Forum Moderators: LifeinAsia
I built a website for a buddy of mine who DJs in local club/bars around a university. I told him this is a myspace generation and if you want traffic then if you have someone come out and snap pictures of all the girls and some random guys. So I took the tough job of being the "photographer" who snaps the hot drunk college girls who pose and make out with each other. His stats in Jan 2006 were Uniques=1636, Number of visits=6599, Pages=243099. Then it started to climb and in Jul 2006 Uniques=4412, Number of visits=15044, Pages=346197. Now to me this doesn't seem that big of a deal in the WWW world.. but from a local perspective where this is a bunch college students who visit this website every min just waiting for the updated pictures of themselves and their friends, and of course older guys who want to see young college drunk party girls ( no nudity though ). I'm just wondering if these numbers are enough to bring in advertising on that websit. Now I can't serve google ADs due tot he fact there is no text on the pages it is all images and of course the google ads don't target properly if there is no text.
OK so second part of the question.. since this seems to have grown fairly popular but I am tied to just the particular DJ i was going to break off on my own to the downtown area where there are alot more clubs and people AND people with money, not just broke college kids. I was thinking of snapping the pics for free and just passing out biz cards with the URL to drive local traffic to download the pics of them in the clubs/bars. Is advertising really about millions of visitors a day or can you still make decent coin if its a local targeted audience trying to sell web ads to local bars and clubs clothing stores etc.
And are their any other angles to make money that i am not thinking of here?
It appears to me that they make their money selling event tickets and selling marketing services to venues. They seem pretty vertically-integrated, and are a part of a marketing/PR firm that works for the various venues to promote events. They do cross-promotion with local entertainment magazines - I presume they get a free page in the magazine in exchange for giving the magazine free ads. They now have a local print publication of their own which consists of pictures shot at events and ads - yet they still have their own page in other magazines.
I really doubt you can make money just working the photography aspect of it. That's where these guys started, but I don't think that part went anywhere money-wise.
I could be wrong - Shutterfly does pay "Pro Gallery" owners when people order prints. But somehow I doubt that the pictures are the big money maker. What I really think is going on is that they had to get in good with the clubs to be able to take the pictures, and in the process learned the business and gained the trust of the clubs. The photographers are there all the time, schmoozing with customers, and probably know more about the customers now than the club owners do. Over time, they went from being a (probably money-losing) internet-pictures outfit to a marketing/PR firm.
Local businesses are still very print-oriented, BTW. If you don't have a print publication (even if it one that people throw away or line their birdcases with) they aren't interested. For most, web exposure is just a nice extra.
P.S. is the site your thinking napkinnights? i think they are in CA but they are kind of like the model im going after their website is perfectly layed out.. I need to get better at php scripting though.. grrr
The site owner does pretty good in terms of Adsense revenue, but his real bread and butter comes from what he charges promoters to list their event flyers on his site. That, and he charges some venues or event promoters to take pictures of their party (because its obviously good branding for that particular venue or promoter, and lets people see that their events have a lot of good looking people in attendance).
It took a year, year and a half for things to really take off, though, and it depends on who (if anyone) you're competing with. He didn't profit the whole first year, then things took off.
What they do is pretty similar to your concept, taking pictures of party-goers and listing events at clubs and so on, all of which they do for free.
The sites require you to sign up to view the pictures, but this is still free, which increase the number of users.
However, they have a set of features, like access other users "private" photos, see who has marked your photos as favourites and so on, for which they charge a monthly fee of ~$10.
It sounds like a lot, but a lot of people are actually willing to pay this! Of course, the site takes on a lot of the functions of a dating site, but it caters to much more mainstream users, who don't see it that way, and just enjoy the self-promoting.
Regards, Peter
But all it takes is the one time you have a pic of a guy partying with his girlfriend and his wife's friends see it and tell her, prompting her to file for divorce. Then the guy's divorce lawyer suggests that he try to recoup his losses by suing you for posting his picture without his permission, which caused him significant mental stress and financial loss.
Obviously, getting signed waivers from everyone isn't going to work. But you may be able to limit your liability (consult with a lawyer to see how much) by havig the nightclub owner post a sign at the entrance saying that anyone entering the club gives their permission to be protographed and have the pictures posted on your site. (Universal Studios has a similar notice granting them permission to use pictures of anyoen in the park for marketing and promotional purposes. I don't know if anyoen has ever challenged them on the legality of it, but I imagine they have pretty high priced lawyers that did some major research on the issue.)
[edited by: LifeinAsia at 10:57 pm (utc) on Dec. 5, 2006]
I'm just saying that the issue could come up and would suggest you talk to a lawyer ahead of time.
