In the third part of our series on African Photo-sharing Sites, we find out how Mokocharlie plans to monetise thier collection of photos. Also, finding suitable African themed stock images is tantamount to looking for needles in a haystack. We wondered if Mokocharlie could be the genesis in providing a solution to this problem.
MyWeku: As at now you have over 1900 photos on your site. Can the photos on Mokocharlie be used as Stock images?
Mokocharlie: Yes, we’ve already started creating a platform that will allow us to sell high resolution photographs online, but for now media houses pick photographs from our website and credit us.
MyWeku: How do you handle storage capacity and are there plans to charge for the use of storage as is increasingly becoming common for other photo sharing sites?
Mokocharlie: Very carefully, we use load balancing to make sure that we are not inundated with too many image requests at once. We are looking at possible integration with the Amazon S3 engines at some point but at the moment we have to do everything ourselves.
MyWeku: Anything else to add?
Mokocharlie: We are flexible enough to add features and iterate as and when needed. Perhaps later we could think about commoditizing the service but as it stands, everything on there is free. We have also built our website and the features within it from the ground up; we think that is remarkable!
See Also:
African Photo-Sharing Sites – Part 1
African Photo-Sharing Sites – Part 2
African Photo-Sharing Sites – Part 4
Mokocharlie Stock Image Akaa Falls (Ghana)
Mokocharlie Stock Image Kpando Torkor (Ghana)
Mokocharlie Stock Image Sailing at Ada Foah (Ghana)
Mokocharlie Stock Image Hans Cottage (Ghana)
Mokocharlie Stock Image Aburi Hill (Ghana)
This is a unique product. The best bit about it is allowing self-submission. Do you guys have plans to extend this to other African countries. I think being able to cover the whole continent or huge chunks of it will really make this project stand out. Thanks
We had initial plans to cover more of the continent. We have put a hold on that for the time being because we want to do this right. We are trying not to spread our resources too thinly because once we go down that route we will not have enough resources to make it as useful as it is now.
Kwabena/Kweku
We have received a couple of comments offline about FAILING to delve into how Mokocharlie handles or will handle copy right issues. Do people who upload their images effectively sign a disclaimer for their photos to be reused by others either privately or on a commercial basis? Will Mokocharlie share any revenue (when the site is monetised) with individuals who upload their photos online? I think the potential for Professional Photographers to also get involved if they are likely to be included in any revenue sharing deals could be huge. Please share any thoughts you might have on these issues with us
Thanks
Nii
well, we don’t take credit for pictures uploaded by uses. That is, we don’t tag them with our logo and we advice users to upload their images with their contact details so interested visitors can reach them directly.