“thehub is a unique platform, nothing like it exists anywhere. We have created a single place for artists & photographers all kinds to manage their archive, print and sell images and share images with others." - Stuart Waplington, CEO, theprintspace
thehub, created by theprintspace, has been given a make over. thehub is a single platform for professional photographers & artists to manage their archives, printing, promotion & art sales.
New thehub features
- Share files with anyone else, with optional permissions to print or download their image
- Store, categorise and archive work safely
- Sell art prints of work
- Syndicate art print sales
- Enter awards and competitions
- Order own art prints, with framing or dry mounting
Share files with anyone else, with optional permissions to print or download their image
Thehub now gives users the ability to directly share images with other hub users and non-hub users. This means that a hub user can select any of their images stored in the platform and share them with selected hub users. Any hub user who has had images shared with them gets an email notification and can log into their own hub account to view the images and, depending on what permissions they have been given, sell, or print or download those images.
Store, categorise and archive work safely
This sharing feature can be used to deliver images to professional contacts, i.e. people & companies that a photographer or artist would normally need to deliver images and prints to. This makes thehub a great way to safely store a precious archive of images and distribute them from one place.
The storage is priced cost-effectively and thehub uses Microsoft’s enterprise grade security and hosting so users need never worry about the security & availability of their images again. And the tag & search system offered by thehub allows for easy categorisation and retrieval of images.
Sell art prints
As existing hub users already know, art sales can be enabled for any website or blog by placing a small snippet of code onto that site which allows the hub to scan it and use our proprietary image matching algorithm to find matches for images on that site with images held in the hub user’s account. Where we find image matches on a hub user’s site we automatically place an art print buying opportunity next to those images allowing their site visitors to easily buy fine art prints from them. From this point on thehub handles the whole transaction including the print fulfillment, and the hub user doesn’t have to do anything other than receive the profit on a monthly basis.
Syndicate art print sales
Now as a result of the sharing feature a user can allow others to sell art prints of their images. So this might be for example a large art or design site, media site or art & photography blog. Any of those sites can be given the option, if they wish, to make the hub user’s images available for sale on their sites. If they decide to feature the images and sell art prints, these large sites would earn 30% profit share on any resulting art sales; incentivising them to use their own high web traffic and engaged audience to sell the hub user’s art. This is an automated and easy art sales syndication option that allows hub users to multiply their art sales, but only should they wish to as it is important to note that this is an entirely opt-in service. If a hub user doesn’t want to take advantage of the this possibility they simply wouldn’t share permissions on any of their images.
Enter awards and competitions
This new sharing feature also gives hub users the option to easily enter awards & exhibitions and share work to art sites, media sites and blogs who can feature the hub user’s images and sell art prints on the hub user’s behalf. Any site that sells images on behalf of other hub users will earn a 30% share of the art sales profits, incentivising them to feature hub artists and photographers and expose their art to potential large audiences of engaged art enthusiasts and buyers.
Over the coming months thehub will be announcing some partnerships with prestigious arts, media & photographic organisations that will allow hub users to easily enter awards, submit work for possible features by art media sites and submit images for high profile open exhibitions….all from a single place where their images are securely stored.
The first of these partnerships to be announced is with the Sony World Photo Organisation, which is making print sales available of all past and present winners over the awards over their 10 year history. This is a win-win situation for both the photographers and the Sony World Photo Organisation, providing a great revenue stream for both and providing the millions of annual visitors to their site to own a print of the work that they are engaged with.
Order own art prints, with framing or dry mounting
All these amazing new functions are on top of the core features of the hub, i.e. enabling users to order prints & frames of their images and set up their own art sales via their websites and blogs within minutes.
theprintspace.co.uk/thehub-home
