{A c&p of the [EN] announcement / blog at http://www.ipernity.com/blog/team/4689202 }

Against all odds

A year-end message from the ima-Team

It was in December 2016 when the founder and CEO of Ipernity S.A., Christophe Ruelle, announced the closing of the platform ipernity.com by end of January 2017. (1)

It’s now the end of 2017 and ipernity is still online. What happened?

Of course, members were scared, disappointed and started looking for alternatives to Ipernity. But true alternatives were (and are) hard to find. Quite a bunch of users moved over to flickr – but the ipernity refugees group over there is kind of orphaned nowadays, and that for a good reason.

At the same time members started discussing with Ipernity S.A. – and Ipernity answered hundreds of user questions and comments. Soon it turned out that the costs of running the site were too high and revenues too little. The decision to close the site was commercially reasonable.

And then something very special happened: Ipernity S.A. listened to the users and acknowledged the present and future value of the platform to the users, and the users began to move from reacting to acting. It takes courageous people to contribute to a cause that looks hopeless and in reality should have been hopeless.

Hence some users started discussing with Christophe Ruelle how Ipernity might be saved. At the same time, others started a poll about how many users would be willing to pay how much, both as a regular membership fee and as a one-time donation to build capital stock for taking over the platform.

Both negotiations and poll were promising. This led to founding IMA, the Ipernity Members Association, by some of the users not by elected or authorized users - just by a group of dedicated users who were engaged in the attempt to find a solution for the survival of ipernity.

A fundraising was established at generosity.com - and within only 15 days an amount of $ 29.130 (gross, without fees) was raised by 548 individuals by end of March 2017.

These fast achievements were followed by nearly six months of back and forth negotiations (not only with Ipernity S.A. but as well with Skrill, Amazon Web Service, banks, Credit Card Companies etc.) before IMA could start running the platform from 1st of September 2017 on.

Since then a lot of tasks have been performed:

First of all the reliability of the service had to be secured with emergency measures which is quite normal in such situations, but nevertheless very demanding. Secondly, the financial stability had to be secured. Active accounts (Paypal, Skrill) had to be transferred from Ipernity S.A. to IMA. The subscription pages had to be updated; several regulatory procedures had to be executed in the background. Unexpected problems (such as the Google translator problem) didn’t make things easier. But with the assistance of the previous owner, these problems were mastered finally.

Despite the complexity of the task at hand, the small group of IMA volunteers removed all obstacles with determination. They’ve reactivated the “Explore” function as well as the moderation of member’s tickets and the handling of spam. They’ve performed a complete database evaluation with rudimentary tools only. The database has been purged manually by more than 150.000 abandoned accounts to reduce server costs. Done during leisure time and without any compensation. Just as passion. Bylaws for IMA have been established, a governance model and a schedule of responsibilities have been developed.

During all this time IMA communicated consistently with the users. Not less than 13 newsflashes came along with their activities within the 4 months since the transfer. A front page redesign study has been widely discussed with the users, a new mission statement as well. Both projects are not yet finished but on a good track.

Likewise, a new membership model has been discussed but not yet concluded. Paying members shall be unburdened somewhat in future; nonpaying users shall make an adequate contribution. But the details are not yet fixed. Enabling https-encrypted data transfer is in progress. And a lot of requests are waiting in line.

As a team, we think it’s most important to make ipernity well known amongst photographers and photo enthusiasts (and not only them) again. Furthermore, it’s important to acquire new members to ensure a solid financial base which allows buying IT-services from external contractors for platform maintenance work as well as further developments.

But now let’s take a step back and have a look at the big picture. What can we see behind this rescue operation?

Almost everybody is talking about social media and web 2.0, 3.0 or even 4.0. In the past, we could see a shift from users as consumers to being authors. People do participate in virtual social communities not only for getting information. They publish content, too. Both channels, sending and receiving, are of equal value. Virtual communities are similar to real-life communities: you do not visit your friends just to find out when the train leaves or how the weather will be. It’s about social interaction.

And now we can see something new emerging from that social media ado: The digital nomads are settling down! Users do no longer accept to change the platform when the big players (such as Google, Yahoo or Verizon) are changing the terms of use. Users are creating their own virtual habitat now. We all could see it in the past: Users migrating from flickr to Ipernity when flickr changed its user interface, users moving over from Panoramio to Ipernity when Google shut it down, users fleeing from Ipernity when its closing was announced. But in 2017 users stood up to the business. A grown community was regarded valuable enough to fight for. The little Gallic Village began to act on its own ;-)

Yes, we all can be proud of what has been achieved in 2017! We, the active users of ipernity are regaining our autonomy. Ipernity is now our concern.

If everything works well, ipernity will be the world's leading independent and non-commercial photo sharing community someday. Independent from ideological, political, religious or other interests of third parties. But most of all ipernity is independent of owners and investors with their legitimate financial interests. Only obliged to the interest of the users. To our interest.

In this spirit, we - the ima-Team - wish all of you a happy new year!

Bernhard Westrup (Bergfex)
Christian Bucher (declic67)
Claus-Peter Unterberger (cp_u)
Don Sutherland
Eric Desjours
Lutz Petersen (LutzP)
Markus Fritsch (Boarischa Krautmo)
Pam Johnson (Pam J)
Sami Serola
Sara Shives (StoneRoad2013)
William Sutherland

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(1) www.ipernity.com/blog/team/4642052