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I am creating an image hosting site what features do you want

italiano40

italiano40

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Oct 7, 2007
1,080
0
NY
i have recently found a host that has given me unlimited space and bandwidth and one project i want to start is an image hosting site
basically as the title says I am creating an image hosting site what features do you would you like...
 
make it like photobucket and flickr and and imageshack and tinypic and picturetrail and smugmug and photoworks and shutterfly and snapfish and picasa
 
lionheartednyhc said:
make it like photobucket and flickr and and imageshack and tinypic and picturetrail and smugmug and photoworks and shutterfly and snapfish and picasa
Click to expand...

i want to be different from them, i see them as sites that take your image and just put it on a page to view i plan on doing more than that that is why i am asking the community
 
lionheartednyhc said:
So you don't want to make a photo hosting site then?
:confused:
Click to expand...

i can't go too much into my plans but i am making an image hosting site that allows anyone to do much more than just view the image and that is what i am hopping separates me from those other image hosting sites
 
Hope you have lots of space, lots of bandwidth, and you're not running it from your bedroom. ;)
 
jessica. said:
Hope you have lots of space, lots of bandwidth, and you're not running it from your bedroom. ;)
Click to expand...

i do, my (not own) hosting company has seen my other projects and web apps they really liked it, and upgraded my hosting to an unlimited space, bandwidth, e-mail in my hosting account so i decided and clear it with them and they agreed with me. i just want to know what the community wants to see in an image host...
 
There is NO such thing as "unlimited space and bandwidth". If your host says that, then chances are you have very little. As soon as you use a lot they will shut you down for using "too much". Get a new host immediately.

Furthermore, this market is extremely saturated and it's unlikely your site will be as good as some others especially without any experience.

Here are some features you should do:

1. Allows guests to submit images up to 5 MB in any image format. I know most image hosts do this, but some make you login which is not what anyone wants.

2. Allow direct image links so people can use it on forums and msn.

I know these two features are on every image host out there, and this is exactly why you shouldn't bother entering this market. Not only is there no features that you could do that will separate you from the market-dominent competitors, but even if you do find some cool feature, it wont be easy to monetize.
 
NathanCH said:
I know these two features are on every image host out there, and this is exactly why you shouldn't bother entering this market.
Click to expand...

really? imageshack is the only one i know where you don't have to register to upload. I hate those requiring it >:|
 
Allowing people to upload without registration or login could have some legal complications with it. You would need to moderate uploaded images to watch for illicit material. Also, if someone wanted to complain about a copyright issue, you would need a way to follow up.

NathanCH said:
There is NO such thing as "unlimited space and bandwidth". If your host says that, then chances are you have very little. As soon as you use a lot they will shut you down for using "too much". Get a new host immediately.
Click to expand...

There's no problem with hosts saying that. We all know it's an exaggeration. It's hard to find one that doesn't offer this at some level.
 
I honestly can't say I have not found what I want in the sites that already exist. Zenfolio, a service I pay for is amazing. Short of that it would be Flickr, which is great for what you get for free.

I'm not sure why you'd put your time into something like this when the market is tapped.
 
Well, I'll just pop some ideas out there.

1)Conversion of file formats
Upload a jpg etc, and change it png, gif, tiff etc. Specify a lossless rate, quality rate and other features.

2)Dynamic resizing that either lets you keep aspect ratio, or modify it without restricting constraints.

3)Create thumbnails (a mix of 1&2)

4)Large files

5)Image editing. Offer a set of tools.

A few others. Most of this is pretty easily done via ImageMagick, especially if you use one of the API's.

But as said above, this market is pretty heavily saturated, so good luck!
 
NathanCH said:
There is NO such thing as "unlimited space and bandwidth". If your host says that, then chances are you have very little. As soon as you use a lot they will shut you down for using "too much". Get a new host immediately.

Furthermore, this market is extremely saturated and it's unlikely your site will be as good as some others especially without any experience.

Here are some features you should do:

1. Allows guests to submit images up to 5 MB in any image format. I know most image hosts do this, but some make you login which is not what anyone wants.

2. Allow direct image links so people can use it on forums and msn.

I know these two features are on every image host out there, and this is exactly why you shouldn't bother entering this market. Not only is there no features that you could do that will separate you from the market-dominent competitors, but even if you do find some cool feature, it wont be easy to monetize.
Click to expand...

when i say unlimited space i currently have 16tb of space thru my hosting, and i expect another 5tb of space coming.
right now their is no mb limit and direct image linking is already done


angelwatt said:
Allowing people to upload without registration or login could have some legal complications with it. You would need to moderate uploaded images to watch for illicit material. Also, if someone wanted to complain about a copyright issue, you would need a way to follow up.



There's no problem with hosts saying that. We all know it's an exaggeration. It's hard to find one that doesn't offer this at some level.
Click to expand...
you don't need to login to upload but i am using ip, and hostname to track who is uploading incase something like that does happen, it hasn't happened yet
jessica. said:
I honestly can't say I have not found what I want in the sites that already exist. Zenfolio, a service I pay for is amazing. Short of that it would be Flickr, which is great for what you get for free.

I'm not sure why you'd put your time into something like this when the market is tapped.
Click to expand...
i have created 4 very different successful web sites and image hosting is something i think i can make better or set a new standard


Cerebrus' Maw said:
Well, I'll just pop some ideas out there.

1)Conversion of file formats
Upload a jpg etc, and change it png, gif, tiff etc. Specify a lossless rate, quality rate and other features.

2)Dynamic resizing that either lets you keep aspect ratio, or modify it without restricting constraints.

3)Create thumbnails (a mix of 1&2)

4)Large files

5)Image editing. Offer a set of tools.

A few others. Most of this is pretty easily done via ImageMagick, especially if you use one of the API's.

But as said above, this market is pretty heavily saturated, so good luck!
Click to expand...
1) I will consider that
2) right now i have an algorithm to resize to fit the screen and it works really well with clicking the image restores it to full size
3) thumbnails we are working on but that is low on my list
4)we have an unlimited limited
5) we have some tools to edit the image but we want to focus on hosting the image and viewing the image

we don't use API's were usually a couple of C++programs that are connected thru the web interface to handle this so no bandwidth is used to do very many transformations that i can do with C++
 
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