Who on G+ Uses PhotoShelter, and Why Did You Choose It Over SmugMug or ZenFolio?
As I work on a blog migration to WordPress to integrate G+ posts, I find myself looking for print sales gallery plug-ins, preferably with robust digital licensing options. I saw a presentation by PhotoShelter co-founder +Grover Sanschagrin which seemed to indicate that PhotoShelter can even handle rights-managed licensing. It seems that +PhotoShelter might enable the offering of stock photography without the loss of most of the sales price.
I found no reference to WordPress at SmugMug, and (being a customer there) the options I have for digital licensing seem very primitive in comparison to what I saw in the PhotoShelter demo.
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"As I work on a blog migration to WordPress to integrate G+ posts"
i'm curious about this part of what you wrote. why wordpress as opposed to blogger?
Sorry i m new one on G+.
mmg
If you have any questions about integrating a WP blog with PhotoShelter, please let me know. I can point you to many examples where people have done exactly that.
Also, I am unaware of any other option where you can sell prints, personal-use downloads, and offer fotoQuote-powered rights-managed and royalty-free image licenses all from a single point of sale.
Thanks +Grover Sanschagrin, there's a nice write-up on +Johan Peijnenburg's blog which should get me most of the way through the process. That fotoQuote-powered pricing did strike me as a unique and powerful feature. The SEO advantages of eliminating Flash from galleries is a big plus as well, not to mention the deep portfolio of various types of business advice. I searched on SmugMug for something similar today, in case I had missed something new, and I ran across an article which essentially said "you're responsible for your own marketing". Well, of course I am, but collecting and presenting a few best practices will help photographers do their marketing, and even other things being equal (which it seems they are not), I'd rather work with the platform and partner which seems far more engaged in and committed to my success.
I hope to implement a trial site as time permits in the next 2-4 weeks. Unfortunately Graph Paper Press doesn't have their free template available at the moment, so I may put off the trial temporarily until I can put all the pieces together.
Good question +meg dunn. I've been using Blogger for years, implemented widgets to show friends and customers recent photo posts on Flickr, a link to G+ and Facebook, and so on. That was great… as far as it went.
These days people are far more active on sites like G+ so blogs are often getting neglected a bit, but blogs still have an advantage for more complicated posts with multiple images and clean, hyper-linked text. So when I heard that I could auto-import G+ posts into a blog about a year ago, I was definitely interested… one place I could send everyone to, with a consolidated view of both photo-level posts and more in-depth story-level articles. I figured that Google would get around to implementing that for their own G+ and Blogger platform. A year later, I still haven't seen it. Did Google underestimate the potential G+ might have to reinvigorate the market demand for other Google products? Perhaps, but after missing the blog-G+ integration boat for a year, I decided not to wait any longer for something which for all I know may never come.
I'm slowly learning my way around WordPress. I couldn't install the necessary widgets on the free version available on WordPress.org, so I bought a 3 year hosting package on BlueHost, where I can customize features with free widgets and inexpensive templates to my heart's content. I've imported my Blogger posts, and I tried a G+ post import as well. It all worked well, but I'm re-installing Blogger in a different directory (long story I'll tell when I get through it and it works the way I want it to).
Getting access to PhotoShelter's features through templates like the ones made by Graph Paper Press could be a big plus. There's a lot of potential I'd like to talk about… after I have actually done it. I'm not fond of the typical "feature list review" type articles which people try to pass off as product reviews, so I try not to talk much about products until I actually use them. There's no substitute for long term usage of a product to know how it'll work in daily use.
I'll be tied up a bit during the next couple of weeks with family and the holidays (and probably another trip to Death Valley), but I'll provide updates periodically as I get deeper into the Web site design, blog transition and G+ integration, and photo gallery integration.
+Jeff Sullivan I am with PhotoDeck http://clarkcrenshaw.photodeck.com/
I use Blogger but I believe you can migrate wordpress themes. I have mine designed so the blog is just a part of the web site. I also like the way I can price my images for print sales or licensing. I'm not sure if it uses fotoQuote but is is very much like what you see at Getty.
Thanks for the explanation, +Jeff Sullivan. I've just started using Blogger again (after having left for Multiply back in 2004), but a friend of mine moved from Multiply to WordPress. I've used WordPress.com, but got hit with a lot of spam and gave it up. (I've heard other folks don't have that problem. I don't know what made me so special.)
So now I'm curious to know why you'd want to import G+ to your blog rather than the other way around. I'm only asking about stuff like this because I'm always wondering if there's a feature out there that I'd want to use and just don't understand or know about yet. Right now I post to Blogger and then share to G+. Blogger makes it pretty easy to do that. What's the advantage of going the other way around? Do comments get imported as well?
+Jeff Sullivan I'm on Photoshelter as well. I was on Zenfolio for a couple of years and switched about 6 months ago. I have a separate WordPress blog I've had for my photography for a few years. My goal this year is to integrate my Photoshelter site with it.
Good luck with the integration +Jeff Sullivan. If you run into something just let me know. By now I know every Worpress/PhotoShelter trick there is 😉
I was with Photoshelter and GPP for 18 months and whilst it does work with a WP blog the coordination and discussions between PS/WP always seemed to be out of touch with each other. In other words they did not work together despite what they say – different agendas although PS were more helpful than GPP. GPP were constantly changing things without agreeing them with PS. More interested in selling new themes. The fotoquote is a great tool but quite long winded to use and its prices are way out of date with reality
I changed to #zenfolio 5 months ago and imported my WP blog in with out any problems including images. People say that the WP SEO is better and it may be but I certainly have not noticed any downturn in my SEO in fact the reverse. I also sell rights managed images at a simple one off price. I definatly would consider #Zenfolio
+Derek Fogg: I agree that the communication between the two leaves room for improvement. On the other hand, I think people that use a GPP theme and decide to integrate should forget about constantly upgrading the theme each time a new version is released … especially when you also have customized the theme. There really is no point as the features stay the same. In addition, the themes usually survive many WP upgrades without hassle. I am still on the same version as almost 2 years ago and only had to resolve a minor issue once when upgrading to the latest WordPress version. A theme is merely a bunch of php and jquery code that will keep working. So my advice would be: pick a theme, integrate with PS, customize as much as you want and just stay with the result.
What are your thoughts on upgrading WordPress versions +Johan Peijnenburg? I started on v3.4 recently, but v3.5 is now out. I'm on BlueHost and I hear that they can auto-upgrade WP (although that sounds too good to be true, and may not be desirable). I don't really want to spend my time as a Web site administrator, so "set and forget" seems like a better way to go… I'd like to be far more content-focused with my time.
+Jeff Sullivan I am still on 3.4 as well. I normally use the auto upgrade that BlueHost offers for WP upgrades. Yes, It works very well! I didn't upgrade yet, because I didn't find the right timing yet. Shouldn't be much of a problem, but I just want to have time to troubleshoot when needed 🙂
I agree. There is no need to hurry. WordPress 3.4 will run fine for another while and your theme as well. As mentioned above, there really is no point in upgrading your site with every WordPress or theme update. Once every year or two years should suffice, especially if you have hacked the theme to pieces like I have 😉
The time is better spend shooting or working on images!
+Jeff Sullivan: correction. Just did the upgrade to 3.5 without a problem. I used the Bluehost auto-update as usual 🙂
+Johan Peijnenburg GPP tended to upgrade the WP when they had supposedly throughly tested. I had their PRO account so they through a third party hosted as well. Still stick by my thoughts on their working relationship with PS
+Derek Fogg: I can understand your feelings and the story is indeed totally different when you are not the one deciding when to upgrade. Glad to hear you are happy with Zenfolio. I was one of my alternatives as well.
Thanks +Johan Peijnenburg
+Johan Peijnenburg While I only run WP for my blog I should point out that regardless of whether you do it manually or have your webhost do it automatically, WP updates can be important for security. Not all of the WP updates have security updates in them, but many do – and I think it is quite important to update these as quickly as possible. I speak from experience, I believe one factor in having my entire website "hacked" and wiped completely out was possibly due to an old install of WP I had forgotten about – and not updated.
Leaving a theme at an older version – if it is still working quite well – makes perfect sense though. 🙂
+Michael Russell: yes, you are right. Not sure if 3.4 is such a risk, but you have a point 🙂
+Grover Sanschagrin Can you recommend a good +WordPress-friendly Web site template for photographers which I could use upon signing up for a +PhotoShelter trial? I took a look at +Graph Paper Press. While they apparently had a free template in the past, they don't seem to offer one at the moment.