's the best software to use.

Someone? Anyone?

E.g. it would be cool if someone could actually endorse PayPal as the best, so tech newbies can trust and trudge on ....

(For now I am very grateful to Debbie Weil for the good work she is doing)

You also need to answer the question, "are my picturing being free part of what makes them interesting?"

Personally I look at the "interesting" photos on flickr everyday but if my favorite photographers said, "sorry, I'm moving to a pay-based site but it's really, really cheap so it's ok" I'd more than likely just say forget-about-it, regardless of how cheap the service was.

Professional photographers are paid for their work, but then again usually for something more than a 800x600 snap on a page. Either something you can mount on your wall or they are taking pictures for you, i.e. a wedding.

Flickr is fun because of it's community, open feeling. Anyone looking to make cash from their photos should setup shop somewhere else and actually present themselves as a pro photographer. I'd rather pay money to Flickr to *prevent them* from going into meglocorporate bottom-line hungery mode of setting up multiple pay-structures.

I browse Flickr to catch a personal glimpse into other people's lives and to view things through their perspecitive, not to buy something.

Merchandize.

"If you like this photo, I'm putting it on Cafepress posters here: blah."

Also, could a cross-site reputation system keep track of someone's interestingness and display it with other data like their ebay rating and number of technorati links?

I'd rather see ads, Flickr pictures, code, anything in place of the blinding color scheme of the sidebars of this blog which hurt my head.

Guess this is one is meant to be read only in the RSS reader.

Profiting from user generated content is Web 2.0 colonialism.

I have been thrilled when my photos on Flickr have been admired and reposted around the web. The day I feel my photos have monetary value is when I’ll put them up on my own site along with that C with a circle around it, we all have that choice.

Not only all of that with Flickr, but they are also now blocking sites from linking to them. They have blocked the referral from my site FlickrLicio.us with no warning or explination at all.

My site is an extension of a Flickr API, and isn't web 2.0 (which includes Flickr and social networking) all about using the sites beyond what they were intentioned thru API's?

Flickr has yet to comment on the reason behind blocking my site.

www.nickstarr.com/2005/10/27/flickr-doesnt-believe-in-web-20/

The balance of economics?

Simple. If Google's Blogger can survive as the most favorite free blogGER without ads, so should Flickr.

At the very least, there should be some kind of a Popularity Cloud where promising photographers get visitor counters, tag clouds based on visits, and maybe some incentive like free Pro accounts if a rookie gets nuff visitors...

My two layman cents.

If what Stewart says is true, shouldn't that line ("Non-pro users are seeing ads around my photos") be struck out of the post?

What Flickr (and others) have done is shown that personal photographs are a cheap commodity. Why aren't they paying you? Because if you left, there'd still be thousands of other people who are willing to send in free photographs.

Typically, people get paid according to demand or difficulty of the work, etc. As you well understand: writing easy-to-use software is hard, and gathering an audience of readers is hard. Generating content you wish other people would look at is easy.

That's why you, and advertisers, pay Flickr rather than the other way 'round. (It's also why I'm commenting on your blog rather than the other way 'round.)

This seems to be in a similar vein to a discussion we had in a college law class. It was about video taping a football game. The networks put disclaimers on their broadcasts that rebroadcasts are illegal. If I tape a game and then show it at a private party where no fees are charged to my guests, have I broken the law? I didn't receive any monetary compensation for the game.

This may be wrong (law class was a long time ago), but the professor said, yes, technically the law has been broken. He said it's because of the notion of utility. I have gained in status by rebroadcasting the football game. If I had watched it by myself, I haven't gained any status, so that's legal.

It seems the same concept applies here. No money exchanged, but a popular Flickr user gains status by using the Flickr service.

Utility doesn't always have to be about money.

As soon as the company that pays your salary sends me some money for all the goodwill and free advertising for their product that my weblog sends their way, I shall take this argument seriously.

You get something--free photo hosting, and you give something--Flickr makes money off ads people click while viewing your photos. It's a mutually beneficial relationship that you're free to leave at any time.

Personally I feel it's ridiculous to expect Flickr to pay you for giving you a service. To me it's like saying you should get paid to watch TV... you're viewing ads and making the station money, you might even recommend the show to your friends, yet you don't expect them to send you a check. The only difference is that instead of giving TV networks content, you're giving them market share--something that is equally valuable to them.

Should google pay me dependant on how much I use gmail?

I have no trackback set up yet for my blog so I thought I'd inform you that I've posted about this at:

singpolyma.blog.com/377345/

I think this poses an extremely interesting opportunity for 'content hosters' such as flickr, technorati, delicious, etc to create a whole new economic model. It just takes the guts to try it.

I think the second is true: you should make an automated script that "flickrs" your photos for you so you can place your own ads around them. While I can see the validity of your argument, I think from Flickr's end they could say, "we don't need Anil Dash, if he leaves we have a billion other users that make us rich, and we are still the best service for them."