The future of MobiTog in 2024

terse said:
A little more info...

We've also talked about the possibility of moving to another platform in order to

* Lower or remove the cost of running MobiTog
* Make less work for the mods and admins so they can just think about photos

Instagram doesn't work, especially now that they've killed their experiment in Group Profiles. Their Group Chats just don't cut it for the kind of postings and discussions we have here.

Flickr is a bit iffy but maybe possible. We did have a MobiTog group there for a long time, but (as usual on Flickr) there was no discussion and lots of dump-and-run postings to the photo pool. My own opinion: To make it work at all, we'd have to make it a private group and invite individual people in, and we'd have to get used to posting photos in the discussion threads rather than in the photo pool. It would be free (with ads), and it would eliminate much of the admin work, but it feels like trying to twist the platform to do something it doesn't want to do, a swimming upstream kinda thing.

Other platforms like 500px, etc., seem to be oriented toward gallery presentation and people interested in trying to sell their work.

We also tried out a new site that was so forgettable I can't remember the name. (rizole? Starzee?) Nothing to see there.

I also tried out Arts&Pics on my own, but nothing useful there either.

Any suggestions for or reports of experience with other options are welcome.

The primary downside of moving elsewhere, of course, is that we'd be leaving all the past threads behind and -- in the case of Flickr and similar -- losing the domain name.
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Flickr would totally work!
Had endless conversations there.
On my pics and others.
Also worked and had fun within the confines of many groups.

If it would relieve financial burdens and the stress of the admins ..I say go for it.
If the people here were to set up shop over there .. might be the fresh start you’re looking for. I’d definitely follow … I’m sure most active photographers would as well.

I’m thinking about having the ability to invite people or individual pictures across the entirety of Flickr into the Mobitog group as a group admin … one would be able to make the active numbers grow. It’s hard to do that currently as things are.

The Mobitog group would be pretty similar to the site.
Once in you’d go into the group click to your topic and join in.
Respond to your comments ,,,and so on.
Challenges could be set up the same.

The 1,000 photo limit is something to get used to..but it would take a while to get there.
After that every new pic you post … one of your oldest becomes unavailable …but unlocks if you pay. This used to terrify me … but I’m now used to always looking forward to my next pic … I hardly ever look at my old pics.

…also off topic…

HipstamaticPhoto-726108309.073363.jpeg
Ted, you didn’t tell us you were Hot Sauce famous!
 
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terse said:
Alas, that's not me. I intend to sue them, of course, not to mention TED Talks.
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The principal and senior leadership team at my college are discussing running/hosting some Ted talks. I wonder what the chances are of getting the college to fund flying you over to do a talk on some aspect of mobile photography. That would get mobitog a bit more traffic and might make a legal case less of an imperative for you.
 
rizole said:
The principal and senior leadership team at my college are discussing running/hosting some Ted talks. I wonder what the chances are of getting the college to fund flying you over to do a talk on some aspect of mobile photography. That would get mobitog a bit more traffic and might make a legal case less of an imperative for you.
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Genius!!!!
 
Disastrous Wolf 7126 said:
Flickr would totally work!
Had endless conversations there.
On my pics and others.
Also worked and had fun within the confines of many groups.

If it would relieve financial burdens and the stress of the admins ..I say go for it.
If the people here were to set up shop over there .. might be the fresh start you’re looking for. I’d definitely follow … I’m sure most active photographers would as well.

I’m thinking about having the ability to invite people or individual pictures across the entirety of Flickr into the Mobitog group as a group admin … one would be able to make the active numbers grow. It’s hard to do that currently as things are.

The Mobitog group would be pretty similar to the site.
Once in you’d go into the group click to your topic and join in.
Respond to your comments ,,,and so on.
Challenges could be set up the same.

The 1,000 photo limit is something to get used to..but it would take a while to get there.
After that every new pic you post … one of your oldest becomes unavailable …but unlocks if you pay. This used to terrify me … but I’m now used to always looking forward to my next pic … I hardly ever look at my old pics.

…also off topic…

View attachment 199301Ted, you didn’t tell us you were Hot Sauce famous!
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I suppose a thousand pics is quite a few. When they switch to pay, I lost a lot of photos, then decided to pay a few years later. The groups I’ve been invited to join don’t seem to have many discussions.
 
Starzee said:
I suppose a thousand pics is quite a few. When they switch to pay, I lost a lot of photos, then decided to pay a few years later. The groups I’ve been invited to join don’t seem to have many discussions.
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The difference is you‘d have your Mobitog team going in. The discussions would follow and there’s the potential to get to more people already actively posting on Flickr who aren’t in a mobile photography Flickr group.

Hopefully it won’t come to shuttering Mobitog ..just thought I’d add that Flickr might be a valid option.
 
Disastrous Wolf 7126 said:
The difference is you‘d have your Mobitog team going in. The discussions would follow and there’s the potential to get to more people already actively posting on Flickr who aren’t in a mobile photography Flickr group.

Hopefully it won’t come to shuttering Mobitog ..just thought I’d add that Flickr might be a valid option.
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I appreciate your thinking. And yes, since we encourage discussion it stands to reason that we would continue. I’m hoping our community here will continue, too.
 
One way of driving traffic to the site is by adding content that people will search for via Google. Ideas to do this are hardware (phone) reviews, how to techniques - how to use pro modes, how to take night shots, post processing techniques and tutorials etc. etc. Mods and third party camera apps like open camera and gcam are of interest to many tech and mobile photography enthusiasts as we all strive to create images that rival DSLRs. Probably been mentioned before but I don't have time to read everything haha.
 
djingonthenet said:
One way of driving traffic to the site is by adding content that people will search for via Google. Ideas to do this are hardware (phone) reviews, how to techniques - how to use pro modes, how to take night shots, post processing techniques and tutorials etc. etc. Mods and third party camera apps like open camera and gcam are of interest to many tech and mobile photography enthusiasts as we all strive to create images that rival DSLRs. Probably been mentioned before but I don't have time to read everything haha.
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Yes. We’ve had some very brief conversations about ‘re-branding’, now that “mobile photography” isn't the new, exciting category it was when MobiTog started. As you say, “how-to” tips & tricks, tutorials etc are always in demand. I see Emil Pakarklis’ iPhoneography courses still (after all these years) have a strong advertising presence on Facebook. I know he had some helpful marketing input when he started those courses. I wonder if we should seek some advice on changing our focus, making our presence more visible in different terms . . . fitting the algorithms (or whatever we call matching our output to google search terms).
 
djingonthenet said:
One way of driving traffic to the site is by adding content that people will search for via Google. Ideas to do this are hardware (phone) reviews, how to techniques
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I started writing up something on printing mobile photos, starting with deciding between outsourcing and DIY, working through choosing a printer and paper if you go that route, and delving into things like ICC color profiles. I tabled it because I wasn't sure there'd be much interest, but maybe I should drag it out anyway. It's fairly long, so it'd be a thread by itself, not just a post or two.
 
djingonthenet said:
Mods and third party camera apps like open camera and gcam are of interest to many tech and mobile photography enthusiasts as
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You know, I think there may be enough Android users here now to make it worth trying out a thread on Android apps and tips, if you or someone else want to start that. And if somebody knows where to spot sales on Android photo apps, those could be added to the BargainWatch thread.

I was an app hound, so when I ran across MobiTog 10 or 11 years ago, BargainWatch was one of the things that kept me coming back at first.
 
Disastrous Wolf 7126 said:
Flickr would totally work!
Had endless conversations there.
On my pics and others.
Also worked and had fun within the confines of many groups.
Click to expand...
Could you point out a couple of groups that are active like this? Not necessarily photo groups. My experience has been like Starzee's -- the groups I've joined (mobile photo groups) have practically no discussions, and often the ones they do have are years old. I'd just like to get a look at what a genuinely interactive forum looks like on Flickr.
 
terse said:
I think SEO (search engine optimization) is the buzz word you're looking for. :D
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SEO is hard to implement in forum software if it isn't coded to be optimised. I'll look at the page source tomorrow to see if it is or not, I can't see why it wouldn't be though.

Moving on from the suggestions, going forward, Google loves fresh engaging content, it adds to page ranking, obviously a forum keeps content fresh but the quality of the content is also key to driving traffic. So adding different posts to what we are currently posting will help. What Google isn't interested in is pictures, which for this site doesn't help, but with the event of AI search could end up being a significant factor in the near future.

I can certainly add my input from an android point of view, including a comprehensive review of my phone for instance. Plus pros and cons of using open camera and GCam ports, I don't use paid for apps so can't help with those, but when I think of an idea I'll bore you all with them :lmao:
 
terse said:
Could you point out a couple of groups that are active like this? Not necessarily photo groups. My experience has been like Starzee's -- the groups I've joined (mobile photo groups) have practically no discussions, and often the ones they do have are years old. I'd just like to get a look at what a genuinely interactive forum looks like on Flickr.
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Sorry Ted, I haven‘t been on there for a decade … I was thinking this current Mobitog group ported over there .Those who actively post ...and then to grow it we‘d invite others in who are active on Flickr posting mobile photography.

At the time on Flickr we’d start topics and they’d go on for a while … dangling conversations … anyone could join in ..but conversations ..not usually w/ pics.
The adjoining group pool of pics would be about the given topic/title for the group.
Never ran into any challenges like you have here …that would translate well over there.
It’s a fun way to keep people interested and coming back.
 
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Disastrous Wolf 7126 said:
Flickr would totally work!
Had endless conversations there.
On my pics and others.
Also worked and had fun within the confines of many groups.

If it would relieve financial burdens and the stress of the admins ..I say go for it.
If the people here were to set up shop over there .. might be the fresh start you’re looking for. I’d definitely follow … I’m sure most active photographers would as well.

I’m thinking about having the ability to invite people or individual pictures across the entirety of Flickr into the Mobitog group as a group admin … one would be able to make the active numbers grow. It’s hard to do that currently as things are.

The Mobitog group would be pretty similar to the site.
Once in you’d go into the group click to your topic and join in.
Respond to your comments ,,,and so on.
Challenges could be set up the same.

The 1,000 photo limit is something to get used to..but it would take a while to get there.
After that every new pic you post … one of your oldest becomes unavailable …but unlocks if you pay. This used to terrify me … but I’m now used to always looking forward to my next pic … I hardly ever look at my old pics.

…also off topic…

View attachment 199301Ted, you didn’t tell us you were Hot Sauce famous!
Click to expand...
The bummer (for me) re Flickr is you can only post an image to a group by linking it to the photo in your own Flickr account (unless I’m mistaken and things have changed?) So I wouldn’t be able to contribute anything new as I’ve already reached my 1,000 photo limit. Unless I deleted everything and started anew. :thinking:
 
Disastrous Wolf 7126 said:
Sorry Ted, I haven‘t been on there for a decade … I was thinking this current Mobitog group ported over there .Those who actively post ...and then to grow it we‘d invite others in who are active on Flickr posting mobile photography.

At the time on Flickr we’d start topics and they’d go on for a while … dangling conversations … anyone could join in ..but conversations ..not usually w/ pics.
The adjoining group pool of pics would be about the given topic/title for the group.
Never ran into any challenges like you have here …that would translate well over there.
It’s a fun way to keep people interested and coming back.
Click to expand...
Oh, yes, that would be the plan if we decide we have to move -- drag everyone over there and try to make it work the way we do here, as much as we can.
 
RoseCat said:
The bummer (for me) re Flickr is you can only post an image to a group by linking it to the photo in your own Flickr account (unless I’m mistaken and things have changed?) So I wouldn’t be able to contribute anything new as I’ve already reached my 1,000 photo limit. Unless I deleted everything and started anew. :thinking:
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Or unless you started a second account...
 
RoseCat said:
The bummer (for me) re Flickr is you can only post an image to a group by linking it to the photo in your own Flickr account (unless I’m mistaken and things have changed?) So I wouldn’t be able to contribute anything new as I’ve already reached my 1,000 photo limit. Unless I deleted everything and started anew. :thinking:
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I totally understand.. easy for me to say as I don’t have your backlog of collected work.
 
RoseCat said:
The bummer (for me) re Flickr is you can only post an image to a group by linking it to the photo in your own Flickr account (unless I’m mistaken and things have changed?) So I wouldn’t be able to contribute anything new as I’ve already reached my 1,000 photo limit. Unless I deleted everything and started anew. :thinking:
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You could just join with a different email. I had two accounts running for a while.
 
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