| Website | danieleckler.com |
| @piccsydaniel |
| University of Toronto - Victoria University, BA | 2008 |
| English, New Media Arts |
Daniel Eckler is the Founder of Toronto-based Piccsy, an image discovery website.
He hopes to compete with top social media contenders, but like many wayward companies, his ultimate revenue plan is somewhat unclear. Piccsy looks like a response to up-and-coming social media giant Pinterest, a website where users “pin” and share images they like online, but Eckler plans to expand its search functionality and eventually compete with Google Images. In beta testing for the last year but open to users, the site gets around 130,000 hits a day, and Eckler plans to have that number at 500,000 by the end of 2012.
The website is free, so the question is, how can those clicks be converted into cash? The company is currently financed by another business owned by Eckler, Everyguyed.com-a men’s style website-and his personal investments, but itwon’t last long without a revenue stream.
Still, Eckler isn’t about to charge his members for access to the site. They’d just find their images somewhere else. Instead, he plans to make money on extras. It’s a common technique, and one that social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram have utilized. … Eckler is taking a unique marketing approach by creating simple software that lets users generate quote images-think LOLcats or the infamous “demotivational” images-with stylized font overlayed onto pictures.
“If I create this thing and share it on Twitter and Facebook and Pinterest and Tumblr and wherever else, it’s going to direct these people back to Piccsy,” Eckler says.
