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Comment by deutronium | Hacker News Reader

Nice idea, but people could do the same thing with Flickr for free.

True, but as I stated earlier, the main difference between this and a Flickr stream is the focus. Flickr is meant for photography in general, and while you could use it for Project 365, it's less organized and focused. For example, your P 365 entries would be mixed in with your regular flickr uploads.

Also, flickr's upload limit on the free plan wouldn't allow you if you have a high megapixel camera.

I've just completed a Flickr 365 project, so I have a bit of feedback. First, you can't do this for free as you can only show publicly the last 200 photos without a pro account. With a pro account, you simply create a set for your 365 project to separate it from the rest of your photos: works great. Plus you get awesome views like a calendar that shows the photo a day in a small thumbnail, and all kinds of sorting options (though old-> or new-> are all you really need.) Flickr's partnerships with photo printing companies can also be really convenient and probably makes Flickr some extra money too.

The only reason that I personally was able to complete my 365 was because I had options for uploading my photos direct to my set from my phone (I tried various paid apps until I found one I was mostly happy with.) If I had to sync my photos with my computer first then it never would have gotten done. Obviously on the one hand it would have been great to have 365 high quality photos from my DSLR, but the convenience of the iPhone was the only way I could keep up some days. In other words, an app or a simple way to e-mail photos to the program would be a must for me. And I probably spent $50 specifically for my 365 between Flickr Pro membership and various apps I tried, so I don't see the $11 as off-putting in itself at all.

If you're curious about my 365, I took a photo a day of my Toy Story Toys: http://www.flickr.com/dafalcon/ - the set is on the right side. And I just started 365 days of my newborn baby girl ... Give me good reason to switch from Flickr and I just might!

Thanks for the feedback. Here's a few tidbits regarding your remarks:

We're planning on allowing users to purchase a book of their photos at the end of the project.

We're also working on adding email-to-365, which would allow you to upload via your phone and other devices since e-mail is pretty widespread. We're also working in webcam integration so you can take a picture from the website itself.

One thing we allow is backlogging. Right now it's basic, but we're planning to implement a verification feature so that pictures that don't match the dates get flagged. They'd still be in the project, but they'd be marked as late. We were thinking about doing this by reading the images EXIF data.

That's certainly true. We feel like the service offers a superior experience for this particular usage than Flickr.

Not $11 superior. If it offered some funky filters Instagram style you could perhaps capitalize on the Polaroid/Lomography type of audience. Or build a Flash driven picture uploaded that would use the web cam.

The way it stands is you're offering a pretty page for photos at $11 that doesn't target any real customer niche and does what a Tumblr blog paired with a Flickr account would do for free in a more flexible way.

We're working on webcam capture, actually. Regarding using flickr/tumblr, it can be done, but it's a decentralized, unfocused, and unorganized way of doing so.

You keep saying "focused" everywhere. I'm not sure I know what it means in this context.

I like what you said here. Contrary to what people seem to think...these "be all, end all" services and sites aren't suited to very particular and niche markets.

It's funny because there are so many people on HN and Reddit, for example, who don't capitalize on creating small niche services because there's already a Flickr, or already a Youtube and whathaveyou.

So I think you've done a good job here.

I think you could probably market $10 better. Remove the struck out $20 and just prominently and proudly display the $10.

As a risky marketing move, how about refunding all users who paid $20 the difference? What a great way to get them talking about you on Twitter, Facebook, etc. when you deposit their account with $10. It's a nice surprise.

Just an idea. Good luck.

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