I bet I got your attention with that title! 🙂
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Thing is, I’m not being sarcastic. Time magazine this week has some interesting ideas on how to save the newspaper industry and I think some of the thinking might (note: might) be worth investigating for photography. That is, micropayments for content.
Now, don’t flip–this is, essentially, pay-per-view so while the individual payments may be tiny, the aggregate total may very well be more than photographers make now. Let’s say, for example, that a photographer gets .1¢ per view of an “interior” image…yes, one-tenth of a penny…that would be, for the 3 million subscriber base Time claims, $3,000.Â
This is the sort of thing I was talking about when I said photographers should share the risks (and the rewards). Maybe your image’s story doesn’t get read by everyone…you’ll make less…or maybe that story will catch fire and you’ll make a lot more.Â
I’m sure the technology exists to give accurate reporting for this sort of system. And it would work for advertising as well–if the ad gets viewed, you get paid. More views, more $$. Maybe in the case of advertising, there can be a bonus for consumer action–that is, if the online ad results in a click-through, the photographer gets a “bonus.”
New technology requires new thinking…