Profit

I think the problem is more complex. Most of the users (or better "contributors") are here for their own pleasure (I do) and for exchange with other users. I think that payment for some users would automatically increase the costs for the pro-account for "joe foto-sixpack". I would accept payment, but actually I can live without as long as I get back at least *something* and the pro-account is not *too* expensive. The main point for me is quality and not quantitiy of views/visits. I do not want to dig for some pearls in a huge garbage bin of visual junk. From this point of view I am really interested in the further development of flickr (sooner or later ipernity will run into the same problem).
They have *definitively* a quality problem now. Yesterday, I looked at the "Explore" pictures and I was horrified. Before, the explore images were sometimes not my taste but of a generally high quality. (Typical statement: "not my taste but a good picture").
Now at least 10% of explore are point&shoot images I would never publish. There are still good pictures (peters_view e.g.), but they do not make it to explore as easy as before.
It is my personal feeling that something has changed on flickr - the big question is now for me: does it matter if quality people leave? Did they notice? Will they care? Paying for the pictures in explore would be a possible solution. More in the near future....
The more time I spend here, the more I like the place - not because this is such a nice system - but because of the quality of the pictures/art and the people. If they move, I will also move....

i think they didn't wanted to make a quality gallery with fluckr !
just a community
and the community (a part of it) wanted to see more quality, and a part of it, decided to create it here

I think your ad model makes a lot of sense. That's what Google does. If you have a blog, you can use Google ads, and you will get a percentage of the proceeds, depending on the number of clicks.

But I don't think Flickr has a real incentive to do that. Why would they offer that? They don't want to lose money. Rebekka and the people like her will stay there no matter what. It's obviously the best forum for them right now.

Put it this way: No one (or no company) is fair unless the fair act is mutually beneficial, unless each party gets something equal out of it. So until the Rebekkas of Flickr feel like they are getting ripped off, nothing will change.

Surely true...

Hello manganite. This is an interesting question. I don't have a clue what our business model will be in the future, but we will try to keep a (nearly) add free service with money coming from pro accounts. I don't believe in free / add sponsored webs. You also have to know that only a small % of members will buy pro accounts - but that's our problem ;)
We are thinking about a market place to sell photos or any kind of files. This is something we will discuss with ipernity members after the launch of the groups.
We are also aware that we will have to fight against all kind of spams (comments, photos, ...). And spam is very hard to fight when it is a question of money. don't you think ?

Hello Christophe, maybe you should include something like a "Mark as spam" or "negativ fav" button for the users and use the joint intelligence of the users...

EXCELLENT IDEA !!
NEGATIVE FAVE !
WOUHOU !!!

doesn't "negative fav" (aka "this doc is offending") already exist ?

Yes, that has a very similar effect.

Personally I have no problems with some ads (as long they are not crazily blinking and so on), if on the other hand have less costs due to it (maybe that's e little selfish, but...). But okay, 2 Euro a month is not that much money for a pro account. So if the page here goes on well, sooner or later I will buy one.

To offer the user the possibility of selling their pictures (that's what you are talking about, or) would be a great thing. I have also some pictures at imagekind and deviantart, but that doesn't work without some efforts. So I never sold anything. It's hard to get recognized their. Maybe a community like this would make things easier. Give it a try, I would say.

Spam is of course a problem. Some people will try to aggressively push their pictures to make money. But okay, that's the way things going, so one has to be smart to keep the page running for the other users. I wish you good luck.

And thanks for reading this. Good to see, that you have a look what's going on here :)

Maybe one direct question: I think you and the team are not some kind of Mother Theresa for the photo freaks, so you would like to make money with this project for yourself. So you agree that whatever you are doing, you wouldn't make any cent without us making good pictures and posting them here, or?

Don't get me wrong, this is your page, you make the rules and we have to follow (sometimes people in communities are so idealistic, that they forget this important point and things the page is their own), but we all depend on each other. You make the technical stuff and we share the content. No side would be something without the other. So I'm glad about any news about giving us to participate even a little bit from the success of the project.

ads: I don't know if non-blinking ads are really working - I think we won $20 in 3 months with ad-words ;)
spam: yes, the algorithms are quite complex and must always adapt to user's work arounds.
mother theresa: I wish I was. I don't know what are my motivations. Sometimes I wish I was travelling around the world and taking photos. But I don't like flying. Maybe ipernity is my cure. who knows... I'll talk about this to my therapist ;)

20$ is not much... When I was writing a blog I made roughly 15$ a month ad words. Still I got 3 or 4 $ a month while not writing something new since half a year :)

Maybe you made something wrong ;)

There are people doing a round the world trip on a bicycle (don't recall their url though) ... but maybe its an idea :)

Do you want me to die Michael? I'm a programmer, not a sportsman. lol. but this is truly a solution ;)

Do you remember the first web cam? It just showed a coffee machine somewhere in the USA. In principle a stupid idea, but unforgettable web history...

Success is often not predictable, especially here in the web.

Just drive slowly, one continent at a time...

The problem with 'explore" is that any highschool kid with 30 friends can make explore anytime they want. All they need to do is e-mail the picture to their friends and ask for them to fave it and comment on it. These "bot" technology picture finders are easily fooled and people are not dumb. It does not need to be a good picture to make explore, explore really means nothing.

That's not true. Such simple attempts are filtered out by the algorithm. I know one case someone did this with some hundred of friends. He got lots of views, faves and comments. But it didn't helped, he failed. The algorithm is very sensible to who is looking at the pictures. Your contacts do almost count nothing.

And anyway, explore doesn't in the first point claims to find good pictures, it's maid to find what people are interested in. That's sometimes, but not always the same...

oh- ok.