Impressionist painter Vincent Van Gogh is recognized in our time as a brilliant artist. And yet, it is hard to imagine that during his life, he only sold only one painting, and that he died penniless. Stories of artists who died penniless are many. The reason may be varied; they may just have focused solely on their craft or they simply had no means of selling them to the public.
As to the latter reason, it should not be as hard to sell artwork in our time as before, as there are now more ways of selling nowadays. The internet is one great example of a place where an artist can showcase his work to everyone.
One website which offers a place for artists to share and sell their work is Artbreak. Through the website, artists can know showcase their works to the public, giving them an avenue of making money off their works.
Artbreak is a great place for artists to share their masterpiece online. Their works can be commented on by other members. But the best feature of Artbreak is that it allows the artists to sell their work in the site. Art pieces can be priced from $1 to $10,000, depending on the quality and reputation of the artist. While there may be reservation from potential customers in buying artwork online, the Artbreak still contributes to the art community bridging the divide between artists and art enthusiasts.
There is also a forum in the site in which the anyone - whether artist or art lover - can interact with other members of the site. The website has a very vibrant community, as can be seen in the forum, where artists actively post in the discussions. Thanks to Artbreak, artists and art lovers alike can now have a website to converge.
In Kim Edwards’ novel, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, a newly married couple led an idyllic life. Everything changed when the husband, a doctor, delivered the babies of his wife one fateful night. One baby was a healthy boy, the other, a girl with down syndrome. He made a decision to not let anyone know of the birth of the girl, so he decided to send the baby girl away to a foster home. He kept the secret all his life, and it affected the couple’s marital life.
In our lives things can somehow go wrong one way or another. Like the protagonist in the novel, we can be burdened with guilt (although the guilt may be to a lesser degree) because of some event. It can be entirely our fault, or it can just be due to a freak accident. It may have been triggered by events entirely out of our hands, but we somehow aggravated the problem.
Whatever the cause may be, we sometimes feel guilty about it, or put the blame entirely on ourselves, however irrational that reaction might be. With no one to share our feelings with, we can be paralyzed with this burden, and it might affect the way we function with other people in our everyday lives.
Oops…I’m Sorry is a website that was conceptualized so that anyone can have an avenue where one can unburden himself of whatever emotional baggage he is carrying.
Oops…..I’m Sorry is an interactive web site that offers people Options, Opportunities, Possibilities and Solutions (OOPS), to deal with the “OOPS” that happen in life. “Oops” as we define it is, anything that goes wrong or is upsetting.
The website aims to foster a place where members can “confess” without being ridiculed or condemned. It also banks on a positive and supportive community, where members help each other out.
In Apology To, a member can publicly post a message to acknowledge that something went wrong. If the member is hoping to be forgiven, he can choose to receive a private reply to his Apology To message. Comments can also be made by other members, who can give words of advice or encouragement.
In Apology Due, a member can post a message wherein he expects another to say sorry for the latter’s fault. This is beneficial for anyone who wants to vent his anger, frustration or disappointment, instead of repressing or harboring ill-will against another. The member can likewise receive a private message so that the parties involved can resolve their problems away from public eyes.
In Confessions, a member can post anonymous message to admit a wrongdoing to no one in particular. it is a way of expressing bottled-up feelings; a way of unburdening one’s conscience. Other members can likewise comment on the particular confession. And since the poster of the message is made anonymous, the comments generated will hopefully be focused on the confession, and not on the person confessing.
In Virtual Conscience, members can send positive, guiding, and supportive messages to others. Here’s how it works: “If you know someone is heading down the wrong path, making a bad choice, or just needs a little encouragement, send them a message. It’s easy, simply enter the e-mail address of the recipient, choose a greeting, enter their name, and write your message. Preview the message then save it as a draft, send it or schedule a date and time for delivery.” This feature can be used as a more gentle way of telling someone you know that you are there to help for any problem that the recipient may be going through. It’s a nice way of nudging him back to the right direction, so to speak.
Because sensitive matters are discussed in a website like this, things can possibly get a little unruly. Thankfully, this has not happened in Oops….I’m Sorry. Allie, the website’s creator, makes sure that nothing inappropriate will happen regarding the members or contents of the site. She says in her blog:
Oops…..I’m Sorry is simply a tool. Membership is free, truly free, no hidden agendas no surprise spam. Oops…..I’m Sorry is on the World Wide Web where anyone can find and use it. It was designed to be a site people would like to visit and use (low on visual noise). It was designed to make the task at hand, dealing with something difficult, easier. I have put myself out there, my picture is on the home page and now I have shared this story so you would know who’s behind this site. I have and will continue to do everything I can to ensure the integrity of Oops…..I’m Sorry. That, I will not compromise.
The cost of making an advertisement can be staggering. One video advertisement can cost as much as $250,000. While an advertising firm can offer you an output for a couple of thousand dollars, you are not assured that the final work will be great. The same is true for print and radio ads.
For companies looking for an alternative to the advertising firms that charge exorbitant amounts, Zooppa offers an innovative way of making advertisements - whether in print, video or radio. Trying to break away from the norm in advertising, Zooppa is crowdsourcing the ads that companies commission from its community
Zooppa’s mission is to create a space for social advertising through user-generated content. This means accessing the creative talent outside of the world of traditional advertising. For companies, it can mean that you can have a complete ad campaign at a fraction of the cost.
For any company interested in partnering with Zooppa, a contest is set up for every ad campaign that you are planning to launch. A creative brief detailing the brand and its target market is prepared for the particular contest. Zooppa users then submit their entries in line with the creative brief. Other users will then vote for their favorite entry to determine the winner of the contest. Zooppa will award cash prizes to the creators of the highest rated ads.
This format may be suitable for many companies. They can save on advertising expenses but still get high quality content culled from a large pool of talent that an advertising firm would be hard to match.
For individuals who are artistically inclined, Zooppa can be a good way to earn some extra money. There are many contests to join, giving anyone with talent a fair chance to win. The brand may use your winning ad for their online campaigns, or, in certain cases, their offline campaigns. There are also awards for runners-up including cash and other prizes.You may also collaborate with other users. Zooppa rewards this type of collaboration with a Bonus Team Prize . Since its inception, Zooppa has already awarded more than $300,000 to its members.
The way Zooppa works, it’s a win-win situation for the parties involved. The companies can get value for their money with the abundance of content submitted by Zooppa users. The users get to show their works and earn recognition and some cash along the way.
Here is a short video explaining how Zooppa works:
Generally, whenever you create a literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual work, you have copyright over that. This means that you have “all rights reserved” - that is, you have exclusive right to reproduce, distribute, and prepare derivative works.
There is an alternative offered by Creative Commons in which an author can choose to merely have some rights reserved. Creative Commons is a non-profit organization which lets an author or creator share his work to the public for free. It seems illogical to just let others copy your work for free, but in this age of open-source innovations, it’s not as crazy as it seems. In fact, there are now over 160 million different images, sounds, films and written works which are CC-licensed.
Creative Commons Australia takes things a step further by holding a competition which lets anyone remix and manipulate a CC material.
The competition, named “Pooling Ideas,” runs from the March 2-23, 2009. The site explains the idea behind the contest:
Digital technology has changed the way we create and share our ideas. A world of music, literature, art and video is now available at our fingertips, and it’s all ours to play with, remix and manipulate. But what does this mean for our ideas of creativity and originality, yours and mine?
Over the next few weeks, we invite you to creatively interpret the theme We are what we share, and upload your creation to Pool. It’s free and there are no time limits or format requirements.
Anyone interested in joining can do anything with CC-provided material. You can tweak an image by adding new elements or by changing the color. You can introduce another instrument to a sound recording. You can edit videos, or mash several videos together. You can remix a poem, or add another chapter to written work. The only limitation is your imagination.
The winner of the competition gets a trophy for you to brag with. More importantly, you can get an internship with Australia’s ABC Radio National to co-produce a Night Air with John Jacobs. The top three entries also receive a USB disk filled with remixable material. Select works will also be showcased at the Ideas Festival and pulled apart by CC Australia’s panel of experts at the “We Are What We Share” seminar held at the State Library of Queensland on March 28.
Below is a video serving as an example of what an contest entry can look like, and explaining at the same time what Creative Commons is.
In today’s uncertain times, every penny counts. For businesses, it is important to minimize unnecessary costs without sacrificing the output. For any individual, getting extra work can also mean extra money for the rainy days.
There are a number of freelance platform sites in which service buyers and sellers can meet. Another site - Serebra Connect tries to make a name in online freelance market.
If you are a service buyer, posting a task is fairly straightforward. You first have to select the job category from a number of choices - whether it is in admin support, writing, finance or whatnot. You then have to enter the task details - indicate what the job entails, the desired skills and/or experience, and your schedule and budget. After reviewing all the details, your job is now up for bidding. You may also just find a seller and hire him directly for a task.
If you are a service seller, you can browse through the jobs and bid on the task of your choosing. Of course, the lower the bid, the better your chances of winning the project. But it is not always an indication that you are going to win the bid, Your qualifications is most likely the main reason why a buyer should pick you. To increase your chances of winning bids, you may opt to become a Serebra Connect Pro. In order to become a Pro, you have to take and pass one or more courses relating to the categories of tasks posted. There is one catch, though: only the first course is free. If you want to take more courses, you have to pay for them.
Serebra Connect is also trying to foster a robust community of buyers and sellers, through its forum and its blog. The blog is specially noted for giving useful tips to buyers in running their business.
It can be observed from the site that the tasks posted are not as many as in other freelance platform sites such as oDesk. This is not necessarily a bad thing. If you are a service buyer, you can take advantage of this because there are more service sellers vying for a small number of jobs. This can result to more cutthroat bidding, which is to your advantage. This may be a disadvantage for the service seller, but if you have a great resume and skill set, this would not really be a problem. All in all, Serebra Connect is worth a try, whether you are a buyer or a seller.
Impressionist painter Vincent Van Gogh is recognized in our time as a brilliant artis 
As to the latter reason, it should not be as hard to sell artwork in our time as before, as there are now more ways of selling nowadays. The internet is one great example of a place where an artist can showcase his work to everyone.
