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Have a few questions and am looking for any opinions.
1) Has anyone seen or been to a gallery just showing Painter works? (group, not individual).
2) Do you think there is a call/need for this sort of group gallery?
3) Do you think there is a large enough user base to make this sort of gallery a viable effort?
4) Do you think this sort of group gallery could be viable economically? (i.e. could a person cover his server and bandwidth costs with traffic, ads, commissions, and sales of some sort?)
5) Would you like to see a Painter gallery with different artists, rotating shows, free brushes and textures, etc.?
This has been in the back of my mind for a while now. I have 35 MB of server space, (small but expandable), and a .com name, just sitting/costing. I've been creating graphics for a 'free graphics'/high volume traffic site I had in mind, hoping to supplement my ailing web design business with some ad revenue dollars, but have stopped as CPM and CPC (advertisement) rates are at rock bottom.
Any thoughts?
BR.....
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Have a few questions and am looking for any opinions.
1) Has anyone seen or been to a gallery just showing Painter works? (group, not individual).
2) Do you think there is a call/need for this sort of group gallery?
3) Do you think there is a large enough user base to make this sort of gallery a viable effort?
4) Do you think this sort of group gallery could be viable economically? (i.e. could a person cover his server and bandwidth costs with traffic, ads, commissions, and sales of some sort?)
5) Would you like to see a Painter gallery with different artists, rotating shows, free brushes and textures, etc.?
This has been in the back of my mind for a while now. I have 35 MB of server space, (small but expandable), and a .com name, just sitting/costing. I've been creating graphics for a 'free graphics'/high volume traffic site I had in mind, hoping to supplement my ailing web design business with some ad revenue dollars, but have stopped as CPM and CPC (advertisement) rates are at rock bottom.
Any thoughts?
BR.....
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Hi,
Have you looked into PainterWorld at eGroups/now Yahoo? It was set up for just this purpose. Though the owner of PainterWorld has not completed the site and launched it yet, it's been in the works for quite a while now and was intended, originally, to be exclusively Painter related. Far more than a gallery, it was to include Painter goodies, tutorials, art lessons, mini-galleries with links to each artist's site and bios of the artists, regular columns written by experts on various aspects of Painter and/or art, and lots more.
I believe that the owner will eventually get this launched. If not/whether or not.. there are a number of sites that have been set up independant of PainterWorld to do parts of what this project intended and they progress as they will.. sometimes flopping, sometimes plodding along doing a little of the larger task.
There was great enthusiasm at the beginning of the PainterWorld project, but truth be told, it's a monumental task to pull it off and an expense in both time and money for whoever takes it on.
One of the things that was so appealing about PainterWorld was its lack of commercialism. Eventually, I expect some tasteful product selling would have occurred.. but not the kind of thing we so often see destroying the atmosphere of what would otherwise have a chance of being a nice site. Banners, flashing animations, etc. Hardly the kind of thing one wants to wade through or put up with when visiting a site to enjoy art.
Oh.. and there was the Painter WebRing... but I don't know if it's still in existence. Possibly a more practical way of gathering Painter art since the burden is shared by all of the site owners.
Just some thoughts for what they're worth...
Jinny Brown
http://www.pixelalley.com
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Hello Bruce!
- <LI>nope i've never seen or been to a gallery just showing painter works (except when metacreations had a picture of the day)
<LI>Needs vs Wants While it is something I would like to see, it is not something I feel I need. It would depend on how you built this site. Would I spend more of my time there instead of here? unlikely. But I'm just not big on browsing galleries. Although I love to see other people's work, I'd rather spend my net time here and working on my own graphis. (one person's opinion)so I may not be visiting daily. . . it would have to have compelling content that changes daily to make me want to come back (and high volume of visitors or return visitors are probably going to be part of what you'd be selling to advertisers)
<LI>questions 3 & 4 seem like variations of the same question [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] Possibly something that might be attractive would be if this gallery could somehow allow me to purchase prints from a certain artist (and perhaps you could make a few pennies from the sale of such a print) or if you were really ambitious you could offer a gift service including matting and framing. But at present, I'm not a big spender so the there would have to be options for buying low cost prints. (As well as the real kinds of prints art collectors really like). And you'd have to make it VERY clear that a customer is buying a print not a piece of clipart. (some people mistakenly think that if they buy a poster they own the image and can re-use it any way they like). Another thing might be to sell screen savers or backgrounds. . . but here like in other markets the free stuff is really going to be a tough contender. Or putting the prints on T-shirts and mugs etc. that might be something else to do.
<LI>Or you could try to sell the advertisers on the number of eyeballs or click throughs. Advertisers could be the graphics companies and filters vendors or people who do the t-shirts, mugs, etc. Customized Christmas Cards or Calendars with special Painter generated art. . . Possibly even art supply stores could and vendors of special papers and canvases for your Painter prints. . .they might also buy ads. Archive quality inks, papers, and printers that use them. . . those would be neat advertisers for Painter users to see. (I'd bet that there are painter users who have not abandoned their other art media)and possibly new users who would like to learn to use the real media that Painter emulates.
<LI>But you know what i wish some sites would do is list their advertisers and have maybe a page that shows all the ads. I have sometimes caught the last part of an ad before it rotates out and wished I could see what they were talking about. (I don't want to wait for them to cycle through again) The down side is that if you only have 3 advertisers. . . well it becomes kind of obvious
<LI>Economic Viability? hmmm truthfully I don't think so. You would need some kind of merchant account and some kind of means of selling the items you intend to sell. The best way to sell things would be to have some sort of shopping cart program (add that to the cost of doing business) and quite possibly you'd have to pay a lawyer to help you with the contract with your advertisers (if you keep the contract simple enough then you could probably bypass the lawyers --hehe ) Does your current web host offer any shopping cart programs or would you have to buy or build one? What would be kept in inventory?(if anything) Or is the main money maker for this site the ad revenue? You could sell this site as a marketplace of painter artists' work but would you allow free placement in the gallery or would someone have to pay to be shown in the gallery?
<LI>While I think a gallery would be a fun site to visit, I'm not sure it would be a money maker to own. At least not for a while. Ok let me clarify. You might get money but will it defray the costs? Really hard to tell. . again it depends on how you build it. I'm gathering that your goal is not to pour too much more money into the venture. . . the goal is more to take advantage of the domain name and web space you've purchased. ( [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] we're probably not talking about some big venture capital funded site)
<LI>FYI Jumbomall (www.jumbomall.com)used to offer an affordable way to sell items or services without you having to buy a secure sockets layer connection from your web host but i haven't checked out their cost recently. They had this cool vault where the customer info would be stored and you could access the data that customers supplied to you in a web form via the web.
<LI>It may take alot of thought but you may be able to pull it off. I just don't think that this is going to be a quick money maker
a really cool article giving advice to people setting up a web design shop
I don't want to be a killjoy but i don't want to encourage you to plunge money into something that may or may not give you the return on investment you are looking for.
Just thought I'd help you brainstorm,
Athena
[img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]
[This message was edited by T. Athena Hatton on January 30, 2001 at 02:58 AM.]
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Thanks for the thoughts and brainstorming!
I've been checking in on Painterworld web site for it seems almost a year now and still it sits with one page saying coming soon. Would sure like to see Judy get it up and running. Sounds alot like what I had in mind, plus Iris prints, picture framing, and books by commission. A large task indeed, and a sweet dream, but I think do-able in stages and in a tasteful manner. Although I hate banners and trinkets as much as the next person, these could even been done with a little more class as something, somehow, does have to pay for the time and money invested. I don't think traffic/ad revenue would be of much help unless one could acquire some targeted companies like Corel, etc.
I have the availability of carts, cgi use, sub-sites, etc., but I guess it's, as usual, simply a matter of economics and risk. I agree, probably not as viable as the user base is small, yet they are dedicated. But then again, they are artists, and you know artists [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif[/img]
A lot to ponder.
Thanks again for your responses,
BR.....
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Hi BR,
Sorry for not responding to you question sooner,
I have been having problems getting online for two days.
I tend to agree with Athena. I would like to have a Painter gallery available. I would like to display and maybe sell some work on such a site.
I doubt the economic viability and I know that it would take quite an investment of time and effort.
Good Luck if you decide to put it together.
Regards,
Greg.
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gee, br. where did you get the idea for a painter site?... [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]
if all goes well in my life, i'm thinking of eventually getting a server for my own business stuff and to host a painter related site as well. i have no specific time set, but i am seriously considering it.
stecyk °
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You 'd have to create a sort of movement. People buy an illusion, a dream, never the real stuff. So there should be a need for what you want to offer, and lots of people that attract even more people to your site. If not, the mudsharks of advertising won't pay you for the little quantity of small fish you offer them.
As long as Painter is considered to be a(n amazing) hobby toolbox, it'll be difficult to be taken seriously by the Big Ones. So it'll depend on the quality of the work on your site and indeed the work you put into it. Work? Yes, lots of it. Changing content (art and tutorials) at least once a week...
Therefore, like the alchymists wrote: "The biggest part of the work has to be done before the work begins." And they didn't even know about the existenz of websites.
But if no one ever took a risk, we'd still be cave men and women... [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_cool.gif[/img]
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The more I think about it, the less viable it seems, due to the smaller user base. Maybe as a labor of love on the side.
Just looking to somehow make a little money on the side, on-line, doing what I like and do best. Living in the least populated county, in the least populated state in the US has it's good sides and bad sides. Down side being, There Ain't No Work!, especially for the likes of a picture framing/graphic/artist/web designer. Hello!, there are more cows in Vermont then people!
Boy! that felt good! psssssstt.
Guess I'll continue working on web graphic elements for a free/plus graphics site and hopefully the advertising rates will go up and the bandwidth rates will go down by the time I'm ready to go live. Hopefully, after the current web bust, there is still a place for the mid-level guys and the Big Boys haven't gobbled them all up.
BR....
