Photo.net Purchased by NameMedia, Inc.
Last week, November October 16th to be specific, Photo.net was acquired by NameMedia, Inc. It hasn’t taken long but changes are already in place including banner advertisements through out the site and a newly launched monthly email newsletter that went out this morning. Photo.net started out modestly as Philip Greenspun’s personal home page at MIT and developed into one of the largest photographer communities online. Those modest beginnings kept the site on subject and far from being a beacon of advertising. The downside of this was a feel of stagnant technology, but the upside was a noise free environment from advertising. How much this balance changes in the future is yet to be seen, but clearly that balance has begun to shift.
One thing I’ll be tracking is whether there is an update to the Terms of Use on the site and I recommend all other photographers do the same. A trend I’ve seen over the years is for photo community sites to include legal text that allows their parent company the ability to use submitted imagery for advertising purposes “in perpetuity”. Waiving rights to ones photography in an unlimited fashion is bad practice.
Update: Photo.net forum discussion thread regarding the acquisition
Technorati Tags: photo.net, namemedia, news, acquisition, acquired, photo, community, photography
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Wouldn’t that be October 16th?
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Eric thanks for pointing out the need to correct the date of the release.
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