Last Updated on 12/21/2011 by Chris Gampat
Two years ago, I had an idea.
I wanted to create a website for the photography world. Fresh out of college and subject to a terrible economy combined with layoffs from freelance work and jobs, I sat on my bed and said to myself, “I’m really sick of being unemployed,” and so I started the Phoblographer.
At the time I had no idea where to begin but I knew how to develop content and I knew the specific audience that I wanted to engage. To this day, we’re known for our real world reviews and our down to earth tonality. It’s a trait that I pride the site and the site’s staff on. Our egos are checked at the door and we stick to the realities vs being blinded by ridiculous tests. We accomplish tasks in a practical way.
Two years ago, if you had told me that I’d be back to sitting on my bed typing up this blog post and surrounded by all that I am today, I would’ve laughed in your face. I never would have thought that the site would be what it has become. We’ve been linked to by Gizmodo amongst other tech blogs, mentioned by the Boston Globe, and gained a reputation with many companies as a credible source of information. Indeed, we almost often are always the first to report on things as well as is evident when the rumors sites always link to us in the rare occasion that we do news.
Though the actual birthday of the Phoblographer falls on New Year’s Eve, I’m writing this early partially to let you know that we’re taking off for Christmas Eve and Christmas and that we’ll be back to publishing the day after. I think that the staff and I deserve it.
The site has gone through a lot:
– We’ve worked on and scrapped redesigns. A new design will finally launch after CES of next year.
– We’ve created multiple social media channels
– We’ve gone through various staffers
– I encountered some legal trouble from a former staffer
– I’ve had a troublesome time working with certain companies to expand the site’s coverage
– I’ve tried to monotize the site better and when I found that I did it, my old host kicked us off because we brought in too much traffic.
This has been a very tough year for the site. We’ve been offered to have our content rented by a larger site; to which I responded, “No.”
The site, after all this, brings in roughly 10,000 uniques a day now. That’s not a small feat, nor was it easy. But I thank all of you for the help so far; and though I’m not exactly sure how much my thank you means, I want you all to know that it comes from the artistic soul that lives within me and that is dormant in my heart and mind.
I feel the need to make specific thank yous out to certain people:
– Theresa, Joe, Spoorthy, Steve, Douglas, and the other readers that have stuck with us for a long time.
– Geoff Fox; who gave me my first traffic spike. Without you, I wouldn’t have some of my long time readers.
– The rumors sites and their staff for giving me amazing traffic. Though I don’t know who you are; thanks so much for building us though it was possibly not intentional.
– Kevin, Len, Jen, Chuck and the rest of the crew over at Canon USA. I want to thank you for helping us grow; especially you Kevin.
– Charles, Keith, Sally, Rick and the awesome people at Mullen and Olympus. Thank you for all the compliments on our coverage and for always being great folks.
– Marci, Jeff, Christine, and the rest of the people over at Matter Now; perhaps the finest PR company I know specializing in the photo industry. Thank you for being such an awesome company and amongst the most pleasant people to deal with.
– Christian, Clara, and Julia over at Evins and Leica; thank you for loaning me my first review unit and believing in the site.
– Michael and Reid over at Snapknot.com, thank you for finding us and the long time partnership.
– Yechiel, Isaac and Moshe over at the affiliate team for B&H Photo
– David Brommer, Gabriel Biderman, Jason Geller, Matthew D’Alessio, Lauren Mayerhoff, Joseph Carey, and the rest of the crew over at the B&H Photo Marketing Depts.
– Rich over at Carl Zeiss.
– Simon and Brian over at Think Tank Photo.
– Kathy, Katie, Josh, Mike, Kate all the models I’ve photographed for the site.
– Sander-Martijn, who is responsible for the site’s migration while I pulled my hair out when we were kicked off of Bluehost right before Photo Plus this year.
– Will Greenwald of PCMagazine and Aggrogate
– Sal Cangeloso of Geek.com
– Aimee Baldridge of MAC-On-Campus
– PJ Jacobowitz
– Dan Havlik of PDN
– Terry Lewis of The Other View
– Theano Nikitas
– Allison Johnson of Digital Camera Review
– Laurie Grunan of CNET
– Eric Reagan of Photography Bay, who inspired me to create The Phoblographer.
– Carol Mangis at Consumer Reports: my first mentor in the tech industry.
– Mitch Unger of Planet 5D
– John Conrad Williams, my photography mentor
– Dan Bailey
– Photo John of Photography Review
– Stumble Upon and Reddit
– Ziv Gillat at Eye-Fi
– Mike Pouliot and Travis Lawton; my two main staffers who help me to do lots of the heavy lifting around here.
– Social Media Coordinator Gevon Servo, who this site owes lots to.
– Copy Editor Julius Motal: your talents, wit and 1AM text messages are always more than welcome and it has always been a pleasure having you here.
And those are the biggest ones that I can think of off the top of my head right now after a long day, but I want to thank all of you reading this as well.
The only other things that I can ask of you is to please keep reading and sharing our posts. Additionally, please support us by clicking the links in each writers’ posts and then making a purchase. The links in that writer’s post helps to keep them funded. The banners and the links in my posts help to keep the site alive (and keep me funded.)
So I close this post by saying thank you; and that I look forward to another year running the site.