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Internet 1.0 and why not!

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Jerome Marot tells me we are at 1.0. Well at first I didn't understand.

Well, other photography web sites are heavily monetized. Luminous Landscape ran a photography education business and each location was filmed and videos sold to generate further income.

Alan Briot established himself with courses in "Mastership" in everything in photography including marketing! His choice of luxury sports cars matches his taste for wonderful iconic Nationsl Park scenes, glyphs and all!

We, that is Nicolas Claris and I decided at the outset that we would not pose as Gurus or tolerate any here on OPF! We don't sell anything teach nor promise anything more than collegial discussion on the way to each person's travel plan, meandering or focused!

We booted out a good photographer who refused to share getting a good yellow from an Epson printer, without spending $1,000 or more for a DVD on printing. "Doing otherwise, the "printing expert" assured me, would be "cheating" those who DID pay the $1,000 for the course or DVD!

We do not sell photographic salvation or Nirvana. We are open to ideas. This way my own photography has consistently improved. I know more than a few OPFrs have been able to go from snapping pictures to running successful portrait, pet, studio, art photography for galleries, boudoir photography and children's photography. All without paying a dime in courses! The only extras were traffic in private messages for hints at who here had the answer to someone's technical needs. It has worked.

At least one person here used our lists to start their own fora. One sells workshops. The other, a self appointed guru, couldn't help insulting the folk collected and it fell to pieces in about a year.

For me the photograph is still magic and I have a simple childish delight seeing what was actually captured! It's as if we manage to defeat transience in a small way! I am not looking for pay or profit. When someone posts an original picture, that thrill and my insights are more than enough compensation for providing this platform.

So we are 1.0, I guess!

I am old fashioned and I guess won't change!

Asher
 
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nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
Asher, my dear friend and all Opfers,

As Asher do recall our original (and still!) aims when setting this forum, and as Asher has the kind vertue to quote my name, I would like to say that my long absence ain't due to any disagreement. I just don't have the time to particpate actively but comme from time to time to explore new posts. I can see that our original aim is still there and I'm quite glad with this :)

Also, I don't think Asher that you are oldfashion, on the contrary! Reading all your posts one can say that you do profess tolerance, openness, open mind, respect of others all so essential behaviors that youngsters would be inspired to learn and follow. Because we're not animals (well I know that many animals have strong habits leaving in an organized society).

It's not just like "peace and love, yeah! my friend" it's the way we see, listen (smell even! ;) our neighbors, should they be black, white, yellow or any colors, male or female, rich or poor.

Interaction, disagreement, provocations, provided that they are constructive and not an attack to the poster are welcome!

Agreements/disagreements are necessary in the process of progress.

Here we bring Internet 1.0 to the 2.0, hoping it will last till 3.0 and the following.

Good work Asher! I'm proud to be your friend!

Of course all of these considerations has to do and are fully part of photography.

Et, tiens, pour la peine, une de mes dernières images que j'aime beaucoup, c'est une tentative d'hommage à à David Hockney…

Summertime_NCZ9941.jpg

Enjoying summertime​
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Nicolas,

I thank you for your guidance and being my conscience. We need help to steer!

I try to remember your wise advice. We have benefitted from your labor, skill and artistry to put into programming and the edifice of OPF, but especially our principals of not becoming exploitative Gurus, selling "ultimate expertise" to beginners, enthusiasts and pros. We just meet and share, taking pleasure at other photographer's "catch of the day"!

Still, I must say, the late Michael Reichman built a successful business and also helped a lot of folk, (making a profit), in the process! I just like our way. We are a tad less pretentious, but not immune from "artsy fartsy" hype or self-indulgent drivel at times!

Asher
 

Jerome Marot

Well-known member
Jerome Marot tells me we are at 1.0. Well at first I didn't understand.

Well, other photography web sites are heavily monetized.

What characterises the "Web 2.0" is not that the site is monetised. People have been trying to make a living on the Internet in early times. Actually, the sites your cited (Michael Reichmann or Alain Briot) are firmly "Web 1.0", yet are obviously commercial sites.

What characterises the "Web 2.0" is that the site is designed to that the relation between users will necessarily split them in two groups: sellers and buyers. The organiser of the site stays in the background. It took me a long time to put my finger on the difference.

I’ll take Instagram as an example, since Instagram is about photography. The creators of the site do not appear publicly on the site. They just created a system by which people get a continuous flow of pictures. There is no discussion or appraisal of the pictures, as in a photography forum. The idea is that the normal user just gets a continuous flow of “nice” pictures.

To create that continuous flow of pictures, Instagram had to motivate users to create them. They made it easier to create “nice” pictures by developing “filters” which make every picture “nice” (how they attain that goal is another, also interesting, question), but they still needed people to actually shoot the pictures. They new however that people would come, because it is a business opportunity: if you have enough followers, you can sell that audience to advertisers. And indeed photographers came which were ready to fill the void by posting a continuous flow of pictures (that is at least one each day, preferably 3 or 4 per day), on a single subject with some unity in their form or colour.

Basically, some people post, every day, pictures of cats in the same colour palette. Because the Internet is made for p… cats. You think I am kidding? Check: cats!

But producing a continuous flow of pictures is work. Some amateurs will do it for a time, but will quickly tire of the effort (I know, I tried something similar for a month). And that is how you have a split between two classes of users, the normal consumers of pictures and the professional producers. It is a direct consequence of the design of the web site. And because all recent (2006 onwards…) “social” web sites are designed in the same manner, that collective design is called “Web 2.0”.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Thanks, Jerome!


So a dating site would then be 1.0 as there is no "split" in the users, or is there?

Asher
 

Jerome Marot

Well-known member
So a dating site would then be 1.0 as there is no "split" in the users, or is there?

Dating sites are quite "1.0", as they existed before 2006 (and even before the Internet, in the form of personal adds in newspapers) and are not in the form of a continuous flow (although Tindr can be argued to have copied that paradigm). They also do not create a split between "consumers" and "professional users" (at least not officially, it is an open secret that a shortage of women tend to foster some "professional" practices).
 

Jerome Marot

Well-known member
Two few other characteristics of "Web 2.0" sites.

1: they often require you to be a member to access the site. Experts describe them as walled communities for this reason.
Forums, of course, require you to be a member to post, but Web 2.0 usually require you to sign in and download an app with wide permissions to even access the site. Taking the example of Instagram: if you go to the site, you are offered to download the app, that is it. You can sometimes see the stream of a given photographer, but you will need to know the exact URL beforehand. Pinterest, another image site, goes one step further: they flood google image search, but once you click on google to see a particular image, they will redirect you to their sign in page. You cannot actually see the image you found in google.

Obviously, having people sign in for their service is part of their business plan, because they need users giving them away content for free.

2: The actual owners of the site do not really use it. That is a change from classical web sites. Luminous landscape, given as an example above is very much about Michael Reichmann. Instagram is not about Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger (the founders of the site). Luminous Landscape uses the site as a vector to sell workshops, videos and prints. Instagram does nothing like that. With Web 1.0, the site is a vector of another business, with Web 2.0, the site is the business model itself.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
So in commerce, I would be stores in a market or the dentist or barber shop where the owner might greet you and II would be the truckers, post office and credit bureaus that allow it all to happen?

Asher
 

Jerome Marot

Well-known member
So in commerce, I would be stores in a market or the dentist or barber shop where the owner might greet you and II would be the truckers, post office and credit bureaus that allow it all to happen?


I don't think that there is a real life equivalent to the "Web 2.0" in commerce. Besides, the "Web 2.0" sites do greet you personally. That also is part of their business plan.

It is more like:
-in the 19th century, when you went to a store, the owner would know you. He would ask you what you wanted and pick it up from the shelves behind the counter. That gave him the possibility to pick up different things at different prices for different people, so....
-after the 2nd world war, the supermarket was invented. They were called "self service" at the time, and the idea is that the store would not know you, you picked what you really needed yourself and the prices were the same for all
-the "web 2.0", in commerce, is more like a supermarket that would know you and be able to redecorate the whole store, change the complete assortment of goods and define new prices as soon as you enter. Poor people get cheap junk, rich people get branded junk. It only sells virtual stuff.

Today, the largest taxi company (Uber) owns no vehicle, the largest accommodation provider (Airbnb) owns no hotel and the largest media provider (Facebook) produces no content.
 
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