Now sharing pictures is no more a tedious task. It has become way easier than we could think of. Thanks to the Social Media and other picture-sharing platforms.

I recently stumbled on a start-up called 'Picuous' that is still in its beta stage. It allows you to share your pictures and embed them anywhere..on a blog or a website. I know there is nothing new about it but Picuous' story doesn't end here. It also let you track the views of your pictures. It gives you a full analytics as where your pictures are being shared and how many times it has been viewed. The original uploader will always be credited every-time the picture is embedded at other places.

We have with us, Picuous' co-founder Martin Pannier to give us a detailed version of Picuous. Catch his interview below:


Martin, let's start with a brief introduction of yours.

Hi, my name is Martin, and I’m the co-founder & CEO of Picuous. I’m a 24-yr old French web enthusiast and amateur photographer, with a passion for beautiful user experiences!

Enlighten us with the concept of 'Picuous'.

Picuous brings embedding to pictures. Embedding is the mechanism of displaying content in a way that respects copyright, links to the original author, and allows him to track views and analytics anywhere his content goes! Embedding is a very powerful mechanism — it allows you to turn your pictures into promotional vehicles that spread through social media and the internet, all the while linking back to you.















Tell us about the inception of 'Picuous'. What inspired you to create it?

It all started in March 2009. I was a reader of James Duncan Davidson’s blog, and he took a great shot at a TED conference and posted it on his blog — after which hundreds of online news outlets and blogs reused the picture without authorization or attribution. And I thought, if he had been anything but a photographer, he could have used Scribd (for documents), SoundClound (for sounds), Vimeo/YouTube (for videos)… but since he was a photographer he didn’t have any such platform to put his picture on. Hence Picuous!



What do you think, can 'Picuous' revolutionize the way how people share pictures?

Of course! Today, pictures are shared by an inelegant duplication mechanism (save as, copy-paste), which is tedious and eats up peoples' time. Tomorrow, with Picuous, pictures can be shared anywhere with a single click! Moreover, analytic platforms have allowed content creators everywhere on the internet to optimize their content, and find new and better ways for it to spread… it’s time pictures had an analytic platform of their own!


If you've to list Picuous' three top features/advantages, what would they be?

Your pictures always link back to you — good for traffic and SEO You can track your pictures everywhere they go — know your audience Your pictures are easy to share — more virality!

Share with us your pre-launch experience; what was the major difficulty you faced during that period?

During the pre-launch period, the hardest thing was nailing the features and the experience. In fact, as far as Picuous is concerned, it’s still work in progress as we continue to closely monitor feedback and incorporate it into our weekly releases! But starting off with a blank sheet of paper and deciding what to put in vs leave out was very, very tough. We’re confident that we left out enough things ;)

Would you like to share your dreams/vision for 'Picuous' with us?

Picuous is about changing the way pictures spread on the internet. By taking care of attribution, links, etc., we have photographers who are ready to spread their pictures for free, making them more accessible to a greater number of people. But our big vision is about making pictures interactive: allowing them to merge sounds, meta-data, social media or even product ordering into something more than "just" pictures. Of course this will be the decision of the artist or brand, but we want to build the infrastructure that will make this possible!



























What message do you have for our readers?

 We’re looking for early adopters in e-commerce sector, so we’ll be glad if you give Picuous a spin: please use the code EJUNKIE to gain early access (20 invites available). Early adopters will get three months free when we start charging for Picuous (no strings attached: signing up takes 30" and closing your account even less, so don’t worry). And if you have any feedback I’ll be glad to answer personally, so write me at martin@picuous.com or Skype with me: martin.pannier! Best of luck and good sales!

A quick look at how does 'Picuous' work:

 




Thank you Martin for taking the time for an interview with us, we wish you and Picuous all the success in the future. :)

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