They aren't going to get to the "money making" part of the equation. Not the way they're going, anyway.
Off the top of my head, the obvious moneymakers are:
- low-res photo access for other's photos, upsell highres to attendees
- licensing event photos to media organizations, venues, conferences, etc (if users get the fat cut, this would actually be a great reason to always shoot with Color)
- sell photo packages to non-attendees (get all the photos from the U2 concert/Royal Wedding/etc)
- incorporate location-based video/photo cams, provide access to say apartment residents to see their "front door cam" from their iphone, charge property managers. Let nightclubs share what's up in their location, etc.
- Contests – Doritos "find the mystery flavor bag in San Francisco", with daily hints, etc… Get people out and moving to burn off those Dorito-cals. People in close enough proximity can "find" the bag, win prizes, etc. Charge for the sponsorship/advertising.
None of these are "Color Ready" opportunities with the existing featureset, but the basic idea is adding the following things to create monetization ops:
- flexible timeline for photo access (see pics taken before you got to the venue)
- flexible location limiters for photo access (see photos from other locations)
- privacy controls (restrict access to some streams by Color login/location/timespan)
- partnerships and/or API (to allow specific creative campaign uses/device tie-ins)
- non-human users (municipal/venue cameras, brands-as-users, etc)
Most of the above are not hard programming challenges in and of themselves, though the non-technical requirements definitely would take time and lots of effort to pull off. Especially with such a black eye in the media already.
deano.com 