I am in the same boat as the original poster... I haven’t been active in a few years and am coming back to this site to see a lot has changed but a lot is still the same... The good is that it’s a lot of the same good people, the bad, is that there are fewer people participating in general... Personally, Facebook is an EXCELLENT way to generate traffic if done properly. It allows you to target a very particular audience, based on the parameters you set... Obviously a site page should be created, or group, not sure which is the better way to go. It should be an inviting group based on the idea of challenges and where people can go for critique of their work. If marketed right, it will grow as it reaches photographers, particularly those who like competitions... What’s important is that the group is updated frequently and is marketing the website through its posts... Just my two cents, I’d love to see this site grow again, but I’m afraid it’s also going to take an overhaul of the actual website to facilitate this (the gray is just stale)... Hope all is well with everyone by the way, haven’t been around here in ages...
Having a site page and a Facebook group isn’t enough to drive traffic though, it has to be promoted, and that costs money... So it’s got to be up to the powers that be as to what type of promotion is driven... Truth be told, I think it could work wonders for a site like this, but it’s a matter of whether the site owner (Assuming it’s still Langdon) wants to spend the money to make the money
Having a site page and a Facebook group isn’t enough to drive traffic though, it has to be promoted, and that costs money... So it’s got to be up to the powers that be as to what type of promotion is driven... Truth be told, I think it could work wonders for a site like this, but it’s a matter of whether the site owner (Assuming it’s still Langdon) wants to spend the money to make the money
If we're going to do a social media campaign of any sort, it will have to be a member-led and sustained effort. So depending on how much time and effort a handful of volunteers would like to invest in this site, I believe we can really stimulate participation in this site via twitter, insta, and FB.
I'm afraid this site has run its course... Facebook or Instagram ain't gonna save it. There are way too many challenges going on at one time with too few people left to vote or participate. One option would be a simple "Open" weekly challenge with no other challenges, but that sure takes the fun out of actually shooting towards a theme.
The next best option is a weekly theme, but just one challenge per week. Editing rules would need to be lenient.
Other than that, you are going to continue to see dwindling participation levels. That's not necessarily a bad thing, except for those of us who enjoy this site immensely. It's just the nature of the beast - - All good things come to an end eventually.
A crazy idea perhaps but what if someone created a similar site and all the people from here switched over, this would allow for a platform that could be restyled and developed in line with today’s internet. Surely this site could have surfed the waves of change much better with an actual person on the board. I remember someone did this a few years ago but it wasn’t popular but maybe now that it’s blatantly obvious things are coming to end everyone would make the move.
A crazy idea perhaps but what if someone created a similar site and all the people from here switched over, this would allow for a platform that could be restyled and developed in line with today’s internet. Surely this site could have surfed the waves of change much better with an actual person on the board. I remember someone did this a few years ago but it wasn’t popular but maybe now that it’s blatantly obvious things are coming to end everyone would make the move.
Not the worst idea in the world. You would lose all the historical content and it would obviously need a completely new name but could develop the same basic functionality I am assuming there is no similar site already out there in the big wide web that has this concept otherwise we may not be having this conversation. If one was to be developed it begs the question who will pay for it or maybe we have in-house talent. I could develop a site like this but it would take me months to do if I had tee time and motivation - which at the moment. I have very little of either.
Thanks VERY MUCH, Stefanie. This is exactly the type of involvement we are hoping to see spring up. As a community, we can accomplish whatever we want within the limits of the platform(s) that we are working with.
Personally speaking, my drop in participation coincided with life changes, and a move toward web browsing via mobile devices(I rarely access via desktop anymore). This awesome site didn’t move with the rest of the world. I’m not making a good/bad judgement, rather an observation of my reality. Photo sharing sites are on every corner of the www now.
Because DPC has remained true to its design of structured voting, time restricted participation, and desktop pc style design, it’s a tough sell to many photogs that are active on sites more geared toward mobile and instant feedback in the form of likes.
Now my skeleton of an idea...
1) sign up site participants to be DPC ambassadors, promote in our own IG/FB/Twitter feeds. Mention the sire, share your challenge pictures(I often show my challenge pics on IG but never think to promote
2) curate a DPC IG site...show images from participants
And, more long term(and a long shot I’m sure)
3) implement some basic coding updates to make browsing challenges and forums more friendly. Admittedly, I don’t have any idea how complex this would be.
What I do believe. More participants=more excitement=more participation, rinse and repeat
What I still like about this site is that it did not "move with the rest of the world".
I am on instagram and it does not do anything for me, at least now.
To put pics on FB for my friends and acquaintances to "like" sounds boring.
I still look at DPC on the screen and on the ipad. On the iphone it's too amateurish in my view
It is more interesting to me to see how other photographers respond to a theme and get some criticism. Perhaps it sounds too elitist for some people and too time consuming.
I doubt that I can answer constructively to Stephanie's questionnaire although I will do it.
It is more interesting to me to see how other photographers respond to a theme and get some criticism. Perhaps it sounds too elitist for some people and too time-consuming.
We have NO intention of getting away from that, and there's nothing "elitist" about it: it's just a relatively narrow target, so to speak. Our goal here isn't to change anything significant about who or what we are, but to reach out and attract others who might appreciate us explicitly FOR those qualities.
Can't stand Instagram and how it crops your photos.
I’m not going to argue the merits of IG for those who don’t like IG. But if the goal of a social media campaign is to increase awareness of DPC then we may need to go where the people are. The best contest feature of DPC is the anonymous voting. It doesn’t take much surfing around other photo sites(Flickr for instance) to observe that number of likes isn’t necessarily related to quality of image. My favorites are most groups named National Geographic something or other that contain a minuscule number of images that would even be considered for NatGeo. But I digress... :)
DPC is a good desktop site; I’ve aleays loved the forum coding/formatting. But long term, it needs at least a mobile feature or two.
People have to know about this place before they can participate.
Can't stand Instagram and how it crops your photos.
I’m not going to argue the merits of IG for those who don’t like IG. But if the goal of a social media campaign is to increase awareness of DPC then we may need to go where the people are. The best contest feature of DPC is the anonymous voting. It doesn’t take much surfing around other photo sites(Flickr for instance) to observe that number of likes isn’t necessarily related to quality of image. My favorites are most groups named National Geographic something or other that contain a minuscule number of images that would even be considered for NatGeo. But I digress... :)
DPC is a good desktop site; I’ve aleays loved the forum coding/formatting. But long term, it needs at least a mobile feature or two.
People have to know about this place before they can participate.
I’ve never considered DPC in the least but elitist. There is a community, which means there will be friends, groups, cliques, etc. but when rollover happens, we’re just humans.
It is more interesting to me to see how other photographers respond to a theme and get some criticism. Perhaps it sounds too elitist for some people and too time-consuming.
We have NO intention of getting away from that, and there's nothing "elitist" about it: it's just a relatively narrow target, so to speak. Our goal here isn't to change anything significant about who or what we are, but to reach out and attract others who might appreciate us explicitly FOR those qualities.
Even in its previous heyday, DPC never had the numbers of Flickr, etc. Nor do I think that is who we would be appealing to. We are a niche concept, not a mass market one, so ostensibly, the SM campaign would be to let others like us know we're here.
SM is very good for that.
I'm pleased we wont be changing too dramatically.
I also think the DPL or team events are a big pulling force for new members, especially when it has a mix of beginners and intermediates on the same team helping and tutoring.
I have a had a few students over the years who would join just for the DPL to build confidence.
11 responses so far to the survey. The more people that answer it, the better idea we will have of what the community wants.
One thing I just remembered, which is relevant due to how many people want the ribbon winning images to be posted (10 out of 11), is that we can't right-click-save-image-as. We could screenshot, of course, but is there a preferred method/protocol/etiquette for reposting?
I have seen that in its day this site had over 1000 entries in challenges. I would be curious how it marketed itself initially?
The site took off like wildfire when it was mentioned in an article in (I think) PC Magazine as one of the coolest things on the internet (in 2002 or 2003)
I found it through a link at the (now dormant) tech-humor site BBspot.com ...
