Kelly and I had a nice phone conversation with Sean Blanda from TechnicallyPhilly.com. Sean publishes (writes and operates) an excellent blog about people using technology in Philadelphia.

We had an in-depth conversation about some key questions about our service, talked about the inspiration behind our site and what the future holds for us.

Like any good Philadelphia conversation, we ended talking about the Eagles.

Read the article on technicallyphilly.com.

Hey Philly! Want to make some extra money taking photos? Two new want-ads/photo assignments have been posted to adography.com that you could fulfill.

Chickie’s and Pete’s is looking for photos of you and your friends enjoying some time at Chickie’s and Pete’s with clear branding in the photography. So, go out to the nearest location, have a couple of drinks, and snap a couple of photos, then submit them for Chickie’s and Pete’s.. Oh, and while you are there, make sure to see if they sell Victory Beer, so you could take some photos for the Victory Beer want-ad.

Brolik Productions is looking for photos that are “specifically representative of Philadelphia filmmaking, the film community or film history and/or that is highly representative of Philadelphia in general”. Take out your digital camera, maybe head out to the art museum, charge up the Rocky Steps, and snap some good photos of the surrounding area with a film twist. Brolik says that you could be “abstract”, so feel free to take some chances, and submit some photos to fill the Philadelphia “Film” Imagery need.

There are three new want-ads posted to Adography for a total of $200.00 on the table for our photographers. The three want-ads can be found here:

American Apparel – Real People Ad ($25.00)

What’s Your Favorite Coca A Cola Photo? ($50.00)

Hallmark Memories ($75.00)

People are already posting, so get snappin’

Mom Needs a Vacation

Congratulations to “Photographer At Heart” who posted the first photo that has ever sold on adography.com. We are so happy that we are able to fill a need and we hope to use this success story as a proof of concept for potential advertisers. Thanks to Gail from TravelWows, who posted the want-ad and purchased the photo. Thanks also to Photographer At Heart who posted the photo that was sold and is a close friend of the site.

Background: Gail, from TravelWows, posted a want-ad asking for photos of “a 40ish mom in driver’s seat of a minivan shot from behind in an attitude of frustration and defeat”. Photographer At Heart posted the photo that Gail selected for her campaign. The photo sold for $20.

I also want to point out that $20 is very comparable in price to the same dimension photo on istockphoto.com. However, this photo was specially requested by Gail, since stock photography didn’t meet her needs.

A friend of mine sent me this blog post over the weekend. While we are trying to help you make money with your photography skills, this Photographer, Matthew Day, outlines some of his struggles, inspiration and learnings, nicely detailed in an interview. An inspirational point that Matthew makes is “…most photographers can make a good living doing their own good work..”

So don’t hold back your photography dreams. Get out there and start snapping. Tell a story with your photography and that story will be worth something to someone.

It’s a great day for us at adography, as we were just written up on the very popular tech blog, Techcrunch. We are very excited about the write-up and appreciative for all the kind words about our idea, service and website.

I feel it best for us to assert our focus and make it public. We have learned that our unique product offering is that we allow companies to request custom photographs, and are focused on fulfilling that need. We are toying with new tag-lines, like “Adography: When stock photography just wont do” and discussing the trials and tribulations that companies face when trying to purchase ad photos.

Along these lines, we have a very small set of targeted goals for the moment, and they are as follows:

1. Create a great community of amateur photographers through online PR.
2. Get advertisers/companies to join and submit want-ads for specific photos. We’ll use these want-ads to promote the opportunity to photographers.
3. Enhance the feature set and user experience. We have had swarms of feedback already, and we are filtering out the highest priority items, which we work on over the next couple of months.

Our success depends on our community of users, so please provide feedback, good or bad, and we will be sure to respond with our thoughts. We value every community member and feel that if you take the time to join and provide feedback, the least we can do is respond.

Oh yeah, and since we’re still new, if you know any photographers or companies that need advertising, please share our service with them.

Thanks!

We know there are great photographers out there. Photographers with pets that LOVE “Purina Beggin Strips”. We are so sure, we are offering up $100 for the best photo.

Take a couple shots of your pet beggin for beggin strips and if it’s the one we choose to use for our advertising, we’ll pay you the money.

Snap some shots and here’s the link to post ‘em up: http://adography.com/want-ad/show/16

Flickr Logo

Photosharing is huge on the internet…we all know this. This writeup on techcrunch shows that there is a need for us in the photo marketplace space. Flickr has spent time and energy to create the marketplace, so it is obvious there is value to selling user photos online. There’s a supply of photos online and a demand for these photos to be used in advertising. We just provide the tool to connect the two.

It makes it apparent that we offer a niche marketplace in that photos are specifically for branded advertising, not just anything deemed worthy by a photographer. By giving photographers direction and instruction on marketplace needs (i.e. want-ads) that advertisers will really want to buy, we create the demand.

Competition is flattery. Even if it’s a big fish like Flickr (aka Yahoo).

Adography is no longer a dream, but an actuality. We have incorporated and have filed as a registered corporation on July 3, 2008 recognized by the state of Pennsylvania. The to-do list is short before private beta launch, so get your photos ready.

I have been going back and forth with the lawyers  over the past two weeks revising the terms and conditions. Ok, well, to be honest, they have gone back and forth with themselves red-lining copy based on their understanding of the site. We have a complete document, ready to be HTMLed and posted to the site. The lawyers and I reviewed the places where users will be forced to agree to our terms and we have new text for there, as well. If I had to name two things were ever so diametrically opposed, I would say legal thinking and technical thinking.