With the active development and acquisitions occurring at 500px, I decided to join…

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• nature is the ultimate artist -   this  lake like mirror

• :)

• Loved my trip to Silver Lake this October

• NIce work!

• I really believe that selling the rights is easier than selling the prints.  You give me x dollars and get whatever you want from wherever you want, and I don't have to worry about if the quality of the print is low, just that the raw image is good.

• You are also on PX ...great!
  See you There !

• I actually remember Google talking about it at the very start...being able to sell prints directly from G+.  I haven't really explored 500 yet, but good luck there!  (And Happy Thanksgiving Jeff!  Hope you and yours have a great one.)

• Thanks +Wes Lum.  I'm still hoping that Google has a nice surprise in store for us on G+ with regards to image sales.  Mediocre content gets boring fast, and most photographers want to be inspired and learn, so it's a strategic win for a social media site to attract, reward and retain the best photographers.  

  Look at how the iTunes store has changed the music industry.  Why not try a similar mass consumer distribution model with low cost digital images?  Start with $0.99 image downloads for tablets and laptops, lower resolution ones at $0.49 for phones, and expand into stock photography later once the site has a deep portfolio of high quality image content (community rated and ranked, like on +500px and Flickr, so buyers can find the better images easily).  

  Flickr had a lot of enthusiastic participants in their stock photography partnership with Getty, as many photographers made enough through that program to buy an extra lens or two per year.  There were some serious issues which never got resolved: the commission rate was lower than going directly though Getty, and Getty's terms seemed draconian to many photographers (disallowing the photographer's own uses of the photo in most cases, unless the image was removed from the program with 2 years notice).  

  If Google views photographers as non-strategic, too much of a niche portion of the G+ community, the opportunity remains open for Flickr, 500px, or a start-up to claim that space.  Apple could do something interesting expanding the iTunes concept to encompass visual art.

• +Jeff Sullivan I have a feel Google might do something big in this regard.  +Brian Rose might have some feedback?  Anyway, it'd be interesting if they do...Google definitely has everything else in place...literally.  I mean jeez, they almost just have to flip a switch...almost.  I still haven't got into Flickr.  I don't think I can handle anymore social networks.

• +Wes Lum  So much of the value of social networks is in the ability to link to external content, such as when someone asks "How did you capture that photo?" and I can reply with a link to a couple of my blog posts on the technique.  I literally had that happen this morning on Flickr, but I had to reply that Flickr currently wouldn't want me to provide the links to the blog posts.  In the exact same situation on Facebook I was able to add that value when the opportunity came up (I invest the most time here on G+, so I had made a separate post on planning for moon rise events).  

  It's hard to understand some of Flickr's more senseless policies.  I was blocked from Flickr's Explore (like What's Hot on G+) for 2 years, then recently unblocked for a week or so, then apparently re-blocked a few days ago.  They seem to think that a walled garden approach is feasible, although every data point from the past 5 years should tell them otherwise.  Perhaps +Marissa Mayer, with her background in open systems, can talk some sense into folks over at Yahoo (if they have the financial resources to develop Flickr at all).

  I've had conversations with +Brian Rose regarding potential revenue models for photographers.  Every amateur is flattered when someone would want to buy one of their images, and every photographer is a potential semi-pro who would love to make a few dozen to few hundred dollars per year, enough to buy a new camera accessory or lens each year.  Those aren't idle speculation or abstract concepts to me.  I've watched many friends make that transition on Flickr, using Flickr/Getty and other informal revenue opportunities which come up.  The revenue models definitely aren't limited to prints.  In fact, sales of digital files for things like stock photography is a much better fit.  There's also a potentially large opportunity to organize the market for low cost images, creating an iTunes-like exchange for screen savers.  

  These are simply some of my general, common sense observations as a user of these photography and social sites of course; any resemblance to anyone's actual product plans is coincidental.  (I spent 20 years working for high tech companies myself.  If I knew what Google, +500px or Yahoo were planning, I certainly wouldn't betray their trust and talk about their plans.)