Not just following on the footsteps of HP Printers’ snapfish intative to get into photo sharing and printing market, but taking it a step ahead, Epson has launched a complete photography portal - Foto Flock. 

The website will have articles, news, interviews, forums, tips & tricks, contests, event listings, photographer profiles and other resources related to photography in India. To add to this they have even introduced a social networking like feature within the members section and gallery region. It basically encourages members to upload photographs and share thoughts on each other’s work through comments and enables interaction. 

According to Epson’s release, apart from the latest advancements and news, the site will also showcase exclusive interviews with some of the luminaries of the global photographic community and also be bringing in contributions from reputed specialists around the world. Amongst others, there’s the much sought-after celebrity photographer Jay Silverman and reputed landscape photographer David Zimmerman, along with a selection of India’s finest and most exciting professionals.

Checking the site out I found it to have articles and interviews of Vikram Bawa and Gautam Rajadhyaksha, both eminent and experienced names in the industry. Again, given Epson’s brand name interviews of this kind wouldn’t be surprising. 

The website also has a marketplace for photography gears and perhaps photographs as well ( the marketplace is pretty inactive hence, can’t be sure). Fitting the commercial angle should fit perfectly into the overall business proposition of this effort from Epson according to me. Once you get people to use and trust the system, which they very well might consider it is an E-bay model of users buying and selling their gears and stuff (not sure if it will be auction based though), Epson can drive them to buy photo prints of other members and proactively sell their photo prints as well. Building the photo-prints service as well as push the printer/display division obviously is the end priority of this initiative. 

What I like the most about the site is its social features, right from its platform which is based on Joomla, to the various interactivity and resources that it has added. Even the contests and the above mentioned marketplace are driving home the point of engagement. And that’s where the crux lays - user involvement and engagement as the basis of commerce. They even have sections like Photo of the day and event updates to further engage the members. Even if this might not be the first socially driven online venture, I haven’t seen a better packaged example before. 

I haven’t tested the entire system yet, not much of a photographer in terms of talent anyway to make the most of it. However, photography is one of the most followed hobbies in India, and the Epson’s Foto Flock certainly is giving the community a lot more than most other photography related platforms in India are. Though I must admit, despite its inherent socialness the site is not well optimized to make the most of it. It doesn’t have easy bookmarking features or easy share menus. I don’t even see any email feature. Even contributing articles to the portal is email driven in the age of online forms. The unoptimzation of social features is certainly a letdown and I hope to see them included soon. 

My favourite section in the site of course is the tutorial and how to, for a month old site, it already has a lot of interesting pieces to read through. Passionate photographers might like the product news and features section more. It will however be interesting to see how the website promotes and reaches out to people and more importantly make them stay. 

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