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Geek Culture / I'm thinking about starting a stock photography website...

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AaronG
18
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Joined: 28th Oct 2006
Location: Millstone, NJ
Posted: 31st Aug 2009 00:12 Edited at: 31st Aug 2009 00:15
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Hey everyone,

A friend of mine recently came up with the idea of starting our own Stock Photography business/website. We would have a huge database of images, and we would be offering prints. Our prices for the licensing/royalty fees would be extremely low, compared to other stock websites. The site would be geared around a search engine, much like Google is.

I have an awesome design already live that I would love to show you guys, but I don't want any ideas to be taken, etc., since we're extremely desperate, ha ha. Both of our guardians are professional photographers also, which would help.

I guess this is where my question comes in...

How would I go about writing a search engine (XML, PHP?) for my website, and designing it to search through the text interlaced in the preview .jpg's, and call them up and display them in an orderly fashion? (Think of a Google Images type thing, only from our database.)

Also, any recommendations for a web host? Not a domain carrier such as godaddy.com, but an actual server to rent?

And lastly, would any of you guys around here have any particular use for an extremely inexpensive stock website?

Thanks a ton,
AaronG



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Phaelax
DBPro Master
22
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Joined: 16th Apr 2003
Location: Metropia
Posted: 31st Aug 2009 00:20
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Look into Google's search API's for the website.

[url="http://www.nocleanfeed.com"][/url]
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Drew Cameron
21
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Joined: 30th Jan 2004
Location: Scotland
Posted: 31st Aug 2009 01:12 Edited at: 31st Aug 2009 01:13
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Look up photokorn on Google

My advice is don't bother trying to do it on your own site. I know thats harsh, but if you want to make money, sell them through other stock image vendors and get like £100 for an image. The money is to be made when a magazine or something needs the image, not through selling lots of small licenses.

I did a website for a stock photography guy and despite thousands upon thousdands of visitors, good photos, etc etc he has made like £20 over 2 years. Same business model as yours.

Please don't take this as a downer, just my honest two cents. If you do decide to go ahead, I can vouch for photokorn

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Jeku
Moderator
21
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Joined: 4th Jul 2003
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Posted: 31st Aug 2009 04:05
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Hmm there are loads of free stock image sites out there, it would be kinda hard to compete. Good luck though, and if you do decide to go with it I'd recommend using a decent framework like symfony or CakePHP.


Senior Web Developer - Nokia
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AaronG
18
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Joined: 28th Oct 2006
Location: Millstone, NJ
Posted: 31st Aug 2009 04:36
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Thanks for the advice, and yeah I was looking into just selling the images on my own to various sites, not starting a site. It's not just the money, but I want to overcome the task, you know? Like, something productive I could derive certain skill assets from that I could use down the road. Not to mention, it's a pretty good portfolio piece.

Well, I'm going to post a link to the site. Now, obviously it's on free domain hosting until I get serious, and nothing on the site actual works...hehe. I did it just for the design.

http://www.stockstop.tk/



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Jeku
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Joined: 4th Jul 2003
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Posted: 31st Aug 2009 17:40
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Hmm, interesting look, but it almost appears to be an error page at first glance.


Senior Web Developer - Nokia
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Phaelax
DBPro Master
22
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Joined: 16th Apr 2003
Location: Metropia
Posted: 2nd Sep 2009 04:22
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I thought it was a popup and closed it.

[url="http://www.nocleanfeed.com"][/url]
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