Pictopia lets local media sell prints from photos

The Akron Star Ledger sells "art" photos from its photographers.

Photo-commerce provider, Pictopia, lets media companies sell prints of original photos from their own web site, using Print this Picture (PTP).

Readers used to clip articles from the newspaper if there was a photo of someone they knew. This service lets the photo be purchased online, and framed and sent offline.

Gilroy Dispatch publisher Tony Allegretti says he encourages photographers to take more shots of people in the community, since the shots are posted for sale. Following a traditional small town newspaper model, more shots of people means more engagement.

Photo commerce provider Pictopia provides a white label software and fulfillment process, on a revenue share basis.

“There’s no up-front money involved. Organizations already own the pictures, which have been taken and organized in the ordinary course of business,"" says Mark Leibman, CEO of Pictopia.

"What we do is take that collection of images and give them a brand new use. For no added cost, we can bring a company thousands of dollars a year for something that’s already been paid for.”

The way it works is simple: Readers browse an online gallery containing the photos, which can be purchased, framed or unframed, and in various sizes. Pictopia prints, packages, and ships the photos direct to the purchaser.

A variety of solutions (a shopping cart, a complete storefront, syndication of the photo collection across Pictopia’s partner network) are available depending on the local media partner.

About 40 local media companies are using the photo-store, from British Columbia’s Abby News to the Zanesville (Ohio) Times Recorder.

At The East Valley Tribune Photo Store, readers can order a photo put on a coffee mug or used in a 16”x20” calendar.

Liebman was also a founder of Vividata, which creates and licenses image processing and related software and drivers to large corporations. Later he got involved in making software for high-quality printmaking geared for high end media.

Pictopia started as a high-end online photo lab in 1999.It wasn’t long before customers suggested that Pictopia sell the photos they were processing online.

Competitors like Shutterfly, Photobucket, and similar services don’t work with large media and or corporate clients.

The author, Alisa Cromer is publisher of a variety of online media, including LocalMediaInsider and  MediaExecsTech,  developed while on a fellowship with the Reynolds Journalism Institute and which has evolved into a leading marketing company for media technology start-ups. In 2017 she founded Worldstir.com, an online magazine,  to showcases perspectives from around the  world on new topic each month, translated from and to the top five languages in the world.

Keywords