Sell photos on photrade | By HamWithCam

Ever since I discovered Photrade.com through their sponsorship of Blog Indiana, I’ve been admiring the service and slowly starting to use it. My main interest in the service is the ability for bloggers to find great photography and easily place it on their blog or website. Many bloggers just grab images from Google Image Search or where ever they can find them without consideration for the legal implications of using photos without permission. With Photrade, the permission is built-in.

On the other side, photographers (professional and amateur) can profit off not only your free usage of their photos, but the integrated marketplace allowing their photos to be licensed/sold at prices they can control. All photos can be watermarked with a custom mark that helps protect everyone’s photos. If someone wants to purchase the right to use your photo without the watermark, Photrade facilitates that purchase in an automated way.

I believe this new service, which is just now in beta, has huge potential. Below, I humbly submit some feedback from what I’ve experienced so far.

• I love the ability to search for blog post images and easily post into my blog. I would love stronger integration the way flickr lets you make blog posts about a photo directly to your self-hosted blog.
• Please, please, please release an API. I think a killer application for Photrade would be a Wordpress plugin that would let me browse Photrade’s database of photos straight from my “Create New Post” screen. Then, just a button click drops the photo into my blog post.
• It would be great if the framing and links that accompany an embedded Photrade photo could be customized. I’d just like to see the style, spacing, and fonts be a little better styled (or give me control).
• The uploader works pretty well and it is fairly fast (as they claim). However, it would be great if they could add some kind of counter letting me know how many photos I’ve uploaded and if any had any errors. Also, once the uploads are done, there is nothing prompting me as to what to do next.
• A more detailed, expanded view of all my photo view activity and their earnings.
• And last but not least… I can’t wait until the Flickr integration is complete! That is what is really keeping me from using Photrade to full potential. I have a pro account at Flickr and use it for ALL my photos. Being able to import photos directly from Flickr would make Photrade my 2nd favorite photo app (maybe my first, depending on the size of my next royalty check!)

Of course, the site is still beta, and is still amazing. I highly suggest you check it out: Photrade.com

While planning for the Blog Indiana conference next month, an idea was put forth about a creative way to have some fun with a normal networking event. The concept involves having people wear “tags” or keywords representing areas of expertise or knowledge they have.

The idea is if everyone wears 2-3 tags, others will easily see who knows what and it will prompt discussions that may not have otherwise happened. We’ve been calling this concept PeopleTagging.

For example, I may see someone at a networking event who is tagged with “videocasting” or “photography.” Both are areas I have an interest in, but am only at the hobbyist level. I would definitely want to strike up a conversation with those two. Whereas, normally in a crowded room of people, I may have never had the chance to randomly start chatting with that person.

This concept may also work well as a replacement for name tags (or word just below/above name tags).

At the Blog Indiana conference next month, we’ll be trying this concept out with actual buttons attendees will get to “tag” themselves with during the conference. Think of it as a conference-long networking booster! You can read more about our plans at our conference blog.

What are some unique activities you’ve seen at networking events?

For some reason, I tend to be fascinated with other people’s business cards. I love seeing how creative people can be in such a small amount of space with such a specific purpose. I never seem to be happy enough with the business cards I design for myself and am considering a redo sometime soon. I thought I’d share one of the websites I came across that gives some amazing examples of simple, stunning, and memorable business card designs that should give anyone a creative kick in the pants.

36 Cool Business Cards You Should’ve Seen

Sell photos on photrade | By noah

Sell photos on photrade | By noah

Oy… I still need to implode wpstar.com. Maybe I’ll freeze time tonight and do it then.

4INFO is a text messaging information service that lets you request and subscribe to a wide range of information from various publishers via your cell phone. I’ve signed up as a publisher and have reserved the keyword: TSCAN.

Here’s how it works:

Send an SMS/text message to 44636 in this format: TSCAN <keyword>

For example, if I sent a text message to 44636 with the message:

TSCAN obama

I would get back a short menu of the most recent “tweets” with the name “obama” in them. I could then reply to that message with the corresponding menu number to see the entire “tweet.” Seem confusing? Give it a try! It really works.

I have no idea if this is useful to anyone, but just thought it was a fun way to learn about 4INFO’s publisher services.

It likely won’t show up on anyone’s top 10 list of killer features for ANY browser. However, I’m finding the simple and useful way that Safari handles feeds to be very satisfying. I’m talking about how your browser displays an RSS or ATOM feed when you load it directly in your browser (as opposed to a seperate feed reader). An example of how this can save you time is by visiting the Smaller Indiana homepage. If you wanted to get a quick overview of the most recent activity on the site without spending a lot of time clicking around, just click the blue RSS button on the far-right side of the browser’s URL box. This will give you a dropdown list of all available feeds to view. If you click on “Forum - Smaller Indiana” you’ll see a nicely formated view of recent forum posts with some very nice filtering features.

As you can see in the above animated graphic, you’ll see a cleanly formated listing of recent posts. You’ll also get a very handy set of tools on the right to search and filter the feed dynamically. One of my favorite tools is the ability to reduce the amount of information displayed in the feed. For example, sliding the “Article Length” slider over to the left (as the animation demonstrates) will give you an email inbox-like view of the forum posts. This is an excellent and fast way to see what’s new on any website.

While feed readers are very effective at allowing you to subscribe and consume many different websites. This integrated feed display in Safari allows you to quickly and easily cut right to the latest content on any website or blog at supports feeds. Both Internet Explorer and FireFox also provide default views of feeds. However, neither are as robust as Safari (oddly, IE comes closest).

This post is the first in a multi-part “interactive case study” on domain flipping. By interactive I mean I’m seeking your advice on what steps to take and will give updates as this project continues. I have very recently acquired the domain name IndyDivorce.com. There is no website attached to it. However, I feel like it could be rather valuable for a local law firm.

Now, don’t get the wrong idea. I don’t endorse divorce. However, the opportunity came along to snap up a domain name with the potential for high appeal to a select market. This is where this project begins.

I basically have 3 options:

1. Find an interested party to directly purchase the domain.
2. Turn it into a simple directory website listing local divorce lawyers in Indiana (and perhaps some articles on alternatives to divorce!) and eventually charge local lawyers a fee for an upgraded listing.
3. Do what YOU tell me to do.

What do you think? The point really is to “flip” this domain like you flip a house. I want to buy low, fix ‘er up, and then sell for a decent profit while still delivering a great value to the final customer.

I’ll be broadcasting live from Bloomington Startup Weekend sometime after 5pm today.

Here is the link to the UStream page: http://ustream.tv/channel/bloomington-startup-weekend