Yallery Blog

I just updated the blog software.  Hopefully this post is successful!

Yallery.com is still softlaunched — meaning that we’re not “officially” promoting our services while we work through some important issues and implement remaining features (but the site and service are still usable for hosting and most publicly accessible functions).

That said, last month, I presented our service at the Denver Boulder Founders Meetup and the Boulder Denver New Technology Meetup to share our progress with the local tech and entrepreneurial communities.

As I discuss Yallery.com with people, it became increasingly obvious that I needed something other than old and unrelated business cards to hand out. I was also planning a trip to Taos and Santa Fe in New Mexico and thought a postcard would be handy as they are the promotional “lingue franca” of the Gallery industry. I designed and ordered some cards and postcards.

Another obvious need was stickers — It’s a Web2.0 rule I think. I began to look around and ask friends about sticker printers. It came down to two companies, and ultimately one — a local company named Sticker Giant.

Yallery.com moves into meatspace

John Fischer, founder of Sticker Giant heard that I was considering another company to print up our Yallery stickers and made an incredibly generous offer to print up our stickers. I’ve had one of each on my Powerbook since they arrived and they are high quality. Thanks John, we’ll be ordering our future stickers from you.

I was highly impressed with the quality of the product from my initial Overnight Prints order — the postcard and my business card were produced in Kentucky and matched my design exactly. Unfortunately, my second order was produced in California and while the reverse is the same quality as my original card, the front gradient and colors look extremely washed out — very dull and ultimately inconsistent. My email to Overnight Prints about this was ignored and I think my future printing will be done by someone else.

At 10:30pm last evening, I pushed the 2-week effort known as “Public 1″ to production.

New in this revision is Search, the Visitor user, a new registration method, a new password recovery method, a new member directory method, a new public home, some ideas leading to a new private-user home and more than enough bug crunching to have me looking forward to bed right now.

There’s still a bunch (well, a bunch of bunches) to do, but it’s looking ok.

Yay us.

Late last week, I sent our active membership an email notifying them that Michael and I were unable to continue working on Yallery.com full time and there would be a major change to the service.

Yallery is almost two years old and has been my and Michael’s full-time focus since it began. We had planned on attracting more developers and some funding to pursue the execution of our plans, but at this point it is still just Michael and I.

I can’t blame the investors I met with, who’s reactions to our plan were universally “it looks really cool, but I’m not sure there’s a large enough market to make an investment”. We don’t know the size of our market well enough to answer that question. We have a good idea, but there are a number of variables that make any attempts to guess meaningless while our service is hidden away from the world.

The Web 2.0 ethic has encouraged developers to “Release early and release often” — to get your product out the door and into the world as quickly as possible. Yallery was my first web-based service since the early 1990s, and it’s probably unfortunate that I was somewhat stuck on the Web 1.0 “Push it when it’s polished” approach.

We had hoped to have a certain amount of features and functionality implemented, tested and “polished” before we threw open our doors to the public. But, two years on and meagerly self-funded, we’re looking at diminishing returns if we continue to hide two years of work behind a sign-in screen.

Therefore, we’re removing the “Invite Wall” and will soon invite all artists, collectors and galleries to create a free, unlimited account on Yallery. With the removal of the Invite Wall, we will also be creating a new home page that will welcome all visitors to view and interact with the the art created, owned and sold by our members.

As bummed out as we should be right now, it’s a very encouraging and exciting time for us — we are about to introduce our two year old baby to the world. Quite a few of my friends have thought we were crazy for not opening it up earlier and hiding such a great site.

There will be problems — the fact that it doesn’t work right on IE is probably the largest right now (but it does work on FireFox and Safari). We also have a bunch of bugs identified and there are a lot of partially implemented features that we will resolve as time allows us — but we are not giving up.

Things may take a little longer to accomplish, but we still have a long, feature-filled roadmap for the site, but we need a change. We’re going to be working part-time until we can maybe return full-time some time in the future. In the meantime, we hope to find some people who like Yallery and feel at home enough to share their art with us.

It occured to me that some references to Yallery site components and features in previous posts may have been confusing at best, and not very helpful at worst. This post is the first of likely many, to explain references like “Public Dashboard”, “Private Dashboard”, “Mosaic” and “Art Info Page”.

Yallery’s design utilizes a “Dashboard” method of display. This means that there are no pages on the Yallery site that scroll vertically or horizontally.

The Private Dashboard
The Yallery Private Dashboard provides members with tools to manage and administer their art and participation on Yallery. Depending on the member’s Member Type, art management applications, report generators, private message box, art comment notifications, forum link, event management and subscription/event/RSVP calendar are all accessible on this screen. A member’s Private Dashboard is only viewable by the owner and no other members may view this page or the information available through it.

The Public Dashboard
The Yallery Public Dashboard is the world’s interface into the member’s art Catalogue (Artist members), Collection (Collector members) or Inventory (Gallery members) and ancillary information such as communication options (Bio/Statement, Forum, Website, Private Messages) and Event Calendars (Artist and Gallery members).

The Mosaic
This feature is found in all Artist, Collector and Gallery member Public Dashboards. It is named the Mosaic because the contents are essentially art tiles. When visited by the Dashboard’s owner, the Mosaic displays all “public” and “private” artworks, otherwise only artworks designated as “public” are seen.

Artist members’ Mosaics are populated by their “Catalogue Raisonné.” The contents should encompass every work ever created by the artist whether it has been sold, consigned or held in the artist’s own inventory.

Collector members’ Mosaics are populated by their Collection. The contents include every work currently owned by the collector.

Gallery members’ Mosaics are populated by their current unsold and available Inventory.

Depending on the artwork’s context, there may be one of five backgrounds under the Mosaic Tile:

1. Black/Transparent background Tiles are Unlinked
2. Grey background Tiles signify Linked Artwork between Artist members and Collector members
3. Green background Tiles signify Consigned Artwork between Gallery members (or non-members) and Artist members (or non-members)
4. Red background Tiles signify “Private Artwork” and will only every be seen by the mosaic’s/dashboard’s owner
5. Blue background Tiles signify Artwork that is currently in the Yallery Marketplace

By mousing over a tile, you may see the complete Artwork Title and Artist Name if it is shortened on the tile itself. To navigate the Mosaic, the viewer must click, hold and drag the mosaic in the direction away from the area they wish to view. The maximum size of the Mosaic is 10 x 10 tiles. To view an artwork in more detail, the viewer must double-click on the tile.

The Art Info Page
The Art Info Page pops-up over the Public Dashboard after an artwork is selected from the Mosaic. This page provides a multitude of information about the art, from metadata to comments. When the Art Info Page is viewed by the Dashboard’s owner, it may display some Owner-only information such as the Public/Private state and/or location.

Artists will find Yallery to be unlike any other art-focused website. We are not trying to replace their website or solicit their art for a “Virtual Gallery.” Yallery is a community where artists, their patrons and their galleries are connected through real art.

Art Hosting
The primary “socialization” activity on Yallery is the hosting itself. Yallery’s Artist “Catalogue Mosaic” enables artists to publish and share their entire catalogue with patrons, collectors and galleries from next door and around the world.

When combined with Yallery’s Studio & Catalogue Management application, the artist’s Mosaic represents their career, contextualized — Artists may view works by artwork title, year produced, category, year acquired, consignment location or collector name, while visitors to their Mosaic may group and view works by artwork title, year produced or category.

Art Interlinking
The next major “socialization” activity on Yallery is art “Interlinking”. Interlinking is how Yallery connects artists and collectors. The artworks displayed in the artist’s Mosaic are virtual representations of art that may be in the artist’s own inventory, reside in collections, be consigned to galleries or loaned to shows.

Artworks in a Collector member’s “Collection Mosaic” are actual artworks that are possessed by the collector and can link back into the Catalogues of Artist members. Linked artworks are given a grey tile background in the Mosaic.

Artworks in a Gallery member’s “Inventory Mosaic” are actual artworks that have been consigned by an artist (member or non-member) into the Gallery member’s Inventory. Inventory artworks link back into the Catalogues of Artist members. Consigned artworks are given a green tile background in the Mosaic.

Artist Narratives
Registered Artist members may publish text narratives for each artwork they publish into their Catalogue; Premium Artist members may publish text, audio and/or video narratives for each artwork in their catalogue. If an artwork is consigned to a Gallery Member or possessed and linked to a Collector Member, the narratives are automatically populated in the other member’s “Art Info Page”.

Artwork Comments
Every Artwork on Yallery may feature a comment stream, where members can discuss the artwork.

Detail Images
Premium Artist members may add up to five detail images to each artwork. Detail images help people appreciate the finer details or unique process in an artwork.

Exclusive Forum
Premium Artist members receive their own discussion Forum, they may use this resource as they see fit.

Event Management
Premium Artist members may create and publish their events in their Public Dashboard calendars — Invites may be sent to members and non-members and RSVP state followed from invite to event.

Personal Calendar
Artist members may also subscribe to the Event Calendars of other Artist and Gallery members. The Personal Calendar provides members with a single interface into infinite events on a local, national or global scale.

Identity
Artist members are provided with the same range of identity and location options as other members, but Yallery recommends that Artist members use their real name (unless the majority of their work is created under a collective, organization or partnership known by another name) and City as their location selections.

The Future
There are other Artist-directed features coming as we implement Yallery’s Beta plan. Stay tuned.

Unlike most art sites on the Internet, Yallery is not trying to render the traditional gallery obsolete. We at Yallery believe the traditional art gallery to be the “live performance venue” of the primary art market. As the live performance venue, we believe traditional galleries are the best place to find new art and artists, and experience art for the first time.

We have preserved a role for galleries within Yallery as the de facto source of “primary market” art. Yallery does not encourage artists to compete with their representation. However, if an artist does not have traditional gallery representation, they are welcome to sell their artworks directly into the Yallery marketplace.

If both the Gallery and Artist are Yallery members, an Artist may use the Yallery Consignment tool to designate art from their Catalogue as consigned, and automatically populate a new artwork within the Gallery member’s Inventory Management System and Public Dashboard “Mosaic” that links back to the Artist’s Catalogue Mosaic. If the artist is not a Yallery member, then the gallery member must upload the art images and information into their Inventory and Management System and Mosaic like any other Yallery member type.

As members and non-members browse through the Collections and Catalogues of collectors and artists, works available for sale at galleries are featured within the Artist’s Catalogue Mosaic with a tile background color that identifies the artwork as being consigned for sale to a Gallery (can be either a member gallery or non-member gallery).

Artist Narratives
Artists may publish text, audio or video narratives for each artwork they create. These narratives transfer to the Gallery’s “Art Info Page” if they are consigned the artwork.

Artwork Comments
Every Artwork on Yallery may feature a comment stream, where members can discuss the artwork.

Detail Images
Gallery members may add up to five detail images to each artwork. Detail images help people appreciate the finer details or unique process in an artwork.

Exclusive Forum
Galleries receive their own discussion Forum, they may use this resource as they see fit.

Event Management
Gallery members may create and publish events in their Public Dashboard calendars — Invites may be sent to members and non-members and RSVP state followed from invite to event.

Personal Calendar
Like Artist and Collector members, Gallery members may also subscribe to the Event Calendars of Artist and Gallery members. The Personal Calendar provides members with a single interface into infinite events.

Identity
Although Gallery members are provided with the same range of identity and location options as other members, Yallery recommends that Gallery members use their Organization name and City, State/Prov and Country as selections.

The Future
There are other Gallery-directed features coming as we implement Yallery’s Beta plan. Stay tuned.

I’ve discussed art and collecting with other people who own and acquire art and after meeting many different collectors, there may be three primary types of art collection experiences.

The Private Collector
A “Private Collectors’” art passions are very personal to them. Private Collectors acquire their art through dealers and prefer more intimate art events to public showings. Their art is a discrete extension of their life that they rarely share outside of their home. This collector likely will not wish to Socialize their art on Yallery. If this collector becomes a member of Yallery, they may not make any of their artworks publicly viewable by others.

The Social Collector
“Social Collectors” enjoy sharing their art with everyone around them. Social Collectors bring their art into every environment they inhabit — work, home, friend’s homes, everywhere. Social Collectors visit a lot of galleries and attend show openings. Art appreciation is a very public extension of who they are as a person. Social Collectors will share a majority of their collection with the world through Yallery — looking forward to linking to the artists they collect and contextualizing their collections with artists and other collectors.

The Accidental Collector
“Accidental Collectors” possess art — sometimes a lot of art — and they don’t know anything about the art other than from who or where they acquired it. These art owners have never thought of themselves as collectors and may consider the art they own to be just another possession. The origin of artworks owned by Accidental Collectors be vacations, gifts or a spontaneous decorating-related purchase. Another common source of unidentified art is inheritance. We at Yallery believe that the Accidental Collector will be able to Socialize their art to identify artists, learn information concerning the provenance of their art and eventually the value, both monitary and historic.

We hope that Social Collectors and Accidental Collectors will enjoy the a range of opportunities Yallery provides them to socialize their art.

Art Hosting
The primary “socialization” activity on Yallery is the hosting itself. Yallery’s Collector “Mosaic” enables a Collector to share their entire art collection with friends, family and the world.

Art Interlinking
The next major “socialization” activity on Yallery is art “Interlinking”. Interlinking is how Yallery connects Collectors and Artists. The artworks displayed in an Artist member’s “Mosaic” (the gallery display area on a Yallery Public Dashboard) are “virtual” representations of art that may be in an artist’s own inventory, reside in collections, be consigned to galleries or loaned to shows. Artworks in a Collector member’s “Mosaic” are actual artworks that are possessed by the collector.

Artwork Interlinking provides Collectors and their collections with a path into and out of an artist’s body of work. When multiple collectors have interlinked works within an artist’s Catalogue, this creates a context greater than any single relationship. Collectors can use their link into Artists’ Catalogues Raisonné to locate “lost works”, reference and connect with other collectors interlinked with the artist. Collectors may reference the collections of collectors with mutual taste and interest in the search to learn about new artists.

Collector Narratives
Collectors may publish a textual narrative to every artwork they possess. Collector Narratives are published within the Collector’s “Art Info Page”.

Artist Narratives
Artists may publish text, audio or video narratives for each artwork they create. These narratives transfer to the Collector’s “Art Info Page” if they possess the artwork.

Artwork Comments
Every Artwork on Yallery may feature a comment stream, where members can discuss the artwork.

Favorites
All members have the ability to add the Public Dashboards of other members and individual artworks to their personal “Favorites” list.

Detail Images
Premium members may add up to five detail images to each artwork. Detail images help people appreciate the finer details in an artwork or in cases where an artwork’s provenance is unknown, or an artist’s name unknown, multiple images may assist in identification.

Exclusive Forum
Premium members also receive their own personal discussion Forum. Members may use this resource as they see fit.

Personal Calendar
Collectors may subscribe to the Event Calendars of Artist and Gallery members. The Personal Calendar provides members with a single interface into infinite events.

Identity
Although a Collector may wish to share every detail about their art collection with the world, they may not wish to be personally identified or linked to the collection. Yallery provides every member with a sliding scale of “Location” (Country only, State/Prov + Country, or City + State/Prov + Country) and “Identification” (Member name, Real Name, Organization Name).

The Future
There are other Collector-directed features coming as we implement Yallery’s Beta plan. Stay tuned.

Last night we sent out Beta Invitations to everyone who subscribed to our Mailinglist during Yallery’s Alpha stage.

Google’s GMail continues to send all of Yallery’s email into spam folders. If you are a subscriber to our Mailinglist and a user of GMail, you may want to check your spam folder for your Yallery Beta invitation.

We are working to resolve this issue with Google. We have added SPF information to Yallery’s DNS record and we’re told this should prevent Yallery mail from getting auto-sucked into the GMail trash in the future.

We recognize one of the largest barriers preventing artists and collectors from placing all of their art on Yallery is a lack of photographs (or perhaps, a lack of quality photographs) of their art. Some artists have laser scans made of each artwork they create, so they may make high quality reproductions while other artists make quick photographs of their art before they are packed up and shipped off to a gallery or show.

Collectors and art owners are often told to document all of their possessions in the process of insuring their personal property, but art deserves special attention as there are unique identifying details that must be preserved and recalled during the insurance recovery process should the artwork ever be lost or stolen. The quality of insurance-inspired art photography is often very low.

Some collectors hire professional art photographers to document their collections. However, most art owners and collectors can’t afford this type of service. We believe high-quality collector-generated art photographs can be accomplished if a little time is invested and some simple rules are followed.

If you’re on a budget, smaller Items like glasswork, pottery and jewelry can be placed in a small homemade lightbox made from a large cardboard box with a hole in each side for a light, a sheet of poster board and two lights. The following image of an Aaronson Noon vase was photographed in such a box for my own Yallery Mosaic:

A great resource for art photography hints is over at Empty Easel:

How to Photograph your Artwork for a Portfolio or the Internet

Yallery enables artist members to “overwrite” photographs of linked works supplied by collector and gallery members with “official artist photographs” in the interests of preserving the artist’s vision and expression.

Yallery’s Image Formats
The artwork ingestion process requires one image upload for each item. Each photograph should be at least 1024 pixels (wide) by 768 pixels (high). This is also the size of our maximum image size.

Once an artwork image is loaded into Yallery, our software creates a square tile-sized image that is 100 pixels by 100 pixels for use in the member’s Public Dashboard “Mosaic”. A square medium-sized image of 300 pixels by 300 pixels is also created, to be used in Artwork Info pop-up windows. Images are masked with transparent space if the original image is not square.

Yallery also generates a large “full size” image size that is calculated to be within 1024 pixels (wide) by 768 pixels (high), using the largest side dimensions as a guide. This image is not masked.