[Note: This post concerns Firstline Security, Inc., incorporated in Orem, Utah, NOT Firstline Security Systems headquartered in Anaheim, CA]

Commenter Paul, who is a first-year “Advertising Director” for Firstline Security in Washington State (Vancouver area), was recruited out of Texas A&M university and has been trying to convince me that my criticism of Firstline is unfair and unwarranted. In the process he challenged my contention that the sales pitch is deceptive because Firstline claims to provide “free” equipment in exchange for the placement of a yard sign and commitment to a 36-month monitoring contract at $45.00 per month. (Details are available on the GetFirstline website).

Firstline markets the Simon 3 wireless security system with the Alarm.com GSM security module. i was able to find the Simon 3 with the GSM module on sale at Safemart.com for $459.95. Monitoring was available through LiveWatch on a prepaid basis for $24.95/month with two free months, or $249.50 for a year. Assuming that years 2-3 do not have the 2 free month provision, that would work out to $850 for monitoring, plus $500 (with tax) for the hardware, or a total of $1,350.00.

The Firstline Security, Inc. package works out to $1620 for 36 months, including the “free hardware”, assuming a direct checking debit each month for the monitoring fee (if the credit score is high enough they will paper-bill but charge extra for that).

That’s a difference of $280.00. I am not sure that I had the exact hardware that the basic Simon 3 system Firstline sells includes, so I also went to HomeSecurityStore.com and tried to match the Firstline system exactly. I was able to configure a package with 2 keyfobs, a handheld wireless touchpad, GSM, and 2 “panic pendants” for $526.88, which when combined with the monitoring package available from LiveWatch.com, is still less than the Firstline package with the ‘free hardware’.

Paul also argued that Firstline is a company listed on the Inc 500. I was unable to find it listed, or any possible predecessors. I was able to find a 2001 listing for SafeHome Security, which has an association with Brandon Savage, a VP with Firstline through 2005 and also Sterling Barnes, President/CEO of Firstline through 2005.

It’s worth noting that the Inc 500 list is a ranking based solely upon growth. Given the aggressive sales tactics of Firstline sales reps, it wouldn’t be surprising to see them listed as a fast-growing company. Other companies listed in 2006 include social networking sites, internet startups, home mortgage companies, and medical/insurance based companies, sectors that have experienced growth both in public and privately-held arenas.

There’s a moral to this story. Firstline presents itself as a trusted company, proudly displaying badges from PBS Kids (presumably for the safety level of their website) and the Better Business Bureau. Yet, their website has no information about their corporate officers or leadership and they are training their “advertising directors” to sell an overpriced product using deceptive sales techniques. The invocation of the Inc 500 as some sort of revered benchmark, when there is no identifiable listing for Firstline through 2006 is further evidence of their deception.

Finally, I was reading through one of their contracts and happened across this provision:

“You understand and agree that in conjunction with employee training, quality control and the provision of services, we may monitor and/or electronically record video and audio related to monitored activity at your location, as well as conversations with you, emergency services providers and law enforcement personnel. Further, you understand that privacy cannot be guaranteed on telephone, cable and computer systems, and we shall not be liable to you for any claims, loss, damages or costs which may result from a lack of privacy experienced…”

The first part seems to be related to 911 emergency monitoring, which we should all know happens, particularly if you’ve heard a 911 tape played on your local news after some sort of crime. The second part, though, where I’ve bolded? Think about that in the context of the expanded FISA provisions that allow warrantless wiretaps and monitoring on electronic communication.

Install one of these babies and you might end up in an FBI file. Particularly if you’re not a big supporter of our current administration. Think it’s preposterous? Study what happened during the dark days of the McCarthy era and J Edgar Hoover’s FBI. It’s not at all unthinkable.

Technorati Tags: firstline security, simon 3, wireless monitoring, FISA, home security systems

Forgive me if I sound hyperfocused. I am. So Dave Winer’s series of posts today about the State of the Platform resonated with me, particularly this:

The great thing about the Internet was and is that it’s the platform without a platform vendor. That’s why it has been the engine of growth and innovation for so long, over thirty years now.

While it’s true that the Internet doesn’t have a platform vendor, it certainly has gatekeepers, aka Internet Service Providers.

And wireless companies really have the lock on the platform and the access these days. My biggest frustration with the new Samsung Blackjack is that I’m barred from viewing YouTube videos (or any videos for that matter, that I don’t download on my PC and copy over to the phone itself.). The YouTube barrier is the platform itself — AT&T appears to block any streaming video over my supposed unlimited access connection that doesn’t come from their video service. And BTW their video service hasn’t worked once on my phone — I get “we’re currently having problems” messages whenever I try to access it.

Google is trying to open up the wireless market to an open platform, but the FCC only gave a half-hearted hat tip to the effort yesterday by permitting closed access and closed networks on the wireless spectrum being auctioned in January. Had the FCC mandated an open access/network policy, we might have moved closer to having a platform without a platform vendor. As it is, AT&T and Verizon will suck up yet more bandwidth to control.

In case any of you have qualms about net neutrality, just check what you can do with your wireless phones which are supposedly connected to the Internet. You are not connected to the Internet that Dave describes, you’re connected to the Internet that Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile own — the one that tells you what you may and may not view on their platform and equipment that you pay for.

So Dave, is there any hope for a wireless platform that is a platform without a vendor? How do we get there?

Technorati Tags: wireless, wireless internet, AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, FCC, open platform, open access, Dave Winer

After I posted about the Eldest’s situation last night, my friend Liz Ditz picked up on it and dug very deep. She’s updating it periodically as she finds more information. 

Read Liz’ post first, then come back to this one.  Her post has many great links to media, news and consumer feedback about this.  Mine is intended to debunk the GoFirstline.com website, which is one of the recruiting tools they use for college students. It is a site I spent much time on back in April when he first chose to spend his summer working toward being “the prodigy”.  (jeeeez, what a lying sack of s**t these people are).

Starting with their “opportunity” page, where they outline the top 10 reasons to work for them in “summer sales” (a euphemism for indentured servitude), debunked, one at a time:

Lie #1: The claim that “working with hundreds of potential customers” will give students “invaluable skills and real world experience“.

Reality: The only experience gained is in the art of deception.  The students are trained to make a scripted sales presentation of a ‘future product’ by telling customers they’re getting all of the hardware free if they’ll just allow the Firstline sign in their front yard.  Sounds pretty good, right?  And the system is soooo much better than what they already have because they can control everything from their cell phone.   They can be thousands of miles away and know who is entering and/or exiting their home with this system.  The only “real world skill” they’re taught by the company is how to deceive potential customers by playing on their fear and waving technology around like a magic wand, for the low, low fee of $45/month, minimum.

Lie #2: The claim that “This job, like no other, will jump start your career.” Make the call on this lie after reading Liz’ post and related links.  They are not licensed in many of the states they’re marketing in, they are sending kids out door to door in neighborhoods that are…well, less than desirable, they are associating those kids’ good and unblemished name with a company and product built on the foundation of lies and deception.  I’d say the only jumpstarting of careers here would be to the biggest liars.  Oh, and the students are expected to use their own resources to sell the product, most notably, their own cell phones.

Lies #3 & #4: When the heavy financial burden is eliminated, you can focus on your studies, social life and in the end you come you get even more out of your college experience. and Most students end up paying their tuition with student loans that can follow them for years.

I combined these because they play on the same theme - this idea that working for Frontline(Freudian slip) FirstLine for one summer could generate enough income for students to pay for their education and free them from student loans.  This is an especially ugly lie, because it preys on the students most in need of real financial assistance to get through school — the ones who are not receiving help from parents, who are working part-time jobs to pay for their living expenses and tuition, and who are barely making ends meet. 

Reality: For 10+ weeks, they are clumped together in a “team” with a “manager” and dropped into neighborhoods where they’re expected to sell at least one unit per day to meet their quotas.  To make the kind of money they promise here, these kids would have to sell upwards of 4-5 per day on a door-to-door basis.  Selling means having a customer buy the service and get past the 3-day free look without terminating the agreement.

LIe #5: You will have the opportunity to expand your horizons by working in cities across the US.

Reality: Ask yourself this question:  If you were a student and wanted to travel to cities across the US, would you choose Fresno, Clovis, and Hayward in July?  What exactly would be the purpose of travel to those cities?  You don’t get a choice — you’re dropped where they drop you and screw you if it’s a crummy territory.   With apologies to residents of Fresno — I wouldn’t choose it as my top travel destination.

Lie #6: Work hard at Firstline and you will enjoy awesome weekly incentives.

Reality:  Not exactly. Noobs are brought in on a $250/week draw, but they have to give back $150/week to cover their housing expenses, so they have $100/week to live on until they start selling the systems.  At the time they start making sales, they get approximately $250 per sale on a contract worth $1500.  Those incentives don’t kick in unless you’re selling lots and lots more than that, and actually CLOSING them, which is something that doesn’t get done by the kids selling.  As soon as they have an interested customer they call them into the central office (presumably in Utah) for the close. 

Lie #7: If you prove yourself this summer you will be invited to attend special training meetings, go on the Firstline Cruise, and maybe even be invited to attend our tropical retreat.

Reality:  There are weekly and daily “pump-you-up” meetings conducted by regional managers intended to keep flagging enthusiasm from waning entirely because they drop these kids onto the streets for 10 hours per day, six days per week with the full expectation that they will walk from door to door knocking and making sales.  The only time there’s been any sort of ’special training’ was when the EVP flew in and shut down their Fresno operation, relocating them mid-week and at night to Northern California.  Sounds more like fleeing the local authorities than it does any kind of ’special training’.

Lie #8: Being part of Firstline’s management team allows you to hone your leadership skills while enjoying a great salary, car allowance, and other perks.

Reality: They are expected to use their own cell phones to close the sales.  This has cost my kid $1800 for one month’s usage.  His ‘regional manager’ was just switched from salaried employee to contract employee, forget about those magical management bonuses.  Despite promises in the beginning of stock incentives and other possibilities, nothing has materialized and nothing has been mentioned.  However, he hasn’t been paid for the past two weeks, either.

Lie #9, and it’s a whopper: We focus on continuous learning, personal development, and provide the tools to help you achieve your goals. (From the “opportunity” page)

Reality:  They are not given business cards, brochures, or anything that might actually associate them with the company other than contracts and shirts with logos.   Why?  My personal belief is that they are unlicensed for direct sales in many of the states in which they’re having the students direct sell.  If they had actual sales material, they’d have to include a license number which they do not have.  By having no written material and putting their logo on the sales reps as a form of identification, they circumvent the direct sales requirements of individual areas.  This is a theory:  I haven’t got enough facts to prove it.  Yet. 

Lie #10: Your earning potential is unlimited.

I saved this one for last because it is the most blatant lie of all. Of COURSE it’s limited. It’s limited by time, placement, and the product itself. These kids are being asked to sell air. The emperor has no clothes here. They’re basically out there to ask people to ‘allow the installation of this great new product’, get them to agree to ‘display the sign in their front yard’, and pay ‘a nominal maintenance fee’. AND (this is the real kicker), they’re expected to actually go into the home to evaluate installation points for the sensors.

Think about the utter improbability of that. Here’s a guy making a sales pitch with a foundation of fear — you could be robbed, you could be raped, you could be terrorized in your own home.  After that, would YOU let them come inside YOUR home to ‘evaluate it for security access points’ and then agree to a 3-year contract at $45.00 per month? Making a statement/promise of unlimited income is somewhat akin to promising lifelong happiness…it’s a pipe dream and one that’s especially ugly in light of what they really expect these kids to do.

Worst of all, they manipulate these students by suggesting that they will only succeed if they have an “I WILL NOT QUIT” attitude. That means that even when their instincts are sending off bells and whistles, they are expected to ignore those good instincts and ethics because to acknowledge them would brand them as ‘quitters’, something that none of us wish to be. 

I just had a two-hour conversation tonight with the Eldest.  The first hour was spent reassuring him that he wasn’t an idiot; that he had been LIED TO, and when one is evaluating lies, it’s impossible to make sound judgments because there are no facts.  When I did the research on this back in April, there were no complaints to find — there wasn’t even a NAMED COMPANY, because it was all marketed through “The Prodigy” promise of a shot at reality TV.

If you want to see the extent of the lies, check out their Partners Page.  I did.  Honeywell, GE, Dish Network, ADT.  All large, successful, well-branded companies.  And they emphasize the GE relationship above all.  Why?  I believe it’s because GE is the parent of NBC, giving legitimacy to the claim that the so-called reality show is legit.  The truth is, Firstline is a reseller of Honeywell, ADT, Dish Network and GE services.  That’s the complete extent of the so-called ‘partnership’.  Instead of eliminating the middleman as they claim, they ARE the middleman.

If you are a student contemplating this as a summer gig: Run, don’t walk to your nearest Starbucks and fill out an application there, where they actually give benefits to part-timers and operate above-board and legitimately.  Anything other than this, which is a scam and a lie.

If you are a student who has been involved in this so-called reality show scam, I’d like to hear from you. I found Michael J’s blog tonight — he and some others left this week.  Interesting that both he and the Eldest used the term “sold my soul” in relation to their work with this company.  Here’s my retort:  You didn’t sell your souls, they were stolen for awhile by liars and thieves.  The day you walked away was the day you got them back.

The Eldest is on his way home.  We’ll sort things out together when he arrives tomorrow.  For now I’m pulling down the photo I have up of him on the “about” page to protect his identity until this is all sorted out down the line.

Update: Holy crap, they are licensed in California and the agent for service of legal process in this state is right here in Camarillo. Good lord.

Tags: firstline, the prodigy, student scams, college students, sales, deceptive marketing

I don’t think I’ve read two blog posts in a row for the past 2 weeks without one of them mentioning The Telecommunications Product Apple Recently Released (TTPARR). I can’t get through my email without hitting a third or fourth one that was sent from TTPARR. Even DG’s dance teacher has the fever, coveting TTPARR while looking at her well-used and loved Blackberry with affection.

After my Razr went missing Monday I had to replace my phone, and I did, with one of these:

The Samsung Blackjack is a very cool little phone. It’s about the size of a deck of cards with about 1/3 the thickness. It comes with 2 batteries, a travel charger, and a CD with some utilities. It’s got a full QWERTY keyboard that can actually be used — it hasn’t taken me long at all to learn to type pretty fast with the thumbs (can Blackberry/Blackjack thumb be far behind?).

Hardware-wise, this phone is very, very cool.

I wish I could say the same for the software. It runs on Windows Mobile, which has improved somewhat from the days when I was in love with my Dell Axim enough to put up with the data overwrites and duplicate pairings that ActiveSync wrought on me. To say I hate ActiveSync would be an understatement, particularly after having an excellent experience with the iTunes sync interface on my iPod.

Here’s how I feel about Windows Mobile and just about every other platform I’ve seen, including TTPARR: They limit the user to one usage style, and if that style doesn’t fit, customizing is never convenient. Here are some examples:

1. I use GMail. The phone comes with a push client which will integrate with GMail. Slick. Very slick. But it doesn’t integrate with GCalendar, so the screen on the phone constantly says I have no appointments even when I do. And I haven’t figured out how to turn that off yet, because the menus are so deeply nested that I haven’t even found them all yet.
2. Because I use Gmail, my most current address book is stored with Google. No problem there, I’ve downloaded it into a nice neat little .csv file to import into the phone. But GUESS WHAT? I can’t find a way to import it without using ActiveSync, which won’t import the list because…I DON’T USE OUTLOOK anymore. So I can either manually input each one or wait for them to either call or email before adding them to my contact list. Sorry, but it should be a two-click process to import contacts into the phone. Period.
3. There are lots of bloaty apps that come with Windows Mobile that I don’t want, don’t need, and don’t like using up the little bit of storage that comes with the phone. This phone came with AT&T Video (whatever that is), Windows Media and a bunch of other media apps that I don’t ever use anywhere. Yes, there is a slot for a micro-SD card, but I would be using that for my own MP3s and the like, which don’t need a bloated media player to play.

When Karoli rules the world, this is what mobile phones will be like:

• They will run on an open platform that models the Web, only without the incompatible browser issues the Web currently has because there will be a standard ahead of the platform instead of standards coming behind the platform.
• They will have widgets. Widgets are the heart of the phone’s functionality and will work regardless of the carrier or manufacturer.
• Users will choose the widgets that fit their usage style and habits. When buying a phone, the buyer should get the hardware and 3-4 widgets of their choosing included, with the option to purchase extras for a nominal fee.
• Widgets will be easy to set up and use. Buying a new phone should be as simple as deciding which hardware to buy and then choosing the widgets that enable me to work the way I want to work without the platform/carrier constraints in place now.
• Just like hardware, the best widgets will rise to the top and become the standard by which new widgets are developed and improved upon, driving innovation and development across the basic platform

Carriers will kick and scream like they did when the old leased phones were replaced with phones manufactured by anyone who wanted to make them according to the spec. Think about how long we had those leased monoliths in our living room, tethered to the wires running through the house, before the telcos gave up the lease fees to the manufacturers who were making better, prettier and more functional phones. It’s time to see that happen again. No more Apple/Microsoft/Motorola carrier-specific platforms.

Open platform, unlocked phones, widgetized interface, fully customizable to the way each user works.

That’s where this needs to go.

Oh, and one other thing: Standard charging cables. I have Nokia, Motorola (old), Motorola (new), and Samsung charging cables here in the house, all different. If I forget my charging cable, I’m screwed since I am the only one with this type. On the other hand, all the Motorola owners are interchangable..except for Sticks, who still has the ‘old’ Motorola connector on his phone. Enough. Make them universal once and for all.

Technorati Tags: mobile phone, mobile web, BlackJack, Microsoft, Apple, mobile apps

From Evan Hanson, Editor in Chief, Wired News, an apology:

An advertisement went live on Wired.com last night that obscured much of the site and gave readers no way to remove it for close to 8 hours. The ad was a so-called interstitial, admittedly one of the more invasive styles of online advertising, even when executed properly. In this case it was not, and for that we apologize.

Wired News has an ad review process to prevent things like this from happening, but it failed us in this case. We are examining what went wrong to ensure it does not happen twice. In the meantime, we are suspending all interstitial ads from the site until further notice.

Thanks to everyone who wrote in to complain. On the one hand it’s daunting to see hundreds of emails ripping us for an embarrassing blunder. On the other, it shows how much you care about the site. We don’t intend to test your loyalty again.

Thank you for that apology. And you’re right — interstitial ads suck.

Technorati Tags: wired, advertising, news, apology

Wired News’ ads are rogues. Check out this screenshot (click it for a larger version) and see if you can find anywhere at all on that AT&T ad to close it. (Hint: you won’t). I clicked it twice before getting a clue that it wasn’t going away.

So Wired will get lots of ad clicks and views when people reload the page to make the damn thing go away. I’m using Firefox 2.0.0.4. In general I hate these stupid ads that drop down or follow me around until I click the close button to make them go away, but this is just wrong.

Ironic that it would be on a page where AT&T is one of the ISPs they interviewed about ISP privacy policies. Bye, Wired, until you fix your silly ads. I’d rather read a zillion paid posts from PayPerPost Posties than load one of these evil ads.

Speaking of advertising and PayPerPost [Disclosure: I am a Postie, but this is an unsolicited post], big congratulations are in order for Ted & Co on receiving 7 million in their second round of funding. As usual, Michael Arrington is negative, but Josh Stein of DFJ corrects him straight away. Ted Murphy is a straight shooter who believes wholeheartedly in the PayPerPost business model, is willing to put his money where his mouth is while smiling, and isn’t afraid to be down to earth and silly from time to time.

PayPerPost: 5 out of 5 stars. Wired Magazine: 0 out of 5 stars.

Technorati Tags: wired magazine, at&t, advertising, rogue advertising, public relations, techcrunch, payperpost

The Spectacular Zooomr Server Crash of 2007 has generated some interesting conversation. By way of an update, here’s the current status:

• Zoho has given Zooomr space in their datacenter and Kristopher is there now working on restoring the database
• Sun Microsystems has a server on a truck with Zooomr’s address on it as a loaner until they’re back on their feet.
• You can see the live feed on UStream’s Zooomr TV channel

However, Zooomr is not without its critics. Shelley Powers has been one of the most vocal in the comments to Robert Scoble’s blog post this morning as well as her own blog. She has some valid points, strictly speaking.

This application has been down over a week, after it went down once before with a promised rollout, after missing its initial rollout at its own startup party, following on what sounds like other downtime problems. Do you think system users should be concerned? Perhaps even, dare I say it, critical? Not on your life. Being critical is not the Web 2.0 way.

She’s right. It was risky and unconventional for Thomas Hawk to throw his lot in with a young programmer with no business experience. It was risky and cheeky for them to take on Flickr, although I don’t really see them occupying the same space. It was certainly risky to bring the community into the launch effort via UStream, and KEEP the community there when the launch did not go as planned. And she’s right: If they went to Citibank, John Hancock Insurance or any other ‘mainstream’ funding source, hat in hand asking forgiveness for missing deadlines, they’d be laughed out of the boardroom.

Shelley’s also right when she says that being critical is not the Web 2.0 way, though I’m sure she’ll disagree with my reasons for saying so. There’s more than a touch of irony and sarcasm in her post, but I see it differently. Web 2.0 is about community, and what happened today IS the Web 2.0 way. In the comments to Robert Scoble’s post, Thomas Hawk responded an overview of Zooomr’s business plan (which I touched on briefly in my first post) and with this:

Anyways. Zooomr will survive. Zooomr will survive because more than anything it is built on pure passion and love for photography and photosharing and community. And someday we will look back on these growing pains and remember that sometimes in order to do incredible things you must go through fire. We will go through fire but we will survive.

When we launched yesterday it was glorious. For about 10 glorious minutes you should have seen it. Many of us were in a chat room together and celebrating. And then we stumbled. Hard.

But you know what? There was a community there that picked us up and dusted us off and got us back on our feet. Robert Scoble. Zoho. Sun Microsystems. We got many more emails reaching out from other companies, even Microsoft. And we gotten dozens and dozens of emails from our community saying things like hey, I just donated $30. It’s all I can afford but I wanted to help out in the only way that I could.

The Zooomr Community is strong.

And that really is the core of Web 2.0. The community. It was just last week that Mike Arrington and several other widely-read bloggers (not using the “A-list” term because I don’t buy it) were writing about how the days of ‘flying-by-the-seat-of-your-pants-fun” just wasn’t in it anymore. And yet, the response of those who could help Zooomr has been tremendous, and Zooomr is as ‘by the seat of its pants’ as you get.

I’m a seat-of-the-pants flier too, and I like it that way. It drives me crazy to always be conventional, conservative, well-planned and to-the-letter perfect. Strictly speaking, Shelley is right. But the glory of where we are with the Internet right now is this: It is much more fluid than it is strict, and the community has a voice, a role and a presence.

I’m looking forward to Zooomr’s rebirth of Mark III with the assistance of Zoho and Sun. Both of those companies rose much higher in my estimation than they did before. I’ll break open my secret stash of Chardonnay and cheer when it comes up again, though I promise not to drop ice into my white wine, a la Thomas Hawk.

Again from Thomas Hawk’s comment:

I will never forget the generousity of the community that helped fight for Zooomr this week. I love you all.

Power to the people. The best photographs in the world have yet to be taken.

Technorati Tags: Zooomr, community, Sun, Zoho, inspiration

I think I can, I think can, I think I can… I know I can, I know I can, I know I can…

You all know how passionate I am about photography and community. Zooomr has both, and incredible potential. Beyond that, I have a fondness for anyone who steps out and takes a risk despite overwhelming odds. Zooomr is two people: Kristopher Tate and Thomas Hawk. Kristopher is the boy wonder (although he’s probably aged 20 years in the past week or so ) who created Zooomr on his own and has been working day and night to push the Mark III launch out the door and onto the Internet. I’ve been catching their UStream feed whenever I can.

Mark III launched last night after many harried nights of moving the entire database and tweaking everything so that all of the existing data was intact at launch. From all accounts, it was a thing of beauty and a joy to behold. (I missed it, because I was at Sticks’ final concert). Thomas wrote this:

About an hour ago we finally launched Zooomr Mark III. It was a glorious 10 minute stretch of time. People had stayed up all night with us after a week of anticipation and everything was going great. Our first photos were being uploaded. People were writing exciting updates on the Zipline and then our database crashed.

It was a pretty painful moment. And then Kristopher turned to me and said, you know what, we’ll get this thing back up. This will work. We are the little engine that could.

From the Zooomr blog, Kristopher updates with this:

Hey Friends, I’ve been here for about 2 hours or so now — the database box is completely done-for. Luckily, we do keep database snapshots/backups! We will come out of this stronger than before, together — Zooomr is the world’s photosharing website.

In the comments to Thomas’ post, Robert Scoble says Zooomr needs a server with more than 10 terrabytes and money to pay bills — you might recall that their investor withdrew funding about a month or so ago.

One of the most interesting and potentially profitable aspects of Mark III is the way they’ve structured the site to be a stock photo site where photographers can make a market for their photos. It’s a great business model with the potential to make Zooomr unique in the already-crowded photo sharing market. Flickr hasn’t done it yet, despite having the weight of Yahoo! behind it. Mark III has all the pieces in place — a great platform for display and marketing, ability for photographers to set their own price for photos, and a nice built-in revenue sharing model to turn the site to profit.

I see Zooomr’s needs as an opportunity for online photographers to come together as a community and support an endeavor that already has international reach and recognition. It’s an opportunity for angel investors, too. Is it risky? Yes it is. But consider that it’s a finalist for the Webware 100, contending with other sites that have 100 times the resources.

Behind every success there is sweat, blood and someone’s genius. Web 2.0, if you want to call it that, is not just about free stuff that’s cool. It’s about innovators like Kristopher and Thomas creating something that brings together community, creativity and for some photographers, a way to receive recognition (and yes, profit) for their work. If that’s something that appeals to you, then I encourage you to visit Zooomr and donate whatever you can via their Paypal link.

I love optimists. I love people who don’t give up, who persevere. I believe Zooomr can. I hope you do, too. Here’s one more snippet from the Zooomr blog:

Zooomr Mark III will launch. And it will be a fantastic site. We will have bugs that our one man engineering staff will need to fix and we’ll use ZooomrTV with you guys so that we can together find them and fix them. But Zooomr Mark III will launch. I’ve had the good fortune of seeing Zooomr Mark III as it’s been developed and it is awesome. Zipline is awesome. Discover is Awesome. Search is Awesome. Zooomr Mark III is faster, lighter, better designed. It finally has true community tools. Groups for you to build and hang out in. And with ZooomrTV you will daily have direct access to the team building the site.

Related:

• Robert Scoble: An evangelism opportunity
• Trevor Carpenter: Help Zooomr Not Die!
• Digg it here - Note: The Diggers are characteristically cynical, mostly because they don’t see anything in it for them. As usual, they buried it because they have no vesting in the topic or the site. Yet, if someone hadn’t funded Kevin Rose, they could’ve been riding in the same boat. Think on it, Diggers.
• ZooomrHits: Zooomr Mark 3 Launches, then Goes Down

Technorati Tags: Zooomr, Mark 3, Thomas Hawk, Kristopher Tate, startups, web2.0