Where is the way out of the picture class application

At present, in the Internet age, new applications are emerging, and for picture applications, we are not unfamiliar, when the Instagram was sky-high acquisition, people seem to think that the era of reading has ended, there will be no more than Instagram achievements of the opportunity to appear. But as Flickr attaches to the mobile end, Google buys Snapseed and adds its filters to its free, Twitter-mobile apps, and the rise of one new image-type tool or community, the reading age may be just beginning. After all, Instagram just validated that picture sharing is a strong demand, but how to create a sustainable business model on this basis is still no answer.

We can divide the current market picture-type product pattern into the tool which involves the picture beautification modification and the sharing community two parts. Most products either have both, or only one. We can think of the profit model is nothing more than "Free + advertising", the application of the charge or subscription services. The characteristic of the 0 marginal cost of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT, plus the mobile App Store reduces the marketing expense of the product, it makes the low price competition possible without excessive operating cost. In addition, a large number of excellent programmers and research and development team to accelerate the exchange of technology and creativity, so that the technical advantages of landscaping pictures are not prominent, users can not easily perceive the quality of beautification effect. In the current competitive environment, how to find out how to use picture class?

Make goods, sell tools

If you are confident enough about your technical advantages, it is most direct and effective to apply a one-time fee. Camera + is undoubtedly such a good product, has established its own brand advantage. The new type of image beautification tool, even with better technology, can also shake its already accumulated reputation. And big companies like Adobe, with their capital and technology advantages, will strengthen their existing brands by offering free products such as the Photoshop Express mobile version. At the same time, there are some like the United States Mito, Camera360 and POCO cameras, and even more powerful features such as PIXLR Express, snapseed such free products. Don't forget, IOS and Android apps also have basic image beautification features.

From this point of view, we can also see that in the picture modification of the application has been saturated, there are plenty of excellent free products competition, one-time fee is not conducive to the development of new image modification tools. In fact, according to AppsFire released the 2012-year app Store information map, only 66% of all apps released in 2012 were free to use.

Free is a way to make their own products in the reputation of the predecessor of the rapid emergence of effective promotional means. Free products reduce user exposure costs and make users more willing to try new things. But free will not be a profit model because it simply cannot guarantee that the product will be profitable. The free business logic is to reduce user exposure costs and quickly capture large groups of users, looking for possible paying targets. So this extends the built-in advertising and application of the two popular mode of pay. But as a simple tool class application, built-in ads will undoubtedly reduce the user experience. And the application of pay, whether it is special filter fees or buy what landscaping package, will face the same brutal competition. The way to sell tools is no longer suitable for emerging products without targeting new untapped requirements, and image applications need to look for new business models.

To do the service, diversification of profit means

Snapseed by Google immediately became a free product, in addition to Google has a strong financial advantage, snapseed splash screen appeared in the Google + logo also shows that this free product is for Google's social platform services. The mobile side of the image modification tool in a free form as a promotional means to attract users, on this basis to build platform services, but also many products are exploring the idea.

Community is the conventional development of picture photography. The advantage of the community is that the user has long been immersed in the resulting huge migration costs, making it difficult to use other similar products. Flickr's slow pace in the mobile world has made Instagram a new brand of picture-sharing communities in an instant. But Flickr, after all, is a gathering place for veteran photographers, with a large number of loyal photographers, not without the ability to fight back. The new IPhone version is expected to increase the impact on Instagram, who has made Yahoo pay attention to Flickr's mobile version again. Flickr is a typical subscription fee, and its profitability has been recognized by the market.

The domestic poco.cn is also a collection of photographic pictures of the community. POCO combines "photography" with "Life", pets, food, tourism, photography services, and even electronic magazines and many other categories that form the entire community. POCO is a shared community with strong living information. POCO then set up a variety of ways to profit. such as food and beverage advertising, photography service charges. Like Flickr, the various camera applications on the POCO are also the portals that attract users to join the POCO community.

All of the above two photo-images areas are provided with free image beautification tools on the mobile side to consolidate the status of their online communities and thus provide a variety of services. The subscription fee for a picture storage service is a free value-added model that offers both the advantage of a free product and the services it needs to pay users. The difference in fees and charges for goods in services can be perceived for a long time, making it easier for consumers to create value for money, and large amounts of stored data also increase migration costs. Camare360 's Cloud photo album also revealed its intention to pay for the profit by subscribing to storage space. In addition, Camera360 just launched the SDK service, also has Aviary success first. and POCO to a variety of life-related categories based on photographic images, a variety of services is also a business model of innovation. It leverages another feature of the community, with strong user stickiness. Once people are invaded, it is hard to leave. The strength of the community, even Adobe can not be overlooked. The latter recently acquired design community behance to implement tools and community integration.

Play tricks and find other needs

We have analyzed to make a charge of the image modification tool is difficult to have the advantage, but through the free image tools, walk the "photo-beautification-sharing" traditional ideas, even if finally set up their own platform, the competition will not be easy. Products need to explore new product patterns and identify new needs that are not perceived.

It is also a case of product model innovation, such as Snapchat, to specify the sharing mode of time for picture display, or to add sound to the media. But after all, this kind of relatively "shallow" products are difficult to find a suitable profit model in the future. Instagram's profit dilemma also exposes its "superficial" nature. Instagram as a picture community is actually not enough. It simply uses the best filters, using tags, likes, and comments to build a pattern that can be spread quickly as text like Twitter. You can't even find a list of popular tags, popular topics, and popular users in this app. The images you upload must be cut and you can't categorize your pictures for future viewing. So Instagram is just a social network that uses pictures to communicate, not a photographic community like Flickr. "Shallow" products can not only be easily imitated, but also difficult to retain users, because it is only a feature (Feature). For micro-letters or Path, the beautification of the image sharing is a feature of its main function. When Instagram's new privacy policy irritates users, users can easily leave. Twitter and Flickr are catching up with Instagram,facebook also launching their own class Snapchat application Poke. With their existing social platforms, the first advantage of "superficial" products will soon be reversed.

The same is the photo filter and sharing community, EyeEm joined the "photo task" model to become a new attempt to profit model. The photo task will require users to take pictures of specific topics. At present EyeEm has cooperated with several brands such as Red Bull and Lufthansa. The "Photo task" can be seen as a new marketing campaign, a new form of interaction between some brands and their loyal fans. Using pictures for marketing campaigns is a straightforward idea, but even Pinterest does not do well enough.

Also is a filter, from Xian Blux Camera can analyze the environment, light, identify the subject, recommend the best shooting mode and filter effect. This is a current application for overseas market fees. The advantage lies in solving the confusion of what filters the user chooses, and further reducing the threshold of the camera, so the pay is for the new demand that has not been excavated.

Picture class applications You can find a place for yourself if you simply make tools to discover new camera requirements, or to play textures like line Camera. and to expand to the community platform, in addition to free value-added, data mining is also a field to explore. Instagram's response to its new privacy policy also revealed its intention to analyze user data and identify images that could be advertised. The profit of the picture class application is a continuous exploration process, but there is no enough profit model to disdain the world. We can be sure that in multifaceted, all kinds of exploration and excavation will be more beneficial to users to meet their own needs.