how to set up website for video and photo biz

[Ryan Holmes]

[Craig Alan] “1.If for some reason we leave squarespace what would happen to the domain name that they provided?”
The domain name you register with SquareSpace is yours, you’d just have to move it another register when you leave (GoDaddy, Domain Name, Name Cheap, etc.). Think of the domain like your phone number. It’s yours, but you have to move it over should you switch providers. For my site (in the link below) I registered it with GoDaddy, but SquareSpace handles on the content.

[Craig Alan] “2. Can you embed vimeo videos on squarespace?”
Yes. So you can use Vimeo or YouTube to host your videos and then plug in the link to SquareSpace and it’ll “fetch” the video for use on your site. Take a look at my site…the videos are hosted on both Vimeo and YouTube but shown on my website. Linking to them is literally as easy as copying the web address and pasting it into SquareSpace.

[Craig Alan] “3. would we still need smug mug or would the galleries within squarespace do the trick.”
The galleries within SquareSpace are built for photographers. Depending on your needs it may be all you need to display your work. For the amount and needs of stills that I have it works fine for me.

[Craig Alan] “4. one photog who uses smug mug mentioned that he stores backups of all is photos on smug mug, which is a site designed for photographers.”
It’s a good idea to keep a backup of your photos on multiple media. My rule: a file doesn’t exist until it exists on at least 2 different media (preferably in different geographic locations too). Plus the files that you’ll be uploading to Smug Mug or SquareSpace will likely be lower resolution JPEG, so you’ll want to keep your high quality originals on something else.

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost

[Craig Alan]

Thanks Ryan. Starting to feel more comfortable. I like the shopping cart services/printing services that smugmug provides. Don’t want lower resolution backups so that is not a variable.

Do you think smugmug alone would do the trick as a host site (along with vimeo) or is smug mug too limited as a homesite and I really need all three?

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Jason Jenkins]

[Craig Alan] “Vimeo seems like the go to video hosting site. So many sites will embed/link to them. Some seem to object to their logo in the bottom corner of the video. “

Craig; with a Vimeo Pro account, you can set up a custom portfolio site and use your purchased domain name with it. https://vimeo.com/help/faq/organizing-your-videos/portfolios#how-do-i-set-up-a-custom-domain-for-my-vimeo-pro-portfolio
No need to have a separate site. You can also customize the player and put your own logo in there if you wish.

Jason Jenkins
Flowmotion Media
Video production… with style!

Check out my Mormon.org profile.

[Bill Davis]

The bottom line of all this is that there’s HUGE crossover in all these business models.

Everyone wants to bind you to their business model – and once any digital content provider has those big server contracts in place, it’s inevitable that the content hub, whether it’s Vimeo or SmugMug or GoDaddy or Adobe will immediately start looking at incremental sales beyond their original model.

I doubt there will be a dime’s worth of “functional” difference between any of them in a few years. And just as with telephone or hosting now. The battle will be to fold you (the customer) into their camp – and then the big question becomes whether their business model focuses on keeping their current customers happy in order to drive incremental sales (a “product and services development” model?) – or whether it will focus more on constantly recruiting new customers and putting customer service and experience enhancing services on a relative back burner (a traditional “sales development” model)

It’ll never be a pure split. All players will have to do both. But where they CONCENTRATE will be the telling tail for the end user, I suspect.

Welcome to the new on-line sales century.

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

[Craig Alan]

Thanks Jason,
Those options sound great.

So many of the options with these services overlap.

My problem with Vimeo pro exclusively is I don’t see stills on Vimeo. Even photographers using the site – the stills will be displayed as a video. Smugmug has a nice shopping cart services built in that will help with sales and future sales.

So maybe just smugmug and vimeo?

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Bill Davis]

Craig,

I think the real decision is how much you want to be “hands on” with your back end system – or whether you’d prefer to trade a slice of your profits in exchange for someone else handling the transaction stuff.

Everyone would typically LOVE to have a fully custom customer facing operation that’s just dedicated to your own commerce. But it requires a lot of maintenance and work.

Good luck with your choice.

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

[Craig Alan]

At this point I’ll make the trade. As is I am facing more than enough of a learning curve. Thanks for your insights.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.