As we continue to grow through the digital age, more apps and ways for us to connect online are being developed. It seems like every day a platform launches to help us share our thoughts, ideas and allow us to become more connected.
Giants such as Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter continue to hold the top rank among these social media platforms, but they remain extremely similar in operation. All of these apps “data farm” personal information that we willingly hand over.
Clickasnap, a United Kingdom based app, is looking to change the way social media apps operate. Clickasnap is a photo sharing platform that allows users to get paid for their content without being restricted or data farmed and without having to strive to sell their photos in an ever crowded marketplace.
CEO and founder of Clickasnap, Tom Oswald, created the platform out of inspiration from another endeavor. In 2012, Oswald owned a record label and a few record stations when YouTube Red was rumoured to be launched. Despite being worried about the impact the launch of YouTube’s new platform would have on the independent music market, he decided to take a risk and compete with the digital media giant.
“We put a team together and created a platform called ‘Videscape,’” Oswald says. “We ran this video sharing platform for three years. I was an amateur photographer myself and had been thinking about what we were doing with Videscape. We ultimately ended up reconsidering our strategy and pivoted Videscape into Clickasnap.”
Clickasnap users can post original content for free, or through premium paid packages, and share photos at the touch of a button. Clickasnap eliminates the hassle of sharing creative work on different apps and allows users to promote, sell, and share their work all in one place.
“We really wanted to provide photographers a safe environment and a new revenue source for their work,” Oswald says.
Not only does the app offer payment to creators per authentic view of their work, but they also provide security when it comes to information. With apps like Facebook and Instagram, users can fall victim to data farming. This is how platforms track data of their users and analyze their activity. Because Clickasnap charges a small fee (less than £2 a month for the lowest tier account with paid views) it means they do not store, process or sell any of your information anywhere online, which of course, includes you keeping full rights over the photos you upload.
When ClickaSnap was first founded, they offered 0.15 cents per view. As it has grown, this value has almost quadrupled, and the founder, Oswald, expects it to increase as the platform continues to grow.
At Clickasnap, they don’t data farm information and sell it off to third party companies. They also don’t restrict control of what people see on their site via complicated algorithms meaning creators know that their posts will be seen by everyone. Enabling a creator to reach far more people than they could ever hope to on other social media platforms.
For most creatives, sharing their content on Instagram, Flickr, or ViewBug may be a hassle due to creatives forfeiting their rights of content and storage capacity holding them back from sharing all of their work.
Clickasnap does not take creative rights away from their users and ensures that they remain in control of their work. This means extra security with Clickasnaps’ Watermarkless Image Protection Technology as well to make sure they remain credited no matter what.
The photo sharing platform also offers unlimited storage capacity which allows creatives to share all the work they want. No more picking and choosing best photos to save space.
Over 2 million images are viewed every day on the platform and Oswald says they continue to see growth in user and viewer activity. More than 100 million images are viewed per month and Clickasnap reports more than 10,000 new user accounts being created every day.
“Clickasnap is the one stop shop for photographers and image creators,” Oswald says. “It’s Spotify — but for photos.”
Clickasnap also integrates a built-in social media management system. This not only allows users to remain in control of their revenue but allows them to maintain and build their creative brand on the platform as well. With creators allowed to maintain their brand, remain in control of content, and streamline revenue of their creative work, Clickasnap is breaking new ground in the social media platform world.
For more information about Clickasnap, please visit their website.