Every once and a while a site comes along that makes the rest of us think, “Well duh, why didn’t I think of that!?” Snapsation is the brain child of Chris Chabot, one of the founding members of the Google+ team, a developer for Google before that and a lead engineer for OpenSocial before that. It’s safe to say that Chris is an internet bad-a and that’s apparent when you look at this new website.
Snapsation is pretty simple and straight forward. It exists to be a place for clients to find photographers for what they need. Simply do a search for your area (example: Fort Worth, TX) and you’ll find all the photographers in that area and their available offers. If the potential client sees an offer they’re looking for, they can click the offer to get more information about what’s included, ask the photographer a question and/or place an order. From the looks of it, no money will be collected up front until the work is done. I’m not sure how that works yet but I’m assuming once the images are ready from an event, the client will make a payment to Snapsation and then the images will be delivered.
How Do Photographers Make Money?
As far as money goes, photographers can link their checking/savings or PayPal account to Snapsation for direct payment. Whatever you charge for your services, Snapsation will add an additional 10% to the price for their cut. Seems plenty fair to me. If you charge $100 for a headshot, Snapsation will make the price $110. You decide how much YOU want to make, and Snapsation takes care of the rest.
Changes I’d Like To See
I really don’t have any complaints right now, it’s too early to tell! The one thing I wonder about is if the website starts getting big, and tons of photographers from my area start using it, what’s going to happen to my offers? Will the eventually get lost in a sea of other offers? So far I don’t see any rhyme or reason to the ordering of the offers in a specific area. It doesn’t look alphabetical, it doesn’t seem to be sorted by price or person and it doesn’t even seem to give preference to photographers with good reviews. The site just launched and I’m sure things like this will get addressed eventually as more and more people start using it. I’d like to eventually be able to sort offers by things like price and average rating by customers.
Another update I’d like to see is the ability to update the number of items a client wants to purchase. That way photographers could offer things at an hourly rate or something like that. Not a big deal but it would be nice to have.
Finally, I’d really like the ability to tag my offers with keywords. I have two offers that revolve around teaching: A private workshop and a portfolio critique. Neither of which show up when I do a Fort Worth, TX search for the word “Lessons” or “Teaching.”
Conclusion
Snapsation is of course a brand new website. It was in BETA for a short time and officially launched on Wednesday, June 5th. The success of this website depends largely on the photographers using it, by telling others about it and helping to drive traffic to it. I didn’t receive anything for doing this review, I heard about it and set up a profile and liked what I saw. I think this could be a great resource for booking clients and am excited to see where it goes.
What are your thoughts? Have you set up a profile yet? If so, be sure to add me to your ‘Favorite People’ list by clicking the little heart icon on my profile and I’ll see you there!
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