Alan Schaller and partners are about to launch a new site taking on Instagram etc. to allow for photo sharing without the rush to popularity of existing sites. It sounds good. This may actually be a site I want to use, which would be new to me, as I sparingly use any of the existing ones.
He certainly does a lot of self-promotion on YouTube and social channels in recent times - supported by a team of partners. Affiliated with Leica Camera brand, too.
retrofocus wrote:
He certainly does a lot of self-promotion on YouTube and social channels in recent times - supported by a team of partners. Affiliated with Leica Camera brand, too.
He does indeed, but unlike his early videos the new ones are actually informative. I have the feeling he acts like a clown, but is in reality a serious guy. In any case, the goals of the new app are ones I agree with. What remains to be seen is whether it will take off and what happens when someone needs to start paying the bills. The latter is usually when things start falling apart.
johnvanr wrote:
He does indeed, but unlike his early videos the new ones are actually informative. I have the feeling he acts like a clown, but is in reality a serious guy. In any case, the goals of the new app are ones I agree with. What remains to be seen is whether it will take off and what happens when someone needs to start paying the bills. The latter is usually when things start falling apart.
+1. He acts in his video to come across as funny - I think he has a marketing team behind which advises him to behave to attract more (younger) viewers. I stopped following him since I don't like all this hype created around him. I mentioned it earlier in a post about suggested YouTube photographers to follow: Best value I am getting from lesser known amateur photographers on YouTube with just a few hundred or few thousands followers who are not associated with a brand (probably because they have not enough followers to be of marketing/influencer value for photo brands) and simply talk about experience while taking photos. But the YouTube algorithm makes it more difficult to find them since it advantages influencer types (same on IG).
RoamingScott wrote:
It’s tiresome that every single thing he posts gets a thread made about it. I guess his gen z marketing team is doing something right.
This app will follow Vero, Glass, Foto, et al into obscurity shortly after launch. No one is paying for premium services like this.
The funny thing is that unlike you, he’s not the one posting here to market his own YT videos
retrofocus wrote:
+1. He acts in his video to come across as funny - I think he has a marketing team behind which advises him to behave to attract more (younger) viewers. I stopped following him since I don't like all this hype created around him. I mentioned it earlier in a post about suggested YouTube photographers to follow: Best value I am getting from lesser known amateur photographers on YouTube with just a few hundred or few thousands followers who are not associated with a brand (probably because they have not enough followers to be of marketing/influencer value for photo brands) and simply talk about experience while taking photos. But the YouTube algorithm makes it more difficult to find them since it advantages influencer types (same on IG). ...Show more →
Since I don’t follow Instagram, I didn’t know him until he appeared on YT. There I ignored him because his videos were meant to be funny without offering anything worthwhile. He has since changed his tack and I think he shares some good advice, though like 99% of YT videos it’s buried in a lot of meaningless clutter.
I do wish a platform like what they have in mind could work, but I have my doubts. My professional field is journalism and there people launch a ton of well-meant initiatives all the time. Not once do I think these will survive as intended, but - hey - it may be worth their effort.
The problem is network effects. People want to be where their friends are and everyone is (unfortunately) locked into Meta properties: Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram.
weatherproof wrote:
And so far none of them have unseated IG as a photo sharing app because they can't get enough users to get people to migrate away.
Still waiting to see a better free and not influencer/commercial-centric alternative for IG and Meta. Likely free and not influencer/commercial-centric is a contradiction in itself nowadays. The IG algorithm has gotten worse for non-commercial photo amateurs - hashtags don't really matter anymore, getting 30 likes for any posted photo (not reel nor story) as amateur with less than 1500 followers is already quite a success on IG these days.
retrofocus wrote:
Still waiting to see a better free and not influencer/commercial-centric alternative for IG and Meta. Likely free and not influencer/commercial-centric is a contradiction in itself nowadays. The IG algorithm has gotten worse for non-commercial photo amateurs - hashtags don't really matter anymore, getting 30 likes for any posted photo (not reel nor story) as amateur with less than 1500 followers is already quite a success on IG these days.
The masses of the world have moved on from still photos. It's all about consuming 30 second or shorter videos for quick, never-ending hits of cheap dopamine.
The only people that care about these types of alternative apps are photographers who usually have only a passing interest in consuming other peoples' works and more of an interest in sharing theirs. That creates vacuum chambers where no one is talking or engaging and the app dies.
How many "stills-centric" apps do we need to start before it's clear that the era of stills is DEAD?
Ironically the best places to display your photography (in terms of eyeballs) these days are Youtube and TikTok.
I mostly agree with Scott.
The financials to keep a stills-centric platform running will require a subscription or advertising. I don't think there's enough interest in either to keep such a platform going.
The internet money machine relies on engagement (of any kind). A superb photograph can provoke thought and discussion. But of all the uploaded photos, 99.99% will create nothing more than a swipe or tap for the next (or a swipe away to close the app).
Short form video will do much more with much less effort.
RoamingScott wrote:
The masses of the world have moved on from still photos. It's all about consuming 30 second or shorter videos for quick, never-ending hits of cheap dopamine.
The only people that care about these types of alternative apps are photographers who usually have only a passing interest in consuming other peoples' works and more of an interest in sharing theirs. That creates vacuum chambers where no one is talking or engaging and the app dies.
How many "stills-centric" apps do we need to start before it's clear that the era of stills is DEAD?
Ironically the best places to display your photography (in terms of eyeballs) these days are Youtube and TikTok....Show more →
Just because something isn't the dominant market anymore, doesn't mean it's not a viable market.
And whether it's viable depends on one's goals and finances.
whiteonline wrote:
I mostly agree with Scott.
The financials to keep a stills-centric platform running will require a subscription or advertising. I don't think there's enough interest in either to keep such a platform going.
The internet money machine relies on engagement (of any kind). A superb photograph can provoke thought and discussion. But of all the uploaded photos, 99.99% will create nothing more than a swipe or tap for the next (or a swipe away to close the app).
Short form video will do much more with much less effort.
Such thinking can easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy, of course.
weatherproof wrote:
The problem is network effects. People want to be where their friends are and everyone is (unfortunately) locked into Meta properties: Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram.
And so far none of them have unseated IG as a photo sharing app because they can't get enough users to get people to migrate away.
That partly depends on who you want as an audience. Personally, I don't care about the general public. Why would I? For what purpose?
Now, I also do model photography, and for better or worse (worse, actually), a lot of models feature themselves on IG instead of the more targeted model photography websites, so in order to get in touch with models, I should be more active on IG. I'm still not, though, even though it would make sense. My dislike of anything Meta runs pretty deep.
RoamingScott wrote:
It’s tiresome that every single thing he posts gets a thread made about it. I guess his gen z marketing team is doing something right.
This app will follow Vero, Glass, Foto, et al into obscurity shortly after launch. No one is paying for premium services like this.
Why so bitter. And I don't see threads about his every little video. This, after all is a new app.
I will agree that Vero, Glass, Foto, et al do all suffer from the same issues that this one would likely be. Either they will have to start charging people for it or they have to start advertising. At some point they will need to recoup their investment money and pay for the ongoing infrsatructure bills, which will be significant for 50MB/image storage+downloads for thousands of people.
Regardless, maybe they can find a way. You say that it is all about video. To be honest I do not care for video, watching 30s accelerated videos or timelapses of people doing whatever. Instagram, for me, would be a much better place, with the ads (yes they have to make money), if it didn't push random content and actually showed me a timeline of what people posted. Right now, what you see is 1/3 ads, 1/3 pushed accounts and 1/3 what you signed up to follow. The 1/3 you follow is some random algorithmic mish-mash of old vs new content, weighed this way or the other, meaning you miss out on tons that people post and get pushed certain accounts all the time. I used to spend a good 1-2 hours a day on the gram, today, maybe 2 mins and then I get bored. I cannot stand the idea of TikTok. It is literally like watching Candid Camera, only here those producing the clips are the ones in the clips.
I'd have no problem if IG was 50% ads and 50% a timeline view of what I wanted to follow. Or maybe I could have some option to do that. But instagram's revenue model is both on ads and money from biz accounts (which they have to push), hence they have to do it like that. You have to ask yourself though what type of place is one where 1/3 of your time is spent on content that is relevant to you.
Maybe Irys can make money from ads and keep the rest as timeline. Maybe it can have a paid peer too. Who knows. Anyway, I understand that you try to make some money and get some freebies out of Instagram and YT and lots of people do that and make a living out of it. That's fine. It is fine that FM is another content channel for your business. That's fine too. Let's not assume that Schaller and the rest are after just making money from this endeavour though. It is a different channel (yes ultimately it leads to more of their work sold) but some people are happy to sell photos in the local street market, others would rather have it in a gallery or not sell it at all.
Or maybe in 2 years you can have the "I told you so" moment!
whiteonline wrote:
I mostly agree with Scott.
The financials to keep a stills-centric platform running will require a subscription or advertising. I don't think there's enough interest in either to keep such a platform going.
The internet money machine relies on engagement (of any kind). A superb photograph can provoke thought and discussion. But of all the uploaded photos, 99.99% will create nothing more than a swipe or tap for the next (or a swipe away to close the app).
Short form video will do much more with much less effort.
I must be missing something here but why is an irrelevant photo worse than an irrelevant video? Is it simply because you have to waste 3-4 seconds to realise the video is crap before you move on vs half a second on the photo? Thus you get that extra few seconds of engagement that somehow may generate interest in a "oh maybe there is something if I keep watching"?
The masses of the world have moved on from still photos. It's all about consuming 30 second or shorter videos for quick, never-ending hits of cheap dopamine. The only people that care about these types of alternative apps are photographers who usually have only a passing interest in consuming other peoples' works and more of an interest in sharing theirs. That creates vacuum chambers where no one is talking or engaging and the app dies. How many "stills-centric" apps do we need to start before it's clear that the era of stills is DEAD?
I also echo the surprise at the bitterness. And why so categorical about stills, do we need the caps? I certainly never watch 30 second videos, and would never want to - we aren’t all attention deficit children. Schaller promotes his work, but at least some of it is interesting, and he has enough intelligent things to say in amongst his self-deprecating buffoonery. The app, in so far as it seems to offer a space to show and connect away from mind-numbing advertising sounds promising. Why so cynical?
I also echo the surprise at the bitterness. And why so categorical about stills, do we need the caps? I certainly never watch 30 second videos, and would never want to - we aren’t all attention deficit children. Schaller promotes his work, but at least some of it is interesting, and he has enough intelligent things to say in amongst his self-deprecating buffoonery. The app, in so far as it seems to offer a space to show and connect away from mind-numbing advertising sounds promising. Why so cynical?
It’s almost like I said masses, not photographers who still post on early 2000s message boards 🙄
Alan Schaller’s new photo sharing site
