ExpertHost ramps up towards launch of LuckyOliver Stock Photo Site; Offers initial photographers higher royalties

May 10, 2006; 06:58 AM

ExpertHost.com, Ottawa, Canada – Reseller web hosting firm, ExpertHost.com (http://www.experthost.com), has agreed to provide hosting services to MegaGlobal Image Syndicate, Inc. in order to launch a micro-payment, community based stock photography site called LuckyOliver (www.luckyoliver.com). The site is currently in the process of accepting photo submissions, and will be open for designers to begin purchasing photos in June 2006.

Fitting in snugly between stock photography web sites and online community portals, LuckyOliver is founded on the belief that there’s plenty of room for improvement and innovation in the world of selling photos online. “After surveying some of our larger resellers”, says Dr. Atul Joshi, ExpertHost’s Director of Business Development, “many of whom are web designers and graphic artists, we concluded that we could do more for them in the area of cost-effective image delivery. Many of our clients are visual artists, and rather than just offering them a catalogue of expensive, one-time-use stock images, we’ve asked them to participate and become members of LuckyOliver. Here, they can not only obtain quality, royalty-free images for their web sites, but they could also contribute their images as well. This becomes a great way for them to generate ongoing revenue from their own digital images.”

“When web designers build a site using poor images, the end results can have a negative impact on their whole business, including their bottom line,” stated Dr. Joshi. “Web designers routinely have clients who simply don't have professionally photographed images, nor are they willing to pay for custom photographs to be taken especially for the site. Designers who have found themselves stuck with sub-standard logos, a few lines of content, and a floppy disk with a few, small, over-compressed images, now have a photography community at LuckyOliver to which they can turn."

LuckyOliver is different from other micropayment stock photography sites in a number of ways:

The bargain bin: For photos that don’t make the stringent content standards but still have merit—and the potential to be used by designers—the LuckyOliver bargain bin is where it’s at. The bargain bin gives less-than-perfect photos new life (and moneymaking ability). LuckyOliver members (called "Olivers") will be able to vote images out of the bargain bin and into ‘regular’ circulation, which increases the photographer’s moneymaking ability.

The make-it-mine option: If a designer finds your photo and wants more 'exclusive' rights to it, they can choose the ‘make-it-mine’ option to buy your image and remove it from the LuckyOliver collection. The make-it-mine option is available on all images, regardless of how many downloads have occurred. A designer will be aware (and will be reminded) upon purchase that if the photo has been download 1 or 100 times before, the previous purchasers’ rights are unaffected; they are simply making the photo unavailable to future downloaders.

The make-it-mine option gives image contributors a lot of leeway in setting the price for your image. Unlike other areas of the LuckyOliver library where the pricing is firmly set, the make-it-mine option has pricing guidelines but, in the end, you control what you charge.

The 'tipping point' additional royalty: In order to get more photographers interested, LuckyOliver is offering higher royalties on the first images accepted. For the first 30,000 photos submitted to the site, photographers will receive 60% of the selling price (up from 30% for any photos submitted after the 30K mark)

About ExpertHost.com

Since its inception in 1997, ExpertHost.com, a division of NJ Tech Solutions Inc., has been focused on the ‘netrepreneur’, the ‘online’ entrepreneur. Sensitive to the needs of resellers, ExpertHost.com has always offered its clients the very best in cost effective and reliable technology, whether on shared, VPS, or dedicated servers. With an in-house team of developers and customer support staff trained to host and support your sites on many platforms, ExpertHost.com has maintained a loyal and growing following of resellers that have come to trust its dedication to providing profitable reseller based solutions.