Anyone else on Myspace?

Hey APUG gang,

I started a myspace page in July. It had humble beginnings, but now is turning into a portal to my two web sites, and I update it just about every day with new photos both family oriented and professional. I thought for a long time that I was too old for Myspace. Well it is still a social network for teens and young adults to converse, but it is also an avenue where artists and businesses have their own page to share as well.

If anyone with a Myspace page wants to add me, go ahead. Just send me an email so I know where the add came from Either way you can check it out if you want. I have my wet plate, analog, and digital stuff showcased, and hope to add some of my large format landscape work, pinhole and other crazy things I do that run the gamut of photography.

Here is the web address.

http://www.myspace.com/steveingramphoto

Take care and happy holidays!

Steve

I do keep a minimal presense on MySpace, but only because I have friends that blog and put photos there and you have to be a member to access that stuff.

The original intent of MySpace was to provide a basic web presence for rock bands to do self-promotion. From a usability and aesthetic perspective; it's morphed into Frankenstein's monster - so I otherwise avoid it.

Social Networking sites seem to have a shelf life of about two years...

Friendster: 2003
MySpace: 2005
Facebook: 2007
???: 2009

I do maintain a Flickr gallery.

I do like your site and photos, though. But MySpace isn't a worthy platform for them. You are simply a needle amongst a vast haystack and their rudimentary search features don't enable us to easily find other analog photographers.

After a few other professionals over at PDN Forums mentioned being on MySpace, I set up a page there. If you are doing professional work, any good link back, or way to get more exposure, is worth the effort. When it is not working as well is when you only attract other photographers, so I don't think that should be your networking emphasis. Also, I would limit how many and what type of images I place on my MySpace profile.

I also have a page on FaceBook, though traffic is decidely quite low. Despite being the second highest ranking social networking site, I am a bit disappointed in their usability, which I think hinders people finding you. I also don't like their terms of service on posted images, so there is only one of my images there, and link backs to my MySpace page and my current website.

A better networking option is LinkedIn, though that is only a professional portal. There is little to no social aspect to that, simply a brief contact information. You need to know the e-mail of whomever you are contacting, so it is assumed that you are more likely to have already established communications. This functions more as a referral service, and has so far been a great source of work for me.

A new well designed portfolio opportunity is at Uber, which is a new portal catering more to visual artists, though they too have musicians and band listings. Everything is template and component driven, though there are some tips for creating a very nice looking page. I have my current portfolio posted there, and include a few links to relevant sites of creative interest. My Uber site is fairly new, though I have been able to track some click-throughs to my main website. So it is another way to place yourself higher on search engines, or drive more traffic to your website, hopefully leading to more work requests. One thing I am not sure about is that it is mostly Flash and Java Applet based, so it can hang up sometimes when trying to edit your page. Set-up can be a little slow, though once it is working it seems fairly reliable.

All it takes is a little time and thought to be on any of these. People can only use your creativity when they are able to find you and find out about you. If you are willing to put forward the time, eventually some of these might lead to more work. If any of these I mentioned decided to charge for web presence, I would dump them in a second.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat Photography

Though I hate to use it, I am a technically a teenager, and therefore obligated to be an owner of a Myspace page. I have, however met some interesting people, though I do get a great deal of spam and friend requests from total airheads. I do occasionally update a Flickr page , which I do enjoy more because it is mainly composed of people with similar interests as myself. Anywho, I do enjoy meeting new people on the internet or not, and I'd love it if you sent me any add! ;P

I've got a myspace page, a flickr page, a blogger page, a facebook page, and I think even a livejournal at some point...
These sort of sites are useful, but you have to limit yourself a bit, or you end up with an array of useless pages. I don't use flickr so much anymore, I got a bit tired of the commenting politics, but it did help me find APUG.
I'm on myspace pretty regularly though, so hit me up.