Cooperation with brands is one of the main ways artists and content creators can earn a lot of money today. However, it is not easy for creators to connect with brands, and companies looking for new or specialized talent also have difficulty finding talent. Photo editing app VSCO is solving this problem for its primary audience of professional photographers with a new marketplace called VSCO Hub that aims to connect them with brands. I am.
VSCO's platform is similar to other social platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. These platforms already offer creator marketplaces that help companies discover content creators and build partnerships with them.
VSCO CEO Eric Whitman, who joined the company last September, sees the new portal as comparable to LinkedIn. “VSCO Hub is like his LinkedIn. Brands act as recruiters, making it easy to find and contact people to join their projects,” he told TechCrunch over the phone.
To access VSCO Hub, photographers must sign up for the $59.99 Pro plan, which has over 160,000 subscribers. The platform offers businesses filters such as location, category, price, and availability that they can use to narrow down their search for a photographer.
This platform also has a cool marquee feature. This allows creative directors to upload reference images and search for photographers who may have similar work in their portfolios.
Image credit: VSCO
VSCO does not take a cut from project payments and only acts as a connectivity layer.
Whitman said marketers spend hours on Google and Instagram trying to find photographers whose work matches their creative vision, and the lack of discoverability in the photography community is They blame social network algorithms.
“Due to how social networks themselves and their algorithms have changed, it is very difficult for photographers to be discovered by potential customers. We recognized the need for a photography community and built VSCO Hub. “I decided to do it,” he said.
VSCO is also looking to enhance search with AI. Whitman said the company is internally testing a way for brands to enter text queries and search for images through semantic search, and that this feature will be rolled out to the platform soon. VSCO also plans to add more filters to help businesses narrow their searches.
Wittman and VSCO's stance on the use of AI is similar to many other platforms. In other words, technology is used to support artists, not replace them. The CEO said his company is considering releasing more AI-powered tools to aid photographers in their workflows.
In particular, tools like Sequoia-backed Visual Electric and Facetune maker Lighttrick's LTX Studio help artists generate ideas and focus on their workflow. Whitman believes that idea generation, not production, is important for creators to further hone their AI capabilities.