Having been running my own business for a while now I can completely understand you desire to use free product as a way to bring in new customers.



One way you could do this is by requiring anyone wishing to download a background to register. When someone first registers then then receive a limited number of downloads, say five.



At this point the potential customer has full access to all of your work, and can select their favorites, whether they be old or new. Eventually all their friends and family (I know mine have) will comment on how great their backgrounds are, and they will want more.



You've whetted their appetite, but haven't sold them your soul in the process.

since we're talking new stuff and all. and i know this is WAY off topic, but i was googling digitally created 3d wallpapers and an old city one from this site came up and i though to myself that there hasnt really been any new cityscapes such as looking over or at a city or something like that done by you ryan for quite a while now. so just a random though. btw the new site idea is spectacular. though could you clarify what you mean by keeping up with the 21st century?

I didn't see this question until today when the decision was already made. So I'm merely adding that I think it is the right decision. I was willing to put up with some rather imperfect wallpaper until "Haiku" hooked me on Digital Blasphemy and even "Haiku" in the lower resolution would have been adequate for me.



Point is I would likely remain a member because the creator of art needs to make a living to continue to create the art (that I benefit from), even if I could get the art in a satisfactory form free.



I'm not sure everyone would. You made the right choice.

I, too, will REALLY miss the User Gallery. I went hunting for it just yesterday. Please consider keeping it.



Too, since I'm not a Facebook member, I'd like to add my opinion to your Facebook opinion poll. I much prefer the black background with white lettering. The other way around would be too bright -- harder to see the thumbnails that way.



Kaz sez: "I wanted to offer up that I think the User Gallery feature will be missed. I both enjoyed seeing quality works from other artists, and it was a true honor to have some of my own work on your site."

Hi there,



i will always be a member of this website because i hate low resolutions and need dual/triple screen wallpapers.



just offer free wallpapers. it's a good idea in case of getting more members who wants to have better resolutions and formats.



greets

I will always be a recurring paying member annually regardless. BUT... I agree with some others that you shouldn't give up too much of your work for free.



I don't think it's a bad idea to give away a SMALL resolution of your wallpapers but I do think it would be bad to give a small version of ALL of your wallpapers away for free. Maybe decide which ones are "free worthy" (if that's even possible with your great work) and give them away at 800x600 or 1024x768 at max! But I still think it's kind of risky on your end financially as far as adding subscribers. I doubt you'll ever have a problem retaining members. :)



Maybe you can find a middle road on the free end that will "tease" those viewers into purchasing a membership. I do strongly believe in keeping all of the multiple resolutions members only.



It just seems fair to you and us that the good stuff be available to those loyal paying members. I'll be here to support you in whatever you decide.

Hey Ryan



I wanted to offer up that I think the User Gallery feature will be missed. I both enjoyed seeing quality works from other artists, and it was a true honor to have some of my own work on your site. The traffic it generates for guests artisis, as well, is astronomical (and is the reason why so many user images vanish quickly - it can literally overwhelm bandwidth allowances on low end hosting within a day!).



I am glad you decided not to post all your images for free. I think the loss of income to you would be substantial. I just didn't have a chance ot post my thoughts on that yesterday.



Here's another thought... I suspect one of the prime sources of your members are college students. What about offering an education membership for a reduced price for 4 years, and then morph into a regular subscription? Just a thought, though I'm unsure realistic it is to implement.



Thanks as always for the wonderful work!

I certainly will happily continue to pay for the various difefrent sizes and other things on offer. However, I have to say that when I found this site years ago I would probably not have signed up if I could get everything at that resolution anyway as it would alwasy have been perfectly fine for my monitors!

Ryan,



I have spent years playing music for both a living, and to make ends meet, and to fulfill my own need for expression and the issue comes up more often than not… Club owners need to cover their expenses. For some reason younger and less experienced players seem to think that these people have money to burn and to allow their band to play at their venue is an honor. They haven’t had to make a living at it yet.



Silly wabbits…



All artists in some way are struggling to ensure their hart’s desire and sometimes it means making enough to pay the rent… or mortgage.



Your work will always be worth a nominal service charge to have on my desktop. (If you don’t mind) I feel your work has been done for me and I show my appreciation by acknowledging my reasonability to meet your requirements… for your work. (Well done)



The occasional freebee is simply good marketing… but don’t sell short… I think its worth a lot more than you’re asking.



Keep it up, and always shoot high. You do so well at it.





Just a customer…



Matt McNair

Hello!



I am happy with all your creations and your website.



I will be happy no matter what you do.

I know your choices will be the right ones and I will continue to be a confirmed fan.



Blessings,

Joy

As someone who has paid for a lifetime membership, and knowing a few who purchase year to year, why have it at just 3 months for stuff not to be in the free galery? Why not have it for "in the past year"? Also, why update every week? How about once a month? If you make it to attractive for non members to stay non members, then they won't become a member, period!

The plan to combine the galleries would make no difference to me one way or the other. My membership purchase is to support you as an artist, not necessarily just to download wallpapers.

Hey,



Is there any possibility that as part of your server upgrade work you could provide a web form based login option?



The current authentication system doesn't play nice with my password manager (http://passwordmaker.org).

I paid you money because I've loved your images ever since I first came across them six years or so ago.



I would have paid you in whichever way you offered as a payment option (donation, subscription, one time, whatever). My point of view was selfish - I wanted you to keep making pictures - so here's some money to help you do that.



Admittedly I upgraded to lifetime as your recent offer was a great deal. So long as I don't HAVE to pay more money in the future and you keep providing your wonderful pictures, I'm happy.



Wishing you best of health...

Just received your email about DB being at a crossroads. From your post on the Members site, it looks like you've already made a decision. But since I am a lifetime member, having paid the fee prior to the revelation of your illness, I would like to leave my views.



If the issue is the free site being stale, then my suggestion would be to set a timeline, say three months, that a new piece will sit in the Members site before moving over to the Free site. Obviously, this means we'll be in winter before those Autumn scenes show up, but that's the cost of Membership.



As to what to offer, make two versions, one for standard screen, one for wide screen. A site I like to go to is Iconfactory. They offer wallpapers occasionally, one at 1600x1200, another at 2560x1600. No mobile versions, no dual or triple monitor versions. And the wallpapers are free to download.



My two cents worth. Thanks for the great work that you do. Safe and Happy Holidays to you, your family, and your viewers.

FYI one of the reason I decided to send in the money for a subscription was that it would give me access to many, many images from your archives. So for $25 I got more than a hundred images that I liked enough to download; altogether very cheap. The big stack of archive images was an incentive to subscribe; so I would advise against, for example, making all images more than a year old free.



FYI also; My Mac operating system 10.4 "Tiger" lets you create a folder, put whatever picture files you want in the folder, and specify that folder as your desktop background. The OS will then cycle through your pictures at whatever intervals you specify, expanding or shrinking as needed to make the picture fit the screen (no distortion, some cropping if the aspect ratio is off.) Since I got broadband I have downloaded thousands of free pictures off the net, my desktop background changes every five minutes. So, this may be different from what you imagine, that people will be keeping one of your pictures as their background for weeks.

I'm a lifetime member so i'm here regardless of what you do, but I personally don't think it's a good idea. I don't even know about switching a new one every week. Say you put out about 25 images a year give or take 56 weeks in a year, in one year you've given out more than 2 years work. When I was leeching off the free gallery all through Christmas I still checked in every week or so to see if there was a new wallpaper in the free gallery all the while wanting the new one that was just posed. Which was of course the main reason I got a membership when I got a job and finished grad school. It also didn't hurt when I built my computer and got a HD monitor (kinda like seeing your art for the first time again.)



Most "normal" laptops run a resolution of around 1280x800 which a lot of the resolutions tossed around could easily be shrunk/cropped/stretched to fit most of their screens well enough not to need to buy a membership. I even stretched one of the Halloween previews on my laptop & it was passable...



If I were still using my laptop and you offered that I might not have become a member, knowing i'd only have to wait a month more for the new wallpapers, (most people that have laptops would be fine with the free membership then and you'd only be tempting people with larger HD & Multi screen users.



I'd still make people wait for the new Phone images too. at the very least release them a wallpaper behind. People might get that phone envy & entice them to sign up. Same with maybe the holidays, a year behind or something.

I have always loved your work, and they have graced all of my desktops over the years. I used to leach and only use images from the free gallery, and then one year I bought a CD of your work, and I was very impressed with the other images that were members only.



At that point I then turned around and bought a lifetime membership.



Since then I've picked up a few other things from the DB Zazzle store, kinda to make up for the years that I leached off of the free gallery.



Needless to say, offering all of the images for free would likely drive down the incentive to buy a membership.

I like the idea, as a business man such ideas help promote a higher "Hit rate" on your site thus, enticing new member fellowship. With your facebook page as the perfect advertizing medium, it should go very nicely. As far as freebie galleries, I'd offer your 1600/1200 images... If a person REALLY wants one to fit their monitor, they'll subscribe. I'm a life member 'cause I LOVE YOUR WORK! I thing the free mobile section will be a hit thouth, I...wouldn't...offer...all...or...your..."treats" as freefrom that realm. Pssst,"they'll pay for a subscription, believe it."

I have a "life time" membership so it realy does not matter to me, BUT if I only had a yearly membership I would be a pit annoyed. It is great to hav access to HD resolutions but as you said most people can get by with out them.

Does this lessen the value of being a Member for you?



yes

Hi Ryan,

I purchased a lifetime membership after subscribing for a couple of years. I did so because I saw your level of commitment and wanted to support your endeavours (and because I wasn't a student any longer!)



However my initial membership purchase wouldn't have happened if I could access your complete library. The mystery of what is there provides a strong subscription incentive.



If you sold images on an individual basis, better to be priced higher that what others have suggested. Perhaps about 4 images equals 1 yr membership. This is because people may enjoy browsing your entire library (in low-res, for free) and there would likely be only a few favourites they have a strong reaction to and will really want as wallpaper. If the price is too low per image, you wont be making much from repeat visitors with this habit.



Thanks for all your great work.



Maki

In this day and age we have to do what we can to make a living. If you have to give away some images to get additional members to help you keep going, I say do what you need to do. I will still be here enjoying your images.



Great Job and keep up the good work>



Bradkw1219

i don't like to complain, but i really really don't think, that making the pictures availerble to nonmembers, would be a good idea.

fist of all you lose fonding, because people will have less reason to sign up for a membershib.

at the same time, people, who pay (or have paid for life) will feel, that they pay/have paid for much much less than before. some might even stop paying in the future, because they don't need all the diffrent sizes.



sorry, but i just don't think, that it is a very good idea.

Thought I would mention that I also wrote something this morning with regards to your proposal Ryan, both on Facebook and my blog.



As always, GREAT work Ryan!



http://blog.johnnysork.ca

Just a question about the new site, will it extinguish the old news updates, since they will now be seen by all?



'Cause I enjoy reading them.

I would have signed up with your proposed new structure and will certainly renew with it.



For me, joining was a matter of supporting you as an artist, not a matter of getting access to more goodies. Still, I think that keeping the higher resolution and different aspect versions for members only is a good plan.

I agree that a free gallery would reduce the felt worth of a DB-membership. And i think quite a few ppl will not get a membership if they get all the pictures for free at a reduced size (enough for most screens and handhelds/phones).



To allow non-members to download some of the pictures is a great idea though. :-)

Sorry I didn't get a chance to post yesterday, but as a lifetime member, I'd still like to give my opinion. I think allowing free members to download every piece of artwork you design really dimineshes the value of having a membership, especially a lifetime membership. I like how you do it now, post a few piece for free members to get them interested, but leave the whole gallery to members only. Thanks and keep up the great digital art!!!



Aaron

The reason I purchased a membership is because I kept seeing all these great wallpapers for members only and the wait was to long to see them in the freebies. Plus I wanted access to your archives. I think you should limit your freebies as you do now. I don't see how giving your recent product away will make you more money.

Ryan,



I like the idea. I will still continue to renew every single year regardless of what you offer for free because I believe in paying for a good product. Take SomaFM for another example; all their music is free to listen to, but I occasionally donate to help them pay their bills too.



Not everyone can accomplish what you're talking about but since you have such a FANTASTIC product that you won't have any problems.



Eliminating the wide screens from the free gallery is a wonderful idea, in my opinion. So many computers are now-a-days coming standard with wide screens, that if you offered a similar wide screen free image, what would ever be the point to pay for your service? Giving away a standard 4:3 is perfect to have people get a very very decent offering of your service.



Besides, it's not like you're charging a crazy amount of money either! You're barely charging more than $1/month and there are some crazy things people pay for out there that don't make sense.



All you need to worry about (from me at least) is doing your job. I love your work and look forward to new material all the time; even if I have to wait for 3-4 weeks sometimes. If you keep cranking out the backgrounds, believe me you'll keep getting my renewal good sir :)

Ryan,



I've been a DB member for nearly 10 years. I will continue to be a member, too, given that I appreciate what you do so much. However, if you do make your proposed changes, let me make the following suggestions (having NOT read any of the posted comments...)



1. Would I have joined 10 years ago if a higher than VGA res wallpaper was available for free? No. Probably not. If an 800x600 version was available back when 1024x768 screen was about as big as it got, I would not have given you membership fees over the past 10 years. I would have leeched the free res image and streached it to what I wanted (or used to upsize it).



2. Is 1152x864 too small? No. Its too big. Most people are using 1280x1024 or smaller monitors/LCD's and may still be running 98 or XP. Offering something that large will likely hurt sales for you; and we don't want that to happen. I'd give away 1024x768 and no bigger, if I were to do it at all.



Offering something extra to newbies to gain traffic is a good idea, but don't think that everyone has a decent sized monitor. My wife's laptop does 1024x768; and she doesn't use it with a docking station or monitor. Its truly a LAPtop. I think most people may be in a similar situation in this economy. Computer upgrades for most are off "the list," as are new PC's. They're going to make what they have work as long as they can.



Why would someone like her want to get bigger images when she can get what she needs for free? Why buy the cow when the milk is free?



I hope this helps

Ryan, In the event of leeching off of your free gallery for about a years worth of time, I came to the conclusion that I wanted more recent updates to better looking wallpapers.



After all, your free gallery did not rotate very often, and I kept seeing released in the members gallery of much more stunning quality, and much more frequently. If you rotate out a new image every week, you will be giving people something new so they do not have motivation to subscribe, and if you release recent work, you are releasing the best of your work out for free, not stuff from 2007 and below (which obviously is somewhat lesser compared to what is released now).



For example: The goal is to basically have someone walk by, look at YOUR window display in the mall with all your membership material inside of it, and then look outside with such little offerings. When they walk by again and notice that new stunning work is released, and the same ol' stuff as last time being released for the non-members, they will eventually become tempted to pay to get through the door to have your member material. If you keep giving out new materials often to people who aren't members, they'll always think "hey, a new image comes around next week!"

I think the free stuff was a little lacking and made the site a little elitist. I agree in theory with Bryan, the only thing I would change would be the time frame of putting the freebies up. A week or two as soon as they are released, or longer. Also keep the the number of freebies at a fixed amount. as new are added, remove the old ones.

As to the size, a cliche comes to mind" why buy the cow when you get the milk for free". I would keep it as recommend.

Thanks

End of comment...

I have loved your walls for years. So there's my fan tribute, right up front!



I am glad to hear you are redesigning the site and my only suggestion is that I hope, hope, you are putting it on a white or off-white background.



Why? Because I can only visit your site for a short duration because the high contrast (black background / white text) is too hard on my eyes! Exacerbates headaches.



Keep up the good work, and I am glad to hear your health has been improving.

I agree with the what one of the other comments was said. I would not have bought a membership if all the beautiful images you create were offered for free. At the same time I know times are changing with the weak economy and all, and your free stuff is what attracted me to DB. Even though I didn't buy a membership for two years because of $$ So I don't know I have mixed feeling about it. But whatever you decide I'm sure will be the right choice for you.



I wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas.

To tell you the truth, I am not sure that I would have purchased a membership if all the inages were available for free. As you say, at the proposed resolution the images will work for most screens, whether stretched or not.

Hi!



The new rate for members is fine with me. I really enjoy the wonderful artwork and I am willing to continue to pay something towards your efforts.



I concur with the general opinion of having some free items, but in a very limited quantity so that being a Member of DigitalBlasphemy holds its value.



Happy Holidays!!



DobsonUnit

A friend got me hooked on the free gallery when I was in college and had peanuts to spend on a membership. I thought that was awesome until a friend that I got hooked on the free gallery went ahead and bought a membership, and I was able to see your more recent work. I was so amazed that I immediately purchased a year's membership. When your lifetime memberships went on sale last year, I could not resist that offer.



I like the free gallery approach that you currently have, because even your older stuff is outstanding. It limits the potential customer to a specific set of a few images that are rotated out every so often. The idea of offering the mobile images for free sounds like a really interesting one, because as people run around with their phones, someone might say, "Whoa... cool background image! Where did you get that?" I think it still might be a good idea to offer only a select few mobile images at a time, however. Offering all of them, just not as a zip file will only slow down people who want freebies, not stop them.



With the new Windows 7, users now have the ability to use an entire folder of images as their desktop backgrounds, set as a desktop slideshow. I have been downloading the .zip archives and using them this way since I upgrade to Windows 7, and that feature alone, coupled with your artwork, was more than worth the $130 upgrade price. It would be my hope that people who know about that feature would immediately want to purchase a subscription.



I have raved about your artwork to friends and family, and encouraged all of them to buy memberships. The yearly rate is so low that it's practically a crime. Starbucks charges more for a cup of coffee.



My last thought would be a payable alternative to those who do not purchase a membership. Offer the free gallery and the ability to browse thumbnails of everything, but offer a 25-50 cent download fee for pictures that are not in the free gallery. That way, people get the best of both worlds. You get paid, and they get the images they want at the resolution they want. At 50 cents, ten downloads is already roughly a year's subscription price. Most apps in the iPhone store are 99 cents, and people buy them in droves. Hopefully, this is a way for your artwork to cover the world, and for you to still make a living well enough to continue to produce more of this spectacular, unique, and masterful artwork.

About the free random images, I think the random pickup criteria should be up to 1 year before the current date, I think that up to 3 months before the current date is much too close to current releases to give away for free. Just my two cents.

I would have no problem whatsoever with you starting to give away some of your prints. In fact I would encourage it for the exact same reasons you stated are behind your plans. As a photographer I am about to launch a stock image gallery where I will be giving away most shots under a creative commons license and completely free for non-commercial use. I believe this is good for the artists (gets the work seen by more), good for the community (free access for non-profits) and good for the global pool of intellectual and artistic creations. Go for it Ryan!

I've got a lifetime membership, and would have purchased one regardless of the available free stuff, especially due to the fact that I've got numerous different sized monitors, and I truly appreciate the art.



I would hate to see this affect your income/ability to continue, but I think there are enough people in your current fan base, if you feel comfortable with this change, then by all means, jump in with both feet!

Hi Ryan,



I became a member, because I wanted to have access to all your pictures. If they had all been free I may not have.



cheers

Maybe it is possible to offer some of the large sizes to "Free" members, but with large watermarks across the image, so that they can know what to expect :).



That would personally pull me over the edge into getting a membership... so close, but just not ;)



-- Daanoz

I think you have made a great compromise between giving it all away for free and making sure the members have value for their dues.

I am a lifer too, your fees are more than reasonable, and honestly I would only offer the old galleries for free if at all, and maybe only a small size of them, which may in turn bring in more members.



I love your work, its awesome, thanks for all of it.

I'm a lifer so any changes to a membership on a personal level is a moot point but please, to protect yourself Ryan and your revenue stream just don't give anything away for free, especially at the moment with the recessions in full swing.

Ryan, free samples should not be drawn from at least the last 12 - 24 months of your work. Three months is peanuts I would see so many people just waiting instead of joining. Your membership costs are reasonable so do not do this. Also I am excited about the new look, DB has been this way for so many years :-)



R/Tom

Ryan,

I took the time to read through all 200+ comments to your post before adding my voice. I've been a member for close to 10 years, and will continue to renew regardless of what you choose to do.



There seems to be two general lines of thought within the comments. There are those who are buying the artwork, and those who are supporting the artist. While they may amount to the same thing, the motives are very different.



Those who are buying the artwork have concerns that your proposal will not motivate new users to purchase a membership, that they will settle for the limited resolution or live with the watermark or whatever else is set in place as a means of enticement to membership. There are many comments in the "Why buy the cow?" vein. I think these people have a valid argument, but there will always be people who are only looking at the product with a "What's in it for me?" eye.



Those who are supporting the artist have concerns that you might suffer a loss of income. I'm not too sure of that. I see numerous examples where giving away the work for free has benefited the artist in the long run. I am thinking of authors like Scott Sigler, Tee Morris, J. C. Hutchins and others who have a very large fan base and have landed some major book deals by giving away their work. While I know that there is a difference between artwork and the written word, the business model seems sound to my way of thinking.



The large number of comments here should indicate that you've a large fan base. I don't think you are in jeopardy of losing it whatever you decide.



I'll support the artist . . . so my advice, like some others who have posted is ask your wife :-)



Good luck whatever you decide.

I agree with your assessment and do not feel that my membership is diminished in any way.



I value your work and will continue to contribute to your success.



my best,

cody

For years I visited your open gallery to see if any new work was published, I visited your site many times to see if anything new had been added! I loved your work so much I finely broke down and became a member. I think you should not change anything, DO NOT GIVE YOUR WORK AWAY FOR FREE! Your members are our own private group, if new persons would like to become part of or group, than let them join us. Before I had become a member I did not care what size the downloads were, I was just glad I had a photo for free. KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!!! TOM.

Ryan, I think it is a bad idea to offer a free version of your newest work. That should be reserved for members only. I think the size offering is a good idea, but only of your previous work.



I think you should show thumbnails of your new work to non members, but not allow download.



If I had access to your newest work at 1152 X 864, I probably wouldn't have purchased a membership.

First, let me say that I've been a member for a few years now, and have really enjoyed the results of all the work you've put into your art.



As a member I would have no problems with a small free gallery of artwork rotating selections throughout the hundreds of pieces you've got. Certainly, the most recent art should go to members first. But maybe something like the 320x200 size you've made available for smart phones would be available for free just to entice new members?



Good Luck!

Kevin

What drew me in was wanting to be able to see all of your work, and be able to download them. I probably would not have paid initially for a membership if I could access everything, just only in one size. Knowing what I do now, with the dual screen and the multiple sizes, I'm happy to pay for the membership, but I don't think you would have been able to entice me originally.

I used to utilize the free gallery for sometime before I decided to join as a paid member. The only reason I joined was so that I could get access to download the images that were not offered for free. Personally, I probably would not have joined at all if I could downoad anything I wanted. Offering WS and Mobile to members only is an incentive I would have considered, but I am not sure that it would have been enough to convince me to join when I did.



On the other hand, I have enjoyed my membership and may continue beyond expiration if the renewal rates in the future are at a reasonable discount to offset the free images for non-members you offer.



Just my honest opinion.

The reason I'm a member is to support your work so you have the freedom to create more of the art I enjoy. If you turned around and eliminated the member/free distinction and gave everyone unrestricted access to everything it wouldn't change that at all.



I feel sorry for the folks who get upset when an artist starts giving away something they paid for. Yes, if you had waited you could have had it for free, but then you'd be taking without giving and that is an imbalance that we have been far too casual about these days.



At this point if you eliminated memberships entirely but provided a donate button I would continue to pay for your work that way. I try very hard to insure that I give more than I take whenever I can. This gives me the satisfaction of knowing that the world is a better place with me in it. This in turn makes me a much happier person than I would be without this.

Granted that I'm using an eMac that is at least seven years old, still I observe that 800x600 is enough resolution to give me a satisfactory desktop picture. Of course I prefer higher res than that, but if all of your artwork was available for free at 800x600, I probably wouldn't have paid to get a membership. Certainly the 1024x764 or whatever that you are proposing would have been more than good enough, I would have downloaded all your stuff for free and never subscribed.



I note that the National Geographic Picture of the Day Archives, for a number of past years, offers 1024x764 (or whatever) as its highest resolution for wallpaper. There are many, many websites that offer higher-res wallpapers for free, making their money from ads. (I find some of your artwork available on such sites.) If you want to continue operating on a subscription basis, you really better restrict most of your work to paying subscribers.



I urge you to keep your present system, with a free gallery, occasionally refreshed and rotated, and the great bulk of your material visible only in thumbnails for nonmembers. If you want to make all of your work available for free, do it with a five-year delay, all work older than five years available for free.

If I were a non-member, I wouldn't waste my time with images that are only 1152 x 864. For one, I have a widescreen monitor, and second, that's too small in my opinion to be worth it.



Honestly, I think the way you have it now -a few sample wallpapers available for free download- would be most attractive for me (looking at it from a non-member perspective).



You could change it around though and let them decide which wallpapers they want to download. Maybe allow 10 free downloads before they need to subscribe.

I am not sure.

Part of the reason I paid to become a member is that we have access to more of your work and I am happy to keep paying every year.

However, I would support you no matter what you decide as I love your work.

Good luck with whatever you decide x

When I found your site about 2 years ago, the free images with a resolution of 1152 x 864 did just fine on my old 1280 x 1024 monitor. I didn't stretch them; I left a black border around them. That was really OK for me. If there had been all of your images, I would not have subscribed!

Today, I use a Full HD screen, so the situation is different again. I joined to get the high res images for my new monitor.



You could say that most people have big screens nowadays, but I don't think so. As laptops are swamping the traditional desktops more and more, and as most PCs at workplaces have no HD monitor, there is no such great need for high res wallpapers that you would want to pay for it.



And yes, laptops usually have quite high resolutions, but when the screen is smaller, you won't see the differences between hi and low res pictures so easily.



Even with my big monitor, I don't think I would renew my membership if you published all your works for free. I would accept the black border or maybe mix several images together.



Hopefully you can understand my non-native English ;-)

I agree totally to what you propose. I will continue to support (easy to say since I paid a lifetime membership).



The most important fact for me is that you can continue to produce such outstanding art.



I love the possibility to have different formats, and by neing a member allows me to download all of them (my screen at work, home and on my labtop have all different resolutions, so it's perfect for me).



Please continue your great work.



Sylvain Robert, Canada

aka The Wanderer

I would strongly advise you against making your images available for free. You are running one of the few sites on the internet that has succeeded in charging for content. This is a rare success. If there is a "free" option, most people will take it: see http://www.predictablyirrational.com/?page_id=178



If the free images are "good enough" the supply of new sign-ups will quickly dry up. 128-bit mp3 files didn't sound nearly as good as CDs, but they killed CDs because they were "good enough." Beware!

It wouldn't have changed my decision to sign up for a membership if you gave away your new work at a set resolution size. I say go with your gut feeling to eliminate the difference between the free/members gallery. I know that before I became a member there would be stretches of months when I checked the site because I knew that the members gallery was updated much more frequently.

Let me join the chorus urging you to protect yourself, Ryan. I'm not one of those who thinks that if someone else gets more I must be getting less; my membership is just as valuable to me regardless of what you do *as long as you can remain in business*.



If you want to allow free browsing of the whole gallery I'd suggest, as others have, showing thumbnails but limiting downloads. 1152x864 is probably the maximum freebie resolution because it will look reasonably good at 1280x1024 (still a very common size) but will lose a lot if stretched to match the widescreen displays that are sold on pretty much everything these days.



Also, don't forget that netbooks are the hottest-selling segment still, and most of them are 1024x600. Those users will want access to the widescreen versions because a 4:3 image won't look good on their screens.



Have you considered requiring non-members to register with a valid email address in order to download from the free gallery? If you do that you can allow non-members to download and even keep statistics on what they download, plus you can limit them to X number of downloads or only certain resolutions. (Yes, some will cheat by registering multiple emails, but those folks probably wouldn't ever buy a membership anyway.)



My 2 cents.

I disagree with those saying it would lower the value... Seeing your high resolution work is what drawed me to become a member in the first place. In this day and age 1152 is not even close to a standard resolution. You need a ws res such as 1440x900 if you want to lowball them. 1152 is like not offering anything and IMO is much worse than you are doing now by offering some of your works at high res. One thing you might consider is making an Iphone resolution free like you do with your Facebook page, though I am sure some would disagree. You might also consider allowing free members to have a free account that would allow them to download 1-2 full wallpapers in whatever resolution per month. (I.E: Each res would count as one wp, so if a person wanted one wp in 1920x1200 and in 320x480 that would be 2 wp)

Since things are running smoothly I wouldn't advise posting all of the art work for free. If they all had been for free when I first found your site I would not have signed up. One idea that came to me would be to add 10 - 15 more wallpapers on the free page to give examples of more of the different types of wallpapers that are available when they do sign up.

I know what you are saying but as many others seem to think it will be a retrograde step as regards income for you. It does not lessen my membership - I paid the charge as an acknowledgement of your work but there are others out there who may not be as fortunate as me to have spare cash yet still paid as they wanted access to everything.

You asked what I think, so I'll offer you a couple of opinions. For a few months, I used some of the images from your free gallery as wallpapers for my computers. It was a welcome break on the eyes from the fare I'd been using. I sometimes used images of my own as well.



However, I really like your work. You offer some dark images I prefer as wallpaper (less bright and thus less hard on my old eyes), so I decided to support your work and signed up. A year later I renewed my membership. I believe the workman is worth his wage.



About another year passed and you offered a break on a lifetime membership, so I decided to commit and became a lifer.



So, that's how I got here, FWIW. Now, in thinking about your question, I don't think the change you describe (offering a complete set of images in a single size) will harm my membership. I believe I received the value I expected (and more) from my support.



I don't know whether the change you're contemplating will achieve your goal of increased exposure (and increased sales) or not. However, it isn't a bad idea and you could always do this on a trial basis (maybe 30 days) and then stop if you don't achieve your goals.



That's what I think...



Best...

You will lose money in the long run if you do this. Why not just expand the free gallery by 5 or 10? You have enough work to do this. Personally speaking, I love the membership to this site and would do it again either way. So yea, I contradicted myself there :)

On one hand I joined as a memeber to take advantage of your unbelievable multiscreen images. With your new idea that is still a member privilege so I feel happy on that aspect.



On the other hand I believe that your works are too unique for you to offer all of your works for free and at the resolution you mentioned. I would saw lower the res to say 800 x 600, or only give out a few of your works from previous months and/or years. This way the new images stay a member benefit and will entice individuals to join.



Just my perspective. Have a good one Ryan.

I joined and eventually bought a life membership to support your work as an artist. I do not feel what you have planned would in any way lead me to "regret" my choices.



Onward and upward!

I think that if you go free, people won't pay. I pay yearly, and this is my second year. I personally am more than willing to pay for this, but at the same time, if it is free, I may not continue...I'm just being brutally honest. If you keep charging me, I'll keep paying, if you let me have it for free, I probably won't. You have such reasonable rates as it is, I think you should keep it like it is. Your free gallery being limited is about the perfect marketing tool for you. Keep it that way, please.

...or something similar.

I would still continue paying for membership but as you mentioned it would lose a little value for me if such a large size (maybe not large by "today's standards" but still a decent resolution) was offered for free. If you want to give away a free image for every piece I think you should do it at 800x600 or at the most, 1024x768. I doubt many people use 800x600 anymore but they could at least get a good look at the work that is better than a thumbnail. Me, I am at 1280x1024 so your idea of a free image is not that much smaller. Please take it down a notch or two if you are going to go ahead with this.

Well... what I would recommend is something like: if you’re a not a member you can see all your work in 1152 x 864 like you explained execpt the 3 or 4 most recent wallpapers. And have the 3 or 4 most recent wallpapers only available to see via thumbnails to make membership more exclusive. It would make my having a membership more VIPish. Just a thought...

I've been a member for several years now and I finally was able to come up with the cash for a lifetime membership, and now, less then a year later it may have been a waste.



I LOVE your work and look forward to all of the new wallpapers that you will create. I have looked at a few other wallpaper sites and think that this may be a bad move...

I have already invested for the long run so whether or not it happens will have very little affect over how much money will come from me, but I just am against it. I feel like putting this into effect would pull from the exclusivity of being a member. Having thumbnails of everything is good, and a new wallpaper in a single format is fine, but to have everything you have done available, even in a single format, just allows those that are too lazy or cheap to bother with the membership to have been given a chunk of gold. Granted, this will be a big step in advertisement, so I will state my stand as thus:



If you are tight on money, perhaps this advertisement isn't so bad. But if you are just fine without the change, I would rather you didn't make the change.



By the way, this is my first post ever in my nearly year long membership and longer still following of your work, showing how strongly I am feeling about this subject. Keep up the work, and whatever is the case, I will still be logging in often enough.

I agree that while having a free gallery for all images would be nice because it means not having to spend that money each time your membership is up, but you would lose a lot of money because many people wont renew your membership

mr

I have read some of the comments....I like the idea of offering one a month or on a select few. I paid for a membership to get the different resolutions. I LOVE your work...I have been a member for years...but...if DB were a free site...I dont know if I would have paid for a membership. I value my membership, I dont DB should be a freebie site. Happy Holidays!!

I don't have time to read all 118 comments but as a member I feel that if there is a free image of all your work then it lessens my need for paying.



As a paying member I expected to get all the new images and not just some selective ones which are now in the free gallery.



To change this regardless of resolution would cause me and most likely a lot of others to stop being members.



Just my opinion.



Mark

I dont have time to read all the comments so some of this may be duplicated...



I for one agree with alot of people here in that if you offer a free version of every image (regardless of resolution) you will probibly loose money. I would be willing to guess that %95 of people would just take that image and strech it to fit whatever monitor/resolution they are currently running. I am a lifetime member and will continue to support you whatever you do (love my new 2010 calendar BTW), but I think this is a bad move.



If you want to sweeten the freebie gallery how about every three months or so posting (in the 1024x768 res with the big watermark across the image) the top rated image from all your new work?



Cyb

I'll continue to renew my membership. I wouldn't post the 1152 x 864 as freebies. I'd go 1024 x 768 (or less). You want to entice new members in, using the higher res will harm your growth potential in the future iterations of DB. I've come to value my membership more and more over the last couple of years, and feel it's well worth the money to be a member.



Chad

But I think that messing with a good thing will come back to bite you. Now you only know the logistics behind a move like this. Maybe you need to mix things up to get more revenue flowing. Personally I think you're going to lose a lot of money. As someone who has purchased several yearly subscriptions before a lifetime subscription at $99 you've more than justified my donations. I'd just hate to see you lose a good revenue stream for someone that's been doing this for a long time.



But you know your business best. So good luck with whatever path you choose.

I think this is a good idea, mainly because it means potential members can see your latest work and try it out. It'll also let me point people to whatever I have on my desktop when they ask, and they'd be able to have a high(ish) resolution one for themselves.



I can't speak for the rest of the world but I would never have been able to make to with just 1152*864 -- even on a 5:4 screen the intended 4:3 aspect would look all wrong to me stretched or scaled. (I'm one of the guys who gets very uncomfortable when something on TV is being broadcast in the wrong aspect...) That'd be plenty to make me sign up already, but then add on top of that that I run three screens at home and two at work, so the deal would be well and truly sealed in my case.

I will definitely continue to renew my membership because I need widescreen resolutions and I want to support you.



But there will be a certain amount of people who don't mind the artwork being stretched/cropped enough to sign up. So how much business is that going to cost you?

Honestly, and I hate to admit this, but…if I could have downloaded any image for free I never would have bought the membership. You are extremely talented and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the current system or, perhaps, edders77’s idea. Give people an inch and they’ll take a mile and you’ll lose revenue. I think it’s wonderful that you want to be that generous, but you’ve been through too much and work too hard to start giving ALL of your work away for free.

I believe that having a non member sign up for a free download,one per month and any Rez will keep the full membership worth having .



Having a freebee each month might entice some to purchase a membership.



ED

Hi Ryan





The membership is for people who really value your work & fully support it.



Opening up the site for free will seriously de-value the Membership we all hold in high value.



In the end it doesnt matter how much less or more you give for free ... The site & your stunning artwork is given good exposure as a lot of people gift memberships & do the random acts of kindness.



People who are seriously after good artwork will see the value & benefit in becoming a member.



Fixing the max free resolutions at 1024x800 is a good idea ... This size is the perfect "carrot" it's what made me join as I liked the images but wanted the higher 1152 x 864 resolution.



Making the higher resolution available free will not take away your true fans as most of us are lifetime members but might stop members with shorter renewal periods from renewing.



Cheers,

It wouldnt lessen being a member for me , however I dont think I would offer "all" your work, it gives people no reason to become a member, What I would probably do is expand the free section, put a fwe of the higher rated works in, also maybe put some thumbnails of your other work so all can see, I think this would be like dangling a carrot in front of a rabbit, it should create buisness, by adding all your work (one size) in the free gallery then you get "that's good enough" people and no extra buisness, I myself will always be a member



merry christmas Ryan and family and to all the members

Rick

that should be "a month or two", not "week.

I'm OK with offering a single version of your images for free on your site, but I think it really cheapens the membership. Giving the members access to new images for a week or two before free users would be ideal. A full gallery of your work is OK, just not the whole shebang all at once. Give us a little carrot, at least.



I'm a permanent member and have been for a couple years now, so it doesn't matter in the long run what I have to say because other than gifting memberships (which I've done a couple times) and pointing other possible memberships your way, you won't see more money from me.

I personally think that it wouldn't work on the long run. People having paid for the membership (especially those who purchased a lifetime access) wouldn't be "amused" about this move.

But it could be a good idea to limit the free gallery for example to all wallpapers being older than one or two years. Or perhaps to change the wallpapers in the free section every month or so. In this case people would still have to pay for getting access to all wallpapers immediately.

Think that could be a way.

I have to agree with what seems to be the consensus here (not gonna read 170 comments). Making everything free seems like you'd lose business. I'd still support you since it's only $2 a month, but if a loss adds up then you'd be in trouble. What I think you should do is if you want to change the setup (personally I think it's fine), keep the free gallery with 10-20 1152x864, 1280x1024 and 1680x1050 versions which get cycled in and out periodically, the members gallery with the same or similar pricing with the whole slew of sizes, AND a gallery that has your newest... say, 3 wallpapers at 1152x864 that are only up for like 2 weeks each. I think this would give a better taste of what people could have as members and in turn incentive to support you. Best of luck in whatever you end up doing. =)

Being a lifetime member, I don´t feel that the value of my subscription would drop or anything BUT being a lifetime fan of your artwork I'd hate to see the change messing you up financially. Like you said, this is actually paying your bills, so there is no room for errors.



For me the current site arrangement is working perfectly but that might have something to do with the fact that I always go straight to the triple screen collection. If you want to open up the whole gallery for preview purposes I'd go for somehow rotating the availability and offering just the 800x600 and 960x540 versions. Like b0bb1ns said, one should not underestimate people's cheapness.

Personally I think giving your stuff away for free will kill your paid site stone dead. It's the difference between how many people pay for shareware and how many people pay voluntarily for 'donationware'.



I'd still pay, but I wonder how many others would? I'd be very surprised if you're still able to pay the bills at the end of it. What's the motivation? I can't see that greater exposure benefits you if everyone is getting your stuff for free unless ads somehow compensate.



At present, DB images have value. Once they become free as in beer, people are not going to want nor expect to pay for them again. And yes, it does devalue existing memberships.



Just my initial reactions.



Rich

Ryan



I do feel that your proposed new website offering all your works, in one size for free, and the other sizes being charged for does lower the value of my life time membership.



Perhaps a good compromise would be to offer all the works in the one size for free, but with more promient watermark than your current works. Then offer non-members the option to by an minimally watermarked version singularly rather than having to be a member.



Whilst I like almost all your works, there are some that I wouldn't have paid for, but the vast majority make the membership worthwhile. Having a one time download option may encourage those who are after just a single image to pay for only those that they like.



While it may be time for a new website, the one thing I do like about the current one, is that due to there not being too many flashy items it does load and run very fast, and I hope that you retain that aspect of it.

I would have still joined because I love your ridiculously high res versions as I use triple 1280x1024 and I'm pretty sure Photoshop isn't THAT good :). This idea is great because if people like what they see but want the great quality and sizes for all their devices (TV's laptops desktops projectors, phones) then they can join. Besides this is a great way to show off ALL of your wallpapers to the public. Thumbs up!

This is not a good idea, a lot of people will quit paying for your galleries.

I became a member because I wanted some of the wallpapers in the members gallery.

If they were available for free, even at a lower resolution, I may not have joined.

Photoshop can uprez pretty good. Why join?

I began just downloading the wallpapers you made available for free. What caused me to buy a membership (apart from liking your work, obviously) was the access to all your work. A secondary consideration (at the time) was the range of sizes



I could download your work in.

While the latter is more important now, the ability to download all of your work was the important one.



I think making a limited, perhaps rotating, section of your work available in limited sizes is the best way to go to balance the 'drag them in' with the 'keep them here'.



Also, I think your idea about ads for non-members, and no ads for members works well.

Please forgive me for not reading all 160+ comments, so I may be repeating stuff.



Eliminating the free site, and just having one with login for members is good.



I became a member to get the variety, then lifetime because I wanted to support you and because I kept renewing.



I think 1152x864 is too large to publish for free. I would be debating with myself whether to become a member if I could have that. 1024x768 is max, and 800x60 is probably better. Or the iPhone variant as some suggest.



And I think the idea to allow people to buy individual wallpapers is good, though it might be technically difficult.

I know I already chimed in but I'd just like to second one of the other suggestions I saw: make it possible to purchase your wallpapers a la carte, for something like 99 cents for all available resolutions (plus the pickle jar) of a single image. I think wallpaper would make an excellent impulse buy and you'd be able to offer users a cheaper alternative to a subscription without necessarily cannibalizing your income. That way, the people that either can't afford a subscription or only want a small subset of your gallery can get their money's worth and still support you, and those that want access to the whole thing will still subscribe.

Please keep it as is; a few free selected ones and then membership gets added versions and varieties of sizes.

I personally think your current free vs. paid setup works fairly well, though I obviously don't know how the financial aspect of this site is working for you. That said, while I don't mind tweaks to what the dividing line between free and paid is, I don't think giving away all your images at a relatively high 1152 x 864 resolution is a good idea. There are *far* too many devices out today that are less than that resolution and for most people, I think it'd be good enough to make them not want to pay. Since I have a dual-screen setup, I'm probably something of an exception (I haven't yet found a better collection of dual-screen wallpapers and that's 90% of the reason I got my membership), but it doesn't sound like a good idea to me.



Many others have chimed in with their suggestions, and I think the relaunch of the site is a good time to experiment with things. Heck, maybe make the week of the relaunch an "everyone's a member" week to promote the new site, but then change back to the limited free site (sort of like those Disney Channel and HBO preview weeks they used to offer on cable, back when premium channels had no commercials). IMHO, it's worked well to offer a good, if limited, selection of your work at high resolutions for free with a low-res complete gallery and I would stick with that model. Maybe you could play around with the number and types of freebies, though, as well as the delay from when you post it for members. I will have to say I'm not a fan of watermarks, but perhaps offering some of your higher-res free images with larger watermarks would be an option.



I guess if I had to sum up my opinion it would be to be flexible in how you approach this situation. Try stuff, sure, but listen to the feedback and make sure you're not killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. After all, it's your livelihood you're deciding the future of.



Anyway, best of luck with the relaunch, and I look forward to seeing what changes will come. :)

Check one more under the not free side.



I know for me personally, I used the free gallery hi res images for years. The biggest factor that drove me to get a membership was not the sizes available, but rather the variety. It was far too tantalizing and painful to watch each new render as you created them, knowing that they were gorgeous and yet unattainable without a membership. If all your images had been available for free, I would not have gotten a membership.



Personally, I would suggest a bunch of low quality renders as many have said. i liked the idea of the 600x800 that way the viewer can get a peek without real background usability. Otherwise i still like the idea of the free gallery. I'd suggest updating it more frequently than I believe you tend to do, but had that happened, it would have been longer until i got a membership too.



No matter what you choose, I ask that you keep the current members in mind. Be sure to make sure that we still feel special and get special privilages unavailable to the average web surfer.



Keep up the spectacular work!



(A pretty water scene/planetscape in the near future is always appreciated too ^_^ perhaps a remake of Majesty?)

First of all, I think your foresight into looking ahead and wondering if the current model will work is a good exercise and I think is something that many websites overlook.



I purchased a membership because I respected your work and you as an artist. I came to your site and used the free gallery material for probably a full year before I purchased. I felt that by purchasing a membership, I was investing in an artist. If all the images had been available to me, I would have likely purchased a membership anyway because I want to support your work and respect that you support a family with your work. But I am not sure if enough people would have the same logic.



It's hard to say, you have a tough choice in front of you. But as long as you kept the new free gallery to low-res versions, I don't feel like my membership is cheapened.

I signed up (and became lifetime member) to support the art. That being said, I think the free art should be limited. I think the smaller sizes with a 3-4 month delay on new art. Maybe also make it a rotating 6-12 months of art (e.g. free art would be stuff release 3 months to 15 months from current date).



I am not trying to make my membership feel like it is worth something more than it is (supporting art), just trying to make sure your membership sign-ups don't dry up. You still want people to sign up and you need something compelling to make that happen.



Whatever happens won't stop me from coming to the site for the latest images. Keep up the good work, and thank you for the years of work, they keep getting better.

I wouldn't allow any free-bees except for preview resolutions and maybe a few sample pictures. Anything free will eliminate the people that are wiling to wait for your images. Only the people that want new images and resolutions will pay. I understand that its a fine line, but I believe your work is good enough that if you "tease" them, they will pay to get the images.

Oddly, I am not a fan of Vladstudio's artwork but I very much like the way his site is laid out. I thought it made his work appealing to all possible newcomers. The bad part is there seems to be no search for his vast catalog.

TBH, I wouldn't have purchased a subscription if you had had what your proposing, call me cheap or whatever, but it would have been enough for me, and I just don't like to spend money if I don't have to, even though I'd love to support your site. I'm a college student, and I just don't have the money for stuff like that.



Perhaps you might want to offer the iphone version of your pictures? It's something that people will be looking at everyday (gaining you that mindshare), but isn't something that they could practically use as their desktop.

I got a lifetime membership to access the wide variety of images, not just the high-quality resolutions. If all of the images are available for free (even at low-ish resolution), there are a lot of people who wouldn't give a second thought to buying a membership - they already have access to a huge library of images. Offering a limited subset of images for free (that rotates frequently) is a much better way to operate, IMHO.



Here's my suggestion: keep your free gallery rotating on a regular (announced) basis. If I (a non-member) know that there will be a new free wallpaper at decent resolution available on the 1st of every month, I'll be back to check up on what you've been doing. Give potential customers a reason to come back regularly to get an image for free - and see the new stuff they could get with a membership. The newest wallpapers (and highest resolutions) should be exclusive to members for at least a year or two, and a non-member should never be able to arrive at the site and download more than 15 or so free images at any given time. Casual users will be able to get a few images when they stumble upon the site, and potential customers will be drawn back on a regular basis for more cool stuff.

Part of the reason I became a member was to support your work (of which I am a huge fan), but to be honest I doubt I would have become a member (and then a lifetime member) if I hadn't had the incentive to get your new work.

I got a lifetime membership to get the hi-res renders, and eventually the multi-monitor renders too (7680x1600 rocks!). The best use of $$ I've spent for a long time.



Delaying the release of new art will give members an "exclusive" period, which feels nice. The exact period is probably not important, maybe 1 or 2 releases behind.



Like @Scott I'd recommend offering a single lo-res mobile version alongside the lo-res desktop version.

I didn't get my membership because I wanted every wallpaper and size possible. I originally got it to support the art. Offering everything for free won't change that for me.



The only thing I would suggest is that the mobile versions be free as well, no one ever really wants to pay for a wallpaper for their mobile device and it is a good way to suck them in or to spread the love to others.

I have to be honest I would not have become a member and eventually a lifetime member if I could have gotten that resolution for free. I became a member to get access to wallpapers and resolutions that I could not get otherwise. The artwork is great work and people should be members to get the good things. Giving it away is ultimately your choice, but the resolution should be lower and delay by a period of time up to a year. Maybe even some pieces never available to the free users.

I would say post it in facebook or twitter links using pixelpipe.com or something like that - i would say the size is a bit generous, but i don't see it loweringng the value of your member's content at all.

I don't think I would have signed up if I had access to all images for free. I also wouldn't have discovered DB if I haven't seen some of the free images! So, some free content is good, but it should be a limited selection and small size (i.e. 800x600); maybe even limit it to images from the past 2-3 years.



Being a member is a privilege and members should feel special :). Making the content available for everybody diminishes the "membership status", I think.



If you want to take advantage of the social media (e.g. Facebook), then why not have a monthly free image that changes. Users will try to follow your updates because if they don't, the images will be gone; and if they really like the content, then they can signup to get all the good stuff.



Hope this helps...

Thanks for all the great work!

First of all I have dual widescreens and your wallpapers wouldn't look that great stretched to fit. Anyway perhaps you could have a free gallery still but have a delay on when they come out, so you could let non-members browse all previous years and maybe after two months or so you upload ones we are seeing now.

Anyway that's just an idea because the new stuff is always why I check your site almost everyday

Reuben

But do not offer all free, I can honestly say that I would never have joined if I could get all your images for free, regardless of resolution.



I agree that maybe offer a selection of the current year, but definitely not all. Maybe all at like 640x480 res so they can see the detail but not really use it. Offer a selection of images for free at all resolutions to give a taste. But as they say, the first taste is free.



Keep up the good work though, I love the site.

One of the reasons we became members was to have access to that which wasn't available to others.



If you wish to give away your work, that is your choice, but I would suggest that you lower the size of the free work and delay it by a couple of months at the least and really would suggest delay it being available by a year, that way members feel like they have a huge advantage in addition to the multiple sizes that they get.



Ad banners are your choice, but I can tell you from experience that some browsers have add-ons that help us block all sorts of ads...



I can imagine that it is a bigger headache keeping a members area separate, but I really like feeling special that I have areas I can access and artwork that I can see that others can't unless they pay for the privilege.



Still, it is your choice and I am certain that you will have more visitors to the site, but may make less money.



Regards -

-Bob

I have to admit that if the lowest size wallpaper had been free for everything on the site, I wouldn't have become a member. I'm one of those who is *relatively* low-tech, and that res is "good enough" for me. I'm not sure if I would renew my membership either if they were available. While I do want to support the beautiful, amazing work done on the site and the membership fee is not that much, I won't really care if the membership runs out because I'll still have access to everything.



Just my two cents, but I love the work. As I said, beautiful, amazing, and I show the site off to lots of people.

No, your work is too valuable to give away for free.



I like the idea previously brought up to post free images from past years (just a selection, not all of them) at 800x600. That's more than adequate for the iPhones, iPods, etc out there.



I joined up because I enjoyed the free images enough to want full access to all of your work. I have upgraded to lifetime membership for the reason that I didn't have to worry about losing that access should my membership lapse.



Free stuff should be limited. One should have to pay for the good stuff.



Why pay for the cow when you can get the milk for free?

So after thinking about it, I don't like the idea of offering everything free. I bought my membership so I would have access to everything and when everyone else has access I think it makes buying a membership less important. I actually really like the current free gallery. Having access to the full version of a few of the pictures really sold me because a lot of your dual and triple screens are even better than the original pictures. Having only a few of those was a lot more tempting to buy a membership when you only had access to those 20 pictures and some low-rez tempters. Anyway, those are my thoughts.

For many years I downloaded off the free page downloading every new image that made its way there, it wasn't until I saw several pieces of work that I had to have did I join and will continue to renew. Had you made your portfolio available at your proposed resolution before I joined I probably would have continued to leach off the free gallery. I think your idea as gracious as it is will slow down new member subscriptions. Free is great but you need to make a living Ryan!



If you intend on moving forward with your proposal I would suggest that you make a more prominent watermark on free images that can not be cropped off the image making joining a worthwhile and enticing investment.

I think I'm with the majority here. I originally signed up because I wanted the latest images, resolution really didn't matter. I would probably have signed up for membership at some point if all the images were available at a fixed resolution, but it would have taken longer.



I would suggest at the very least that images less than a year old are members only. This keeps members prior to the change happy, and gives a good incentive to join. Anything more than a year could be made available at a fixed resolution, which is still a value add. Possibly everything over 2 years is available at multiple resolutions, except multiple monitor versions.



My .02 cents. :)

Maybe you could introduce a time-delay between the free and member material? For instance, the members get access to your latest work immediately (including pickle jar, etc), but the free gallery is delayed by a couple of weeks.



I do have to echo some of the other sentiments about too much free offerings. I use your high-res widescreen renders, but may or may not have signed up if I could have downloaded everything for free... Photoshop/GIMP is _really_ good at resizing...

Lifetime member, doesn't bother me at all if you want to give away images for free.



For the record, I have several monitors of different aspect ratios that I need wallpapers for, so if I wasn't a member already, I'd still have a reason to become one even with the free image giveaway.

I think the one thing that drew me in as a paying member was the idea of being able to get all of your great work, up to and including the latest and greatest. The Free Gallery was limited, and I could see your new images but not download them. My 2 cents worth is for you to keep the free gallery as a teaser. Sort of a "If this is the free stuff, how great must the paid-for stuff be?!?" come-on the the unannointed ones.



Again, just my two cents worth.

I'd like to throw in one more vote against offering everything free at 1152x864. I will say that it wouldn't stop me from subscribing now; for me, it's all about the awesome dual-widescreen images.



However, I'm not sure that I would have signed up in the first place a couple years ago if all the files had been available free. To be honest, a site like that would have been one where I quickly download all of the available files and move on, not necessarily even paying enough attention to notice the membership availability. I can say now that that would have been a gross injustice. Thus, in my opinion, your current setup is ideal.



I also agree with someone previously who mentioned that a more prominent watermark on the free images would be a good thing.

I don't know that I like the idea of offering 1152x864 image for free. To me that is too large. I would be much more likely to offer 800x600 for free. Or images with a more noticeable / not easily cropped water mark.



I'm not sure that there would be enough benefit to continue being a paying member. I have continued to choose to renew every year because I felt like I was getting something for my money. I'm just not sure that I would choose to do so again with the larger free images.

Ryan



I can sympathize with your agonizing over the free thing.



The high quality images that fit the screen vs a single size to be stretched is to me well worth the price of a subscription.



I have already received far more then the price of the lifetime subscription in the pleasure I've gained.



Thanks,



Pete

I also have to say that I would keep the current set-up the way it is. I just recently became a lifetime member, and I would not have done that if I knew things would be here for free.



Your work is that amazing where you can charge for what you do. I agree- do not undervalue yourself. I think the current set-up would keep people happy. =)

Ryan,

I got a lifetime membership a few years ago and was prompted to do so by the allure of getting all your amazing pictures, not just the ones in the free gallery. My personal opinion is that you should still have a free gallery that has a small selection of some of your older work (1 or more years old). I would also think that keeping it to the 1024x768 res is sufficient to give people a good idea of the detail your images have, but leaving incentive to sign up for the high res versions.

On another note, I would be careful of "cheapening" your work. I signed up because I love what you do and felt like your art was something I wanted to support. The free section should really be a lite taster for the viewing public to entice them to pay for entry to get the full meal. By making a slightly lower quality (res) version of all your work available, people will be more inclined to just deal with the res and just say "hey it's free".



Just my humble opinion. All I can say is that I hope the new changes work well and improve the business side of your art. I hope you can keep at this line of work for many many years to come.



-Dan

Hi Ryan,



I think I'll echo and elaborate upon what others have said and suggested:



(1) Don't underrate your work. You are worth the money, seriously. Trust us.



(2) I like the one idea I saw posted, that only older stuff gets a 'free' version, not the most recent. More carrot to sign up, and to keep an ongoing membership.



(3) Actually, I'd suggest going lower res on the free stuff. 1024x768 is good enough, especially for smaller devices like iPhones and Netbooks; you could crop it for wider screen use though.



(4) On the free downloads, regardless whether you take the other suggestions, I really think you should make the watermark larger and more obvious -- and you probably ought to consider adding your name and a formal copyright claim on them. We've already seen your art appropriated without permission and it won't help your cause if you make it even easier to steal it.



cheers,

Becca

I think you already have the right balance between the content you give away as a promotion and what you ask folks to pay for. I've been a member for about 10-years now and consider your product to be an overall solid value. Why change what works? After all, what is the value of free?

Ryan~



We've traded a few emails back and forth over the years, so you might recognize my handle at this point... I don't usually weigh in on these things, but I'm one of your oldest members, so I figure I need to have a say in this.



In some ways, being such an old fan may be less of a help to you than more recent members. I think I first signed up in 1999, when I was still a starving college student, so I don't even really remember what motivated me. This was before you even offered lifetime memberships, but by the time you did, I continued to renew yearly until just last year.



Those of us who have the money to support you, I'm sure, have no problem with it, no matter what you give away. But from a business perspective, most people are going to need an incentive to join.



There seems to be a pretty strong argument so far against opening up the free gallery to everything, and I think I'd have to agree with that. I don't have time to read ALL of the comments below, so I don't know if anyone mentioned this yet, but my suggestion would be to offer all wallpapers from ONLY the previous year, and maybe a small selection from other years, as it stands now. Then, if they see something from this year that they like, or if they want access to everything, they can sign up. You could even make this automatic, since your site is organized by year anyway.



Honestly, your prices are reasonable. Hell, I spent more on my sandwich today than your YEARLY renewal price. I can see what you mean about not wanting things to stagnate, but dude, if it's working for you... don't mess with it too much.



I like the site redesign idea, though, and I can't wait to see what you guys come up with!



~John English

I do not like the idea of having one file size available for free for each and every wallpaper. The fact that you have so much more work in the member's gallery that is not available in the free gallery is the only reason I am currently a member. As a person with an average size monitor already, I would not renew just to have access to all of the different resolutions, and I don't want to take that revenue away from someone whose work is this beautiful. Don't do this to me!

I would'nt make all your work free, even at your proposed resolution. What you could do is offer maybe a 24 hour trial period for would be members. That way they would get a taste and be enticed to sign up. I also like the idea of having free featured wallpaper. Maybe a sample of 5 that changes once a month. Spread out from your entire portfolio, something early to something new. Not brand new tho, nothing within the past year.

I'm a lifetime member, but imagining if I did have to reconsider whether to buy a renewal, I don't think having a free 1152 x 864 resolution available would make me less likely to renew, as I have a couple of widescreens which really need their correct resolution background to look any good.



I understand that this doesn't necessarily apply to everyone though and as has been said, there are many people that would be happy to stretch the image slightly. Although there is the point that it's possible that the person who is happy to stretch a background image was never going to pay money for a background any way.

The last thing you want to do is up the resolution on the free stuff, because you can still crop it down for use on mobile, ipod, psp, etc. I'd drop the idea of leting all art be free(even at a lower resolution), it'll will put people off signing up in the future.

I have to say that for me personally I would've had a difficult time paying for a membership if I knew I could get every image for free and then resize it to the resolution of my choice. It might not look as pristine as it would if viewed at its native resolution but it would be more than adequate. I paid for my membership because I wanted access to all the fantastic images that I knew were there but couldn't use. You have to give people something that they're willing to pay for and opening the site up isn't the way to do that.

I have been a fan of Digital Blasphemy since high school.(Graduated in 2004) I was always envious of the official members because they had access to EVERYTHING. I only recently signed up, because I had remembered it was something I had wanted to do when I found the time and had the extra money. I now feel like I've earned something. I'm no longer staring at the limited free gallery. I don't find the idea to be financially sound for your site. People will take the bare minimum if it's free, because I admittedly did the same thing with the few pictures in the free gallery. It would be disappointing to know I finally took the jump for no reason, and would have another excuse to settle for the free stuff.

I would not give your wallpaper away like that, but I do agree that you need to do something more in entice people to join as a member. Perhaps like a featured wallpaper that would be available for download for a limited time. I could see that attracting sites like Lifehacker and thus free advertising. Also you might consider doing a referral program that would benefit members in some way to refer a friend to your site.

i think that the rotating cast of free select wallpapers is the right way to go. when i first came to the site, i downloaded all the free ones and rotated through them over many months. i would check back to the site every month or so to see if anything new came to the free wallpaper site. eventually, i decided that i needed more and i started my paid membership (and have been loving it ever since).



i think that you would be doing yourself a disservice giving all your work away (albeit at a decreased resolution). keep the current freebies and let the users come to you (like i did!)

A way to generate an affiliate button with any image the member wanted would be killer and make the button very personal to the poster. I would totally make one with Ovum which is _the_ image that got me to join originally :)

I completely agree with those who say the 1152x864 is too much. As said before, it's cropable for mobiles and it can be increased to normal sizes in passable quality.



What about offering certain images for free like you do now, but offer all the other images in limited resolutions (pick a few) complete with a more obvious watermark? Something unintrustive because you want to showcase your work.



Perhaps something along the lines of the Shutterstock watermark. It's annoying enough not to want to look at it on your background for too long, but it's not so intrusive as to ruin the picture for previews of work

I don't like this idea of giving wallpapers away for free; I do think it lessens the value of being a member. 1152 x 864 is a good enough resolution for many people. If that would have been available when I was looking at the free gallery, wishing to have access to all of the beautiful wallpapers instead of just a select few, I would have never purchased a membership. Having just a select few wallpapers available for free and being tempted by the thumbnails of the rest is what convinced me.

Hi Ryan,



I too have been a member for a long time. I feel making your content free would be a mistake and that the resolution you propose is far too high if you did. I agree with others that for many people, stretching would be sufficient for them. There is plenty of desktop artwork out there for free, I think paying for your work (which in my opinion is of the highest caliber i've seen) lends to its "value" and garners more respect from the people who consume it as a result. If you are looking to broaden your audience, I feel you would be far better suited offering a discounted membership as a sale for awhile, maybe playing up the idea of giving it as a gift for the holidays, rather than devaluing your library of work by giving it away.



I would continue to support you even if you did the free site as you proposed but I fear those of us who would would become a minority, especially in the department of new signups. Giving a generous discount for new members for a time would be a rabbit you could, with sound reason and ample precedent, put back in the hat if you deemed it prudent.



Another way of broadening your membership may be to institute an affiliate program in which you give some fraction of a time period for each referral signup. That would encourage people to provide a little free advertising for you while rewarding those who did so successfully and gaining new members on top of it all.



Randy

Good to see your moving on from the current look of the website and bringing it up to date. Looking foward to it. What template/base are you using for it? :)

Two trains of thought come to mind....."Catch more bees with honey" and "Why buy it when it is free"



I am a lifetime member, and have nothing to lose or gain from whatever you decide. I am happy to log on once a week and look for something new to brighten my screen.



There will always be people who will try to take advantage of your generosity. Like many of your members (Myself included), if I had just today run across your site I would immediately buy a lifetime membership.....you get what you pay for. That being said....why not offer a smaller size that distorts as they make it larger. That will provide incentive to get a year or lifetime membership for versions that have already been rendered to scale without any loss to the quality. To show what membership brings, offer a couple choice pieces a year ... in the same manner a member seems them. That way as people come to enjoy your work, they can see the various sizes you offer.



Hope that makes some sense :)

I feel that it does lessen the value of a membership. A lot of people that I know are more than happy to use a smaller wallpaper, also, a lot of people that I know do use lower resolution screens.



HP's default screens on a lot of 15" notebooks are within that resultion bracket, netbooks fit the bill, and nothing stops someone from taking the same image and using it on a mobile device pre-resize.



1152x864 is very high resultion, to me, to be given away for free. I would predict more bandwidth usage with less paying members giving away free wallpapers.



I'd say to stick to what you're currently doing now. But, if you really want people to see your work, maybe offer a glimpse gallery of the five most recent wallpapers at 800x600.

Hi! Been a member for a while - Love your work!



First off, let me just say that your idea to offer all images for free will not lessen how I value my membership. I have backgrounds on my droid, my work laptop and the 2 machines I have @ home in the various resolutions and monitor configurations that I have.



It sounds like you are trying to broaden your reach. No one can fault you for that. I think the image size you mention is quite generous. My only worry is that a lot of people may be quite happy with the free version and not buy a membership. I think many should/would be happy with a slightly smaller resolution - if they could have a copy of all of your images - for *free*.



A nice compliment for you: I had to take my iMac into the local Genius bar for a hardware issue. When the techs saw my background (indian summer) they all came over to look at it - they were absolutely amazed. I showed them a few of the other backgrounds I had on that machine. They were very impressed, and at least 2 of them wrote down your website address.



Best of luck - and Happy Holidays!



Speaking of which - it's time to put up a festive background. Which one to choose...

I'm a lifetime member (which I consider to be a huge bargain), so it doesn't affect me, but I wonder what you would do if things "went badly" and membership really dropped off. I like the suggestions of others to rotate the free images, etc... You could start implementing the new model slowly, so that you can see the affect on your revenue as you go.

And by the way I do feel like it cheapens my membership a little bit. Members of your site get a lot of comments about how good their desktop always looks (at least I do) and offering a free version of your entire gallery kind of hampers the "exclusivity" of having your wallpapers if you understand what I mean.

I understand the thought process behind the idea but don't agree. It might not be adequate for larger monitors but by giving away a 1152x864 you are essentially giving away that and all the mobile/mp3 player versions since people can just resize and crop the image.



Take it from a cheapskate. If I had a smaller screen (say 17"), I would just stretch the image and crop them all for my cell phone and mp3. And if there was really a specific image I wanted full size I would seek it out elsewhere, because let's face it, you can pretty much pirate anything via the internet these days if you look hard enough.

1152 x 864 is fine for the free version, I suppose. But as others already pointed out, you should really delay new images for non-members about a month or so. Or make the most recent three-ish images members-only.

The idea in general is great, though. When I first found out about DB I thought it was too expensive and then, well, got your wallpapers for free from somewhere else. But after one or two weeks I realized that your work is definitely worth the money and bought a membership. Since then I already renewed my membership twice and will continue to do so.

I have a lifetime membership so the changes won't really affect me. My bother-in-law showed me your site several years ago. I used the free stuff for a while but then it just wasn't enough.



I would offer the free version at 1024x768 and put a water mark across the image. That way, people cant see the work and get the idea to sign up. Maybe offer a few older images with just the standard watermark so people will want to purchase a membership to get the watermark removed on your new stuff.



I love your work and my opinion of the site wouldn't change but I just don't want to see you lose profits either. Your work it too valuable to just give away.

As a lifetime member, there is no loss for me making a free version of everything. However, at the same time, if I was looking to sign up, I would find it harder to justify spending the money to become a member if I could get a wallpaper for most monitors free.



I run a super-wide system (4 screens wide with different dot pitch) which I chop up and resize from your largest resolution triple-screen wallpaper to make work, so to do that, I would still need the member site, but I am the rare exception that runs more than one monitor.



So while I personally am not affected and would probably choose to register regardless due to my specific situation, I see a large body of people that would decide not to register that might currently register. As it was, I visited your site for at least 5 years using the free gallery before I registered (while I was in college and had no money to spend).



Some things that might help offset benefits of the free gallery:

1. Advertising when not logged in?

2. A larger, more evident Digital Blasphemy stamp (aka big ugly watermark) when downloading a wallpaper when not logged in to help promote your site?

3. A delay before the "free" version can see the latest wall paper (maybe 3 to 6 months?), thus encouraging people to register to get the latest and greatest?

Like a lot of others here, I don't really care for the idea of releasing a free version of everything. To me it seems like you wouldn't be gaining as much as you would be giving. What I've seen other sites doing is offering something like the free gallery you currently have and a sample or two of more current work to represent the larger members only collection. Those samples are only available for a limited time and while they change regularly, it's not frequent. Perhaps something like that might work here.

Offer free wallpapers at 1024x600 - good enough to look at, but not good enough to stretch to a bigger screen - otherwise you won't get the freeloaders to pay up for a subscription.



Either that, or keep it how it is right now.

I think giving people a free view of more artwork is a great idea as they'll get to see the diverse stuff you produce, but just to reiterate what a lot of others have said don't do a free version of everything, add a heavier water mark and possibly user a lower resolution than you've suggested for the free images. You should make a few available for free at higher resolutions though just to show how good they look.



I'll happily pay for membership just to get the images of the correct size for the different computers/devices I use, but I don't think that will be the case for the majority of users who are just looking for a pretty background when they set up their new computer.

First of all, I'm a lifer, which has already paid for itself several times over, so there's really no value loss to me.



That aside, ain't nothing free. Everything costs somebody something. You've already invested time, money, and effort into your art and the site. Unless your feeling magnanimous, you should receive payment for the usage thereof, and rightfully so. If you want to release some work without any strings attached, that's fine; just realize that you will likely *not* see any ROI on it, in any form - ever. Why buy the cow, etc.



Moreover, membership implies *exclusivity*, whether it be content, availability, access, or whatever. Membership should have defintive benefits, primarily that it allows access to content that is not, and will *never* be, available to the general public. Hence, exclusive.



You can showcase your work without giving it away, in any format. Offering thumbnails and low-res samples, or high-res with watermarks, provides the average user with sufficient enticement to buy or not. Have you considered a per-piece purchasing model? That is, they can purchase any given piece at whatever the desired resolution for some set fee. Of course, the fee should be set such that buying more than a handful of pieces this would would equal a yearly membership. Nevertheless, members should have first access to new work, and exclusive access to some work. Perhaps a 4-6 week lag on new work, and only offer every other piece.



It should be the benefits of membership, and not open availibility to your work, that gets them to buy-in. I strongly recommend against third-party ads in any form (they are simply annoying, and detract from your site and work); however, there's nothing wrong with DB centric advertising, particularly where it encourages membership.



The long of the short of it is this: those willing to pay, will pay; those who aren't, won't. The conversion rate from the latter to the former is generally very low, and the cost involved usually isn't worth your while.



Here's a question: what does your wife think? Women in general, and wives in particular, often offer unique insight into these sort of matters. Remember to utiltize this resource to its fullest potential.



In the end, it's your call. We're all just passengers on the good ship DB; you're the captin - what you say, goes and don't you ever forget it!

I think giving away everything for free does lesson the benefits of being a paid member. While the multiple resolutions helps, there are way too many people who are happy with stretched or blown up images, and its fairly easy to scale down the bigger images for PDAs, etc.



I think there should still be things held back for members who subscribe.

I have a lifetime membership. I bought my membership because I wanted to gain access to the additional art in your members gallery, not because I was concerned about sizes and stretching of images.



I think giving away all of your art is too generous. Most people will live with the size (which is still going to look half decent on a 1920 monitor) and not bother to sign up.



I think if your existing free/members model is working and paying the bills, the last thing you want to do is screw with that.



-r



ps- LOVE your work!

I have a lifetime membership so this isn't exactly going to effect me but I still feel that your idea is a bit too generous. Not being rude but there are a lot of tight fisted people who wouldn't stump up the cash if you gave away what you are suggesting.



My opinion/ideas: The large watermark idea is good, but rather than diagonally like a lot of examples I thought a watermark 10~20% of the size of the image along the top and/or bottom.



I also had the idea of a short time period access to new wallpapers (if its already mentioned sorry I lost track whilst reading everyone else's comments). For a rough example perhaps for the first 6 to 12 hours after you post a new wallpaper it is available for free without the watermark at a higher/more standard resolution (not all resolutions mind you). This will reward the extremely avid free user, whist still inspiring them to subscribe as they will undoubtedly miss the time window for several of your pictures.



I know from my time as a free gallery user that I would be constantly checking to see if anything new had been added and seeing your new work pass me by did inspire me to subscribe. In my opinion things like the zip collections aren't as much of an attraction as new work is so I hope your new website shows these off to all the visitors.



Best wishes and many thanks;



Harry

I'm all for whatever you think is in the best interests of the site. That being said, it won't really affect me, since I already signed up for the lifetime subscription, and I feel that I've already got my money's worth from it.



Whatever you need to do to keep the site growing and moving forward is fine with me.

Ryan, this might be a little more difficult to maintain, but you could offer a free image at 1024x768 so people get an idea of the image, and then offer the good stuff (or a package of PDA/phone/hi-res widescreen) for .99. If they want double and triple screen images, 1.99, and 2.99. That way people could pay as they go, not that your annual fee is that bad.



Just a thought.

I'd pay a buck per image, easily.

I know if you had offered more free gallery images when I used the free gallery, I wouldn't be a lifetime member of DB. The free gallery was fine for a while, but as has been said before, it left me wanting more. If you want to go the '100% free preview' model for every wallpaper, go with the watermark idea. Big diagonal watermark, one resolution only, no other benefits. Sign up, get the watermark removed (to just the one in the corner), get more sizes, etc. Maybe leave the existing free gallery setup so guests have access to a select few 'regular' images (without a 'big' watermark), so they can get a 'taste' of what your work is like. Just don't throw away 11 years of your life.

I have to say that the incentive for me to become a subscriber and leave the free side of the site was the larger selection of wallpapers. Different resolutions were just the icing on the cake. For me, it's all about the artwork.



Keeping the selection of artwork available to the member side larger is paramount to me continuing to renew my membership. (And, of course, continuing the flow of new artwork. :))



Obviously, the different resolutions are great and I can see that debate being waged about what to offer the free side. I think a lower resolution 4:3 and 16:9 aspect offering should be enough. The 1152x864 resolution is just awkward. The degradation of the image due to scaling up should be enough incentive to upgrade, not also having to deal with aspect distortion.



All that being said, though, it is also a business decision. Pulling in new visitors to the site and making money may put a different light on the situation than I have just being the consumer and not the producer.



Good luck!

I wanted to share my thoughts regarding what people will tolerate when it comes to computer wallpapers. As many times as I've seen monitors running below native resolution -- and, far worse, widescreen monitors displaying a 4:3 stretched resolution -- I suspect that most users finding this proposed free gallery will gladly stretch, upscale, and generally mangle the images without care. Now this is an office full of engineers, not artists, so that might have something to do with it, but I still suspect that for most people, having access to all your images will be good enough.



Overall, I tend to think that your current setup is the right way to go. The die-hard freeloaders :) can continue to slowly harvest the contents of your site, while those who want full access (or simply want to support your art) can pay their dues. You want to avoid the situation where complete collections of your work can be had by searching for "digital blasphemy torrent."



There is something I haven't seen mentioned yet, and perhaps it isn't financially feasible for you, but what about the possibility of purchasing individual images? In an era of $.89 MP3s, I imagine there is a market for $.49 (roughly an annual membership cost divided by images per year) wallpapers. This could be nice for those who have mentioned wishing they could gift images as well.

I believe the quality more than justifies my continued membership and would pay for it regardless of what I could get for free. I am, by far, not your typical member. While trying to think like the [expletives] that you are afraid of, here is my suggestion:



1. membership is ad-free (ads have actually driven me away from some sites rather than signup, however)

2. Thumbnails of all work for free. (filterable for the next part)

3. Only some stuff available. All the old versions of redos or picklejars, for example, and most of the old stuff. I would say expand the selection considerably, but I have no idea where the line is for convenience & availability vs cost is at to have any suggestions.

4. Of the available for free, have any single screen resolution available only. Thus free people can appreciate your work, even at large resolutions, but pay for multi-monitor or mobile versions.

I feel even stronger about this. Have some select High, and "MAX" res images, but dont' give them all away. Everything free doesn't work well for people who have Hi res screens and want to see what the work would look like. Watermark your free High-Res images, and give members watermark free versions.



I concur w/ what Joe below said "1. What got me hooked were the high resolution samples in the free gallery. That's where you can see how good the quality really is."





The high rez pics brought me in too.

Ryan,



I paid a lifetime membership for access to the various sizes of your images. I utilize a Dual Screen format (3200x1200 single file) for my Primary Work PC, 480x360 for my Blackberry, and also various Widescreen versions for the servers and PCs that I access for Work and Personal Use. I feel secure that my purchase was well worth it and will continue to be so any changes that you make will not affect my opinion of your website.



I agree with the Watermark Idea across the image. My first encounters with your images on the web had absolutely no indication of you or your website on them and this would ensure that people cannot just crop it out of the free image.



Tahnks again for all the great images!

Tony

Resolution is awkward. Why not a standard 1024x768 or 1280x1024 for a 4:3 res?



What I would do, since it's clear that you have your niche, give away your most popular work at all resolutions. But not all of it. In the end, it's just porn for 3d / cg fans. No porn site gives away all their work at low res. Just a taste of their best to entice the wankers further.



Whatever you decide, I wish you and yours the best.



DW.

I used the free gallery here for a few years until finally biting the bullet and buying a Lifetime membership a few years ago. Personally I think your existing system works just fine, but some tweaks may indeed help.



I definitely don't think you should make every single image available in a free version. This would definitely reduce the incentive for people to sign up. Occasionally selecting one of your newer images to offer in the free gallery seems to me to be a good strategy, limiting the size to a basic 1152x864 or smaller. I would expect that people with half a brain can figure out how to resize and crop images, so offering them any larger would be giving away too much IMO.



In the end what you choose to do is your prerogative. I signed up for a Lifetime membership because I think you do excellent work and wanted access to the images not available in the free Gallery, but the free Gallery is what drew me to your work in the first place. Unless you're now independently wealthy there has to be a balance between earning a living (and paying medical bills) and being generous ;-)



Best wishes,

Jon (Vaul)

From a member's (buyer) perspective, I will be glad to have signed up no matter what you do.



But from a seller's perspective, I agree with those who say you shouldn't lessen the value of your work. We opened a wine boutique and imported wine accessories from abroad. I thought at first that it would be just fine to give them away as promotion to people who buy X bottles of expensive wine, but my dad and uncle say that once you offer it for free or as a promotion, you'll never be able to sell it again. I think they're right, and same applies here. Unless you have reason to believe that the free gallery isn't "wow"ing enough people into buying a membership, you should refrain from fixing what ain't broke. But of course, you are the one who has all the statistics.



Even if you decide to make all wallpapers available, 1152 is too big. 1024x768 should be more than enough.



quoting Jason B:

"Maybe offer more recent work, but not the newest of the new."

Agree

Sure, go ahead and do it. I'll be happy to stay as a member to get the various resolutions and other benefits.

I would still renew, and I have actually gone on to purchase posters, based off the images I liked that graced my computer screens, but if it was me, I would not fix what is not broken.



As you yourself mentioned, it would be very hard to go back to charging money, and honestly if your current system pays the bills I would stick with it.



I know your collection can be illegally downloaded easily enough right now, so the reality is the free option would maybe redirect pirates to download from you and maybe generate some ad traffic, but would likely do nothing for future membership sales. Maybe I am wrong...I am no expert on this.



I would feel a little cheapened, but you are the one making the art, and I personally am a strong capitalist, so I would feel that if you make something...make money off it. :-)



Good luck with your decision.

I personally think that changing the parameters of the free vs. member galleries in this way would be a pretty large blow to your membership long term. It seems like it's a loss-loss trade off for you; those people smaller screens will be satisfied with the free resolution and have no need to upgrade, while those with larger monitors will get a very distorted version of your work which in no way reflects it's true quality. For example, on my 1680X1050 monitor, an 1152X864 looks pretty horrible, worse then something I could get by googling for a pretty land/planet scape. And if that was the only way to see your work except the images on-site, there'd be little way to see how awe-inspiring it actually is.



Possibly, you could do a sort of compromise; keep a stock "free gallery" of sorts, ie. 10-15 or so images available in all resolutions to everyone, so that people can see the quality of your work and not have to rely on guesswork off of thumbnail images, while the rest of your wallpapers are available in higher resolution only with a payed for upgrade.



Still, even then it just seems like a watered down less effective version of your current setup. In the end, it comes down to people with smaller screens already being satisfied with the small resolution you'll offer, and those with larger monitors getting nothing out of the free resolution. It's exactly the same scenario as now, except those with large monitors may be scared off by how bad 1152X864 images look blown up by 50%+.

Ryan, I think this is a poor idea. The limited number of free images motivated a lot of us to become paying members to get access to all of your great work. Since the economy is so bad right now, if you do this I think many people who would otherwise sign up will make do with the 1152x864 size. That size is big enough for many monitors, and particularly for laptops. I think your membership numbers will drop if everyone can get a version of your work for free. And as a paying member, I must say this would lessen the value of being a member. I probably wouldn't have become a member if I'd had access to all your new work. Another digital art site that I like does this, and since I can get a small size of all new work for free, I didn't sign up and probably never will. Just MHO. If you simply MUST offer a version of all new work, I suggest 800x600 resolution. That's too small for most monitors.



PLUS, if you think you have trouble now with your art being spread around the Internet without you getting proper credit, wait until all your work is available to everyone.

I love digital blasphemy. Lifetime member.



The "give everything away and be ad supported" model was prevalent in the dot-com bubble. Basically, the goal was get a lot of eyes on your website and hope the cash flow worked itself out before you ran out of seed money. It really didn't work out well for most of them.





Here's what I would do:

1. Put ads on the free pages to support the free gallery.

2. Let the free users see thumbnails of the member art.

3. Half the member art becomes available in X days; put a countdown by the thumbnails. The other half doesn't have a scheduled time to availability.



Consider if you want to make certain things benefits of memberships. Making wide screen a members-only benefit, for example, still makes your art usable (by anyone who's willing to have black bars on each side of the picture) but many PCs are coming with wide screens now - that may pull people into becoming members.

I will continue to subscribe as you do great work and I completely enjoy this site. I just worry that people will not subscribe if they are given free access to every picture. A suggestion might be the free offering for a month and then just offering the new images free for a limited time as you post them. Whatever you do, this is my favorite site!

I have mixed feelings about making all images free at a lower-res. As a lifetime member, I definitely want you to be successful and happy with making you're artwork available..for a long time to come. :)



The size you mention IS small enough for me not to feel ripped off. Who can even buy a monitor these days with such a small resolution.



But keep these things in mind before making your final decision:



1. What got me hooked were the high resolution samples in the free gallery. That's where you can see how good the quality really is.

2. I don't think the lower-resolutions are as usable, and if you only had low-res samples I would have kept looking elsewhere for free wallpapers that I could show off.

3. If the potential member is happy enough with the lower-res free images, that person might be overwhelmed with the sheer number of wallpapers and not have reason to come back for a long time...



Oh, it'd be great for mobile users, they'd never have a reason to buy.



In the end, I'd say you're better off with your current scheme. Have a select few high-res samples, and thumbnails of everything.

Ryan,



I am a lifetime subscriber. I only wish more of your renders would come in 3200x1200 which is the resolution of my current dual-monitor setup. That being said, I don't care what you do with the free section. I still think my lifetime membership was worth it.

I don't think it lessens the value to me as a member at all. I'm a member because I want to show my support for your work. That won't change if you offered a taste to visitors for free.



That said, I don't think you harm yourself by offering a lower resolution of your artwork for free. You will increase traffic to the site, and a certain % will become members. Offering only a smattering of free wallpapers (mostly older ones, updated infrequently) in the free gallery, you're not showing prospective members the latest and greatest of your work.



1152x864 is a good compromise - not as good as the common 1280x1024, but better than 1024x768. I don't know that you would want to offer both a 4:3 and 16:9 resolution wallpaper. If you freebie a 4:3, that gives visitors a taste (especially as 16:9 is becoming more common), and entices them to become a member so they can get access to the high-res versions.



Either way, keep up the good work!

As someone who bought the "lifetime" membership relatively recently, I would NOT feel cheated at all by this. Whether it's a good or bad business move, I have no idea. Not my realm of experience. I'm just writing to say that you don't have to worry about alienating this subscriber.

As a long time member, I don't feel it devalues my membership. Would I still have joined? Probably not as a money strapped college kid (when I did join). However, now that I use the multiple monitor versions I might have.



I agree with some other people, I'd actually use a smaller resolution for any free stuff. Most people still run in 8x6 or 1024x768 I think. Those visiting your site are likely the more techie crowd and therefore you might see more of the higher resolutions in your traffic.



Perhaps a more interesting idea might be to allow gifting of an image. I know on occasions I've had people ooh and ahh over something and felt bad when I said "no, I can't give it to you." I always wanted a way to give them one. Perhaps let each user gift 1 download per month or something?



While those that purchased their memberships recently might have different opinions, I wouldn't feel cheated if you decided to give all your work away. As a fellow artist, I believe to each his own.

I've been a lifetime member for years now, and your site has more than repaid the money I invested in you. The content is yours; I pay to access it, display it on my computers and would be completely happy to do continue to do so.



I place my faith in you to make the right decision that supports you and your beautiful family. By continuing to provide fantastic artwork for what amounts to a nominal sum, you've earned the right to do whatever you wish, and have my wholehearted support in the process.



Best wishes

John.

Personally, I vastly prefer having access to the higher-resolution images, particularly the multi-widescreen renders. This change won't affect my ongoing renewals, nor would it affect my decision to sign up in the first place.



I don't have concrete answers, but I'll think this through aloud in hopes it provides some useful perspective:



The call here is whether the increased exposure for your work will result in a net increase in member-generated revenue compared that lost to the free gallery works. The free works are essentially an advertising investment. Advertising varies in purpose. It can generate interest, it can inform about products existence and function, as well as create or modify a brand image. As you've indicated, there's some risk to this investment since it's essentially a loss leader -- you're giving away some of your product. It's worth broadly considering different marketing and advertising techniques (and reading up on same) including this one, if only to put things in perspective.



Note that you control another important knobs: the price of memberships. There's a tension between the price of a membership, the availability/attractiveness of the free versions, and a customer's willingness to pay. Lowering the price can tip the balance in your favor, but is only a net win if you're getting enough new (and ongoing) memberships.



Also consider that all renders smaller than the free ones are likely to take a hit from this, esp. mobile sizes. It's pretty easy for folks to reduce image size for their phone, if their phone even necessitates such, and this doesn't incur the same loss of quality issues as upscaling.

As a subscriber for nearly 10 years, I can say I do not agree with the idea of providing all of your artwork for free. The free got me to subscribe, the members gallery keeps me coming back.



Whatever you decide to do, I will renew my subscription.



Keep up the good work!

Two reasons:



1. Greater traffic requires greater maintenance...but you aren't guaranteed greater funds to support it!



2. You have a great product. Don't compromise it by giving it away unless you're not looking for funds. If you're just looking for distribution, then fine. If you're looking for funds, don't do it. By making everything available at whatever resolution, you will dry up the well.

I subscribe because I want to support your work. Offering a free version does not devalue my membership to me at all.

I used your wallpaper exclusively all through college - all free versions - until I had enough money that I could buy a lifetime membership without breaking the bank. Prior to my membership, I spent quite a bit of time in college searching for full res versions of your members only work... If you give em away for free that desire would definitely be compromised.



A decent sized version of everything would have either postponed or eliminated my need to purchase a membership.



Would I renew today if you had such a system? Probably not. In this economy, every dollar counts right? Why pay for what you can get for free?



Keep giving people a taste, provide a few, older pieces to bring in new members, while showing thumbs of all of your work. Keep em wanting more!



My 2 cents as a business owner and lifetime member: While I would imagine that your renewals have decreased by some margin due to the economy my guess is that this change would add another decrease in subscriptions.

Been a member for about 10 years now (and a fan for closer to 15). I think you're right on target with the new direction - offering a medium-res image to everyone for free will certainly boost distribution of your artwork and improve word of mouth for the site, while making the hi-res and mobile formats for members only still gives a compelling reason to join.



Personally, I joined in part because I wanted access to the full gallery, but mostly because I liked the artwork and wanted to see it continue - same reason I still buy OpenBSD CDs every six months, make donations to the EFF, etc.



I encourage you to keep doing what you're doing - it's been great so far, and I think you've got a firm grasp on where to go from here.



cheers,

/sf

I think a free image once a month may be a way to go or if you would like to continue a more active update schedule, you may want to place a much larger watermark on your free images, much like photographers do.

Yes, it would devalue my membership.

Would I continue to be a member? Probably, as I'd like the dual screens.



Would I feel cheated; probably.

Sorry.

I'd still subscribe, personally, as I don't have a screen that small - my smallest screen is 1920x1080. The rest is dual-screen or larger.



Plus, I believe in paying for beautiful things... and I get much enjoyment from your pictures.

I love the idea and I think the size and direction your taking the site will be good for everyone!

I have supported you since you decided to do this full time. My reason for subscribing was my respect for you doing what you love. Having free images wouldn't affect my membership.



My only question is are you or have you consulted with a professional on these business matters. The bottom line is that you need to make sure you make enough to keep your business going and your family happy. I think it is admirable that you are asking the membership their opinion and that should definitely factor into the final decision.



If you do decide to offer a free version, I agree that it should be like 800x600 and should be delayed like a month from the membership release. Give a free thumbnail when you release it to the membership with a date on when the free version is released.

I am an avid admirer of your work, and have renewed my membership every year for many years now - I look forward to each new piece. However, I'm an old codger on fixed income and tend toward straightforward comments. I would consider it a mild slap in the face to your many loyal subscribers if the the work were suddenly available for free to all comers. And no, under the circumstances, I would not continue my subscription.

Been a member for a while, renewed annually for several years and went to lifetime this year, and I don't regret a single penny of it. That said, I probably would not have become a member initially if I had access to all your images for free. Probably would have scaled them to a proportional size close to screen res and put it on a black background and make it look like matted artwork or something. I originally signed up because the previews of your work in the members only section showed that it was worth paying for.

Unless you offer just a restricted collection of pictures, I can't see new subscribers paying money. And you need to ensure that your work is not stretchd or skewed by people who can't get what they want.

I paid for a lifetime and am happy with the value proposition I got. It's little impact to me what happens in the future, so long as you can afford to keep your server alive, of course.

I'm not sure I have much to add that hasn't already been said, but I think it is very hard to charge for what you are also giving away for free.

I feel the system you have been using is working so why change a good thing. I became a member after finding the free gallery too limiting and wanting to enjoy the full range of your work. Had all of your work been available free I would not have been as apt to spend the money no matter the sizes offered. I consider myself the average computer user and if you made all your images available for free even in just one size changing it to fit my computer would have been ok with me. I would not have thought twice about sacrificing the artistic merit since it isn't my work. Since becoming a member I have grown to appreciate the work you put into your pieces and the artistry it entails but before I was a member yours was a cool site that I visited to see what was new. You kept me wanting more and that is what why I became a member to gain full access. It's working for you why change it?

No way should you give away artwork for free, at any res. My biggest incentive to keep my membership going is new artwork, and if that were offered up for free, at any res (even one too small for my screen), that would be a strong disincentive to continue.



Your art is fantastic, and while I appreciate you want to increase the number of paying members, I don't think that this is the answer.



I also don't like the idea of having to sign in to post comments and download art, however I will have to wait and see what your new site will look like.

I think this is a great idea. Your work deserves a wide audience; I'm glad that my subscription has helped you keep at it, even if just a little. I think offering a limited free version of every image, with a paid membership getting access to the hi-res versions, is a good way to broaden your reach and provide people an upgrade path.

I think it's a small enough size that anyone that really would have purchased previously, still would. I have a lifetime membership and offering this size for free would not have affected me purchasing one.

I am a lifetime member, I signed up because of your dual-screen images since there is only 1 in your free gallery. I used the free gallery for my wallpapers for a long time until I got the dual-screen at work and a widescreen laptop.



I like the idea of expanding the free selection, but giving all of it away, even in only 1 size, doesn't seem like good business sense. Like others have stated, it lowers the incentive for new people to join. Whether or not it lowers renewals, I don’t know.



My idea for you… I would expand the free gallery, put up more images and rotate them more often, maybe expand how many dual, triple and widescreens you offer there. Maybe offer more recent work, but not the newest of the new. I would be a bit offended if people could get your newest images completely free. I think maybe a month or 2 waiting period before an image is eligible for the free gallery. But I think a thumbnail should be viewable to everyone so that freebie visitors can see what you have posted recently and entice them to join so they can get your newest stuff.



So maybe once an image is ready for the Gallery, you could release it to members, then add your multi screens, then once it has been available to members for a while, you could release it to the free gallery w/ all available resolutions, but when a new image goes free, you take a different free one back so that way there is always fresh stuff in the free gallery, but there are always some things that only members can enjoy.

I have a lifetime membership, but, if I didn't, would still buy a membership happily in the new system. But... I have a wide variety of displays I use both large (2560x1600) and small (iPhone) and definitely appreciate the fidelity of a render for those resolutions. I very much appreciate the wide range of resolutions you provide.



I can't say anything new about how the changes would impact new visitors, but I will have no complaints.

I would make all of your work available to members and non-members alike in so far as the ability to go to different galleries/types/areas and see what it there. That way, everyone can see what is available.



For members, they can click on the desired image size and download what is of interest.



For non-members, most images would have all the download sizes grayed out. That way, non-members could look at the thumbnails but would be limited to a small subset of your overall work.



If I were a non-members, I could cruise your site, see all kinds of neat stuff, download a handful of teasers and either (a) be satisfied with that, or (b) long for more. In the former case, that's fine: you probably never had a chance with them anyway. In the latter case, you are tempting them with all kinds of goodies; many will eventually give in and purchase a membership. You could even allow RSS subscriptions to all to tempt non-members.



Only members would be able to access forums, rate images, make comments, and generally give you a hard time.

I like the idea of everything for free... but will cringe if I ever see an over-stretched, distorted image because someone is to cheap to pay for membership and the right rez.

I visited the site as a non-member for years. Since my screen was in 800x600 resolution and I remember wondering what those other bigger numbers were for. I've only been a member for about two years now and that was because I wanted access to your other work. If not for that, then I wouldn't have signed up. The reason it took me so long was I was a poor student, I was satisfied with your free gallery and I didn't know what I was missing.



My advice: the proposed resolution is too big. Give them something like 1024x768. They can then see the work, see what they're missing, but have it be too small to be useful for most people. Make sure to list the things that they'd be getting in the paid version, like the different formats, sizes, pickle jar, etc.

I do feel it could reduce the value of my membership to offer images free. I do not think I would have signed up if I could have downloaded your images for free, even limited resolution. I would have made due.



I understand the desire to advertise yourself with all your images at a limited resolution. I think something that is too useful will dilute membership value. 1024x768 is probably a reasonable upper limit. IMO, 800x600 would be better. Its big enough to see some detail, but small enough to compel people to sign up for a larger, more useful image.

I've bought yearly memberships (for several years - don't remember how many) as the Christmas gift my husband and I give each other. We don't have any fancy monitors, or phones, or anything - the proposed new free size would give us everything we need. So basically, knowing that you're thinking about this tells me that I don't need to renew at all.



Why remove the incentive to renew? That seems bad business to me. I've loved your work for ten years now, and will continue to renew, simply to support a great artist. But I would never have signed up, if you had that setup from the beginning.

I too am in agreement with a lot of folks on here.. I understand (and applaud) the desire to get more traffic and offer more to non-paying folks to get that traffic, but I would not "give it all" away...



I'm a lifetime member, so the change won't affect me either, but thinking back on why I joined, the reasons were several...



1 - I wanted access to all that cool art I glimpsed, but didn't have access too - the free gallery was enough to make me go "I want more". Had there been a lot more free, I might have delayed my sign up - possibly for a long time..



2 - I wanted to support a great artist. Your work is (generally :) ) awesome, and you deserve the support, but had this been the only reason I was joining, I again might have delayed - for a long time..



I think there's probably a middle line here somewhere - a free gallery that's much more inclusive than today, but still leaves the browser wanting more..



One thought is not offer the same rez for each free image.. maybe vary it up - offer some in 1280, and others only in 800.. maybe throw a wide screen (netbook sized?) in every now and then? I know - that's a lot of work probably, but was just a thought :)



My $.02 for what it's worth in this new economy :)

I've seen a lot of good ideas here.



I like the idea of keeping the free images small, maybe even as small as 800x600.



I also like the idea of the 30-day (or some other) delay before posting the free images.



Would this have changed my mind about becoming a member?



Nope.



The quality of your work all by itself was worth the investment.



But even if that wasn't enough, in the last year my monitors have gone from 1024x768 to 1600x1200 to 1920x1200 and I've been through 3 different cell phones with 3 different resolutions, so having ready access to pretty much any resoution I need is totally worth it.

Maybe it is just me being stingy, but why give away what you work so hard to create? I would suggest using the web to give you an idea of the most popular of your images. The companies that you use to put your works can track the hits on a page. Why not have them give you updates that show the pages that are seen the most? Then you could get an idea of what images are the most popular for when you are trading out the "free" images for your non-subscribers. If you are truly into the idea of giving away all your works, then I would make the base size something that is universal. 1280x1024 looks great on most of the regular sized screens these days. The larger, more well defined pictures should be for those of us that pay because we love your work enough to be willing to sign up for them.



But I could just be acting a bit stingy there...



Thanks for your great images!



Will

I'm a member here for the sole reason that you offer the best tri-screen wallpapers. 1152x840 isn't big enough for me to worry about.



But I would still rather see the 'free' users wait for images as they do now and be limited to that rez for everything. A membership here is very reasonably priced for the great images you continue to provide.

Ryan,

Then again, offering both sizes could be giving away too much. What might be another idea would be to have a free wallpaper of the day. Available in all resolutions, but is a different one each day (or week) which can be automated by your server.

It's your site, and your art, but, I don't think opening up the free gallery that wide would be a good thing for the site, or your checkbook.



I went for the lifetime membership, and before that did a couple of yearly. For the quality of your artwork, the membership is amazingly inexpensive. Realistically though, part of the decision was being able to get high resolution copies of your work, and to get access to copies otherwise unavailable.



I suspect that if you give away the whole deal, especially at the resolution you're thinking about, your new memberships will take a nose dive.



One of the things I keep thinking about is a festival I work for. The vast majority of the infrastructure is through volunteer effort. Everyone enjoys the event, but less than 5% are volunteering to help make it happen. If you give away a good enough copy for people to make do with, I wouldn't be surprised if you see something similar. Lots of people enjoying your work, but not that many out there helping you to keep your art your "day job".



Best of luck, whatever you choose.

Gar

With the general sentiment as well. 1152 x 864 is to large to give away for free. I would suggest a much lower one like 800 x 600. And/or, to quote another member, use a "semi-transparent, but butt-fricken ugly, watermark across the image".



If you go the route of giving away a resolution of each image, it should have a really predominant watermark across it, and not just in the corner like the current ones have.



just my two cents

Ryan,

Maybe, instead of offering the 1152x864 by itself, I think one 1028x768 (for non-widescreen users) and one 1440x900 (for widescreeners).

I just find that stretching a 4:3 image to fit a 16:9 screen (and vice-versa) tends to look really bad and distorted and users would appreciate seeing your artwork in a non-distorted format.

just my 2 cents though.

Thus far I am not regretting my lifetime membership at all.

Keep up the great work!

Ryan,

I read a lot of articles on techdirt.com, and they have a philosophy called "Connect with fans & reason to buy" (CwF & RtB). It's a very interesting philosophy because it works with tiered levels of interest.



At the core, your wallpapers are an infinite good. Once you complete the work, there are unlimited copies of that wallpaper to go out. One of the ways Techdirt recommends creating a reason to buy is packaging scarce goods along with your infinite good. Maybe setting up a premium membership tier that comes with a coupon for a free Zazzle poster. You could even take it to a very high level and maybe for a couple hundred bucks, you'd send an autographed poster.



Especially with your lifetime memberships, other than those who feel like donating to support you, there's no constant revenue stream. Offering a chance for lifetime members to continue to contribute by getting physical goods in return would be a great way to increase revenue from your current members.



As for the free wallpapers, if you think putting everything out there in a limited resolution will give more people a reason to buy a membership, go for it! That's the goal of the "teaser item." Making it easy for non-members to see just how much work you have done and how often you continue to update will likely help push some over the edge to join.

I like the suggested idea of offering two slightly-smaller-than-standard images, at 4:3 and 16:9 ratios. I also think delaying the free release of new images for 30 days or so would probably drive repeat visits of non-members to the site.

I don't think you would really be losing much business by offering free small scale images, those who are satisfied with low res wallpapers probably wouldn't see the benefit to purchase memberships anyway.

As my computer systems evolved over time, I wanted to make sure I still had my favorite wallpapers. I moved from 1024x728 to 1280x1024, then to dual-screen. I use your mobile resolutions on my phone. I'm planning on hooking up a PC to an LCD TV (when I get it) and your wallpapers will be the background. The only way I could get all of this is with a membership, and I'm sure even casual free users will realize this in time.

I appreciate the difficulty of this decision. I really think that the increased traffic free images may bring will turn into long term members.

Keep up the excellent work. I look forward to the new site design!

I have to agree with the general sentiment that giving away your art for free at an 1152 X 864 resolution would be a strong disincentive to become a member. As it is, I've watched the price of a lifetime membership drop substantially since I first joined, and doing away with the free gallery would seem like yet another betrayal. 1152 X 864 may not be much in today's graphics world, but it's close enough to my 15" MacBook Pro's native 1440 X 900 as to be acceptable. A lot of people still have relatively low resolution monitors, too.



I can understand the reason for wanting to do away with the free gallery. Having a single gallery with a free resolution available would make much less work for you, but I think you should either reduce the resolution of your free images to something no larger than 1024 X 768, or use a large, more prominent watermark in the free images, or both.

I purchased a Lifetime Membership because I hate paying monthly. With that said, if I could have gotten your artistry at that size for free legally, there would have been no reason to buy a membership. I think a small sample (like you do the thumbnails for members) with a couple of bigger ones for free (just so people can see what they would be getting) would be better I think.

I think I am pretty much in the same boat as everyone else here. I don't think the idea of giving away all of the "premium" content is a good idea.



When I first heard of DB, I stuck with the free gallery for awhile but eventually I wanted to get the newer stuff so I paid out the money for it and have been very happy with what I have received so far. If you were to hand out all of that artwork for free, I feel it would de-value the membership we all have.



Now that having said, I realize that you want to give free folks more than what they get now.



Personally, if you're going to give them your art, then give them the art at a "low" resolution and by low, I mean low, like 800x600 or even 640x480. You may not be able to make out all the good detail, but that's the point isn't it? If you really have your heart set on giving an 1152x864 version, then maybe put a semi-transparent, but butt-fricken ugly, watermark across the image. They can see the work, but if they want a "clear" image they need to be a member.



For me, I have seen a LOT of people who have screen resolutions at 1024x768 or 1280x1024 and stretching your suggested size would not distort it that much. Doesn't give those people incentive to become a member.



I do agree that all other resolutions need to be member only.



I do support you trying to move your site to something newer just as long as us members continue to get the quality we've always come to expect from you.



Best of luck.

1152 x 864 is *too* big. For many (even most) screens, you're essentially giving away everything for free, since a lot of people wont care about a little bit of upscaling.



I would set the free version to be 1024x768, or even smaller.

I'm usually in favor of getting things for free, but in this case I think you'd lose paying members to no real benefit

I don't think it's a fantastic idea to give away all your work for free.



Perhaps up the free offerings slightly with a "deal of the week" or some such as other have suggested.



If you're going to give away everything then consider just a "phone" size which may appeal to the social-network-ites, or a small 4:3 such as 1024x768. Certainly keep the 16:9, dual and triple screens members only.

I, for one, will certainly be continuing my membership. However, if I remember correctly, the specific reason I became a member was because I saw a thumbnail of a gallery that was only available to members. before that I had been happy with stretching the smaller resolutions. I'd also take into account, though, that at the time I was using a 1280x1024 monitor so stretching really wasn't so bad.



It's possible if I had a larger monitor like I do now I would have gotten a membership anyway. (really, since I have a dual widescreen I'd say certainly because you are one of the few sources of high quality dual monitor wallpapers)



I think it might be better to keep your very best artwork for members only as an incentive for new members to sign up. Maybe show a larger thumbnail of these to show what people are missing. I also think giving away a 16x10 resolution is one more reason for people not to sign up.

Hi Ryan,



i'm a composer, & so i relate somewhat to the whole issue of what to charge for & what to give away. To be frank - & much as i love change - i think the way you've done it hitherto is absolutely right. Like many people, i used the free gallery for a while, but ultimately liked your work far, far too much not to become a member. This clearly works, & i disagree that the free gallery is 'stale' as a result. It's a taster, it lets people see the kind of thing you do, but the quality of your work is simply too good to just give it away.



best, Simon

I have a 1280 x 1024 Eizo monitor.

So if the 1280x1024 pics are for free then there is for me no reason to renew my membership.

I have a 1280 x 1024 Eizo monitor.

So if the 1280x1024 pics are for free then there is for me no reason to renew my membership.



this site is exclusive for members.

Your idea sounds workable with a couple of caveats.



(a) Many (most?) people have widescreen monitors. Offering only a free 4:3 means most people won't want to use it or the artwork will look poor when they stretch it which they will inevitably do. A large number of people who find out about your work first see it on someone else's desktop so it needs to present well. Maybe offer free 1024x768 and 1024x600 versions. It will be low res, but at least it won't be distorted.



(b) Either keep a deeper catalog reserved for the members (pickle jar + anything older than say two years) or keep the most recent images reserved for members. Use the reserved images as a teaser to draw people in for members. Part of the draw of being a member is the ability to browse through all of these images that you can never see more than a thumbnail of. That system works and abandoning it completely would probably result in a drop in memberships.



Those are my thoughts. I have my lifetime membership so any changes you make will not affect me a great deal, but I selfishly want you to continue doing well so that I can continue to see new art adorning my desktop. Thanks!

I agree with others. I love your work so much I took out a lifetime membership. "Free" art will just be a lure for people to grab and run without any thoughts of paying. Your work is too valuable to "cheapen" it.

Long live the status quo.

I paid for a lifetime membership a while back, and I don't regret it. And I had been a subscriber before that.



However, I'm thinking that the elimination of the free gallery is probably a bad idea. The free gallery is enough to entice. It's what ultimately got me to get the lifetime membership, since I wanted more. And more I got. And it was worth it.



The general consensus seems to be "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".. Well, I'm not too sure about what may actually be broke that we don't see, but I don't know if I'd rock the boat quite that much.



And, to echo what others have said, if the mid res was made available across the board, I would suspect you would see fewer paying members.

Did you ever try to get a nice wallpaper for a big screen (2560x1600)? It's a pain and the pain gets bigger and bigger if you have a dual-monitor or tripple-monitor setup like I have.



I pulled your wallpapers approx. 2 years from the free gallery and then got a membership 'cause on your site I find absolutely great wallpapers for dual- and tripple-monitor setups - without pain, without viruses, without popups and without annoying ads. This alone is worth the price of the year-membership.



I think it's a good idea to have something free on a website. People are expecting something for free. You should have a version in 4:3 and 16:9 so that your free pics are looking great on every "normal" setup (single screen). Perhaps consider changing the Watermark a bit, so one can see that it comes from the free lib.



... and perhaps it's a good idea to NOT have them always for free. I don't know, but a "free pic of the month" could be a nice one, if you tweet this to get people returning.



I don't have a problem with the resolution - I don't have a problem if you decide to give 1280x1024 away for free but don't give the dual- or triple-screen versions away for free.



Regards,

Jazzbyte.

Your art is not open sourceware. It's your art, and it's appreciated by enough people in this forum (and on your site) that people pay for it.



If you're looking for revenue stream models, Despair has it down pretty well. Offer skewed (in a good way) or miniature versions of pictures, or figure out some clever invisible pixel overlays to protect your art.



Advertised freebies ('This week's download of the week') plugged and retweeted will get your site traffic, which, really, is what you want.



I'm in the exception in that I'd pay regardless for full access, but I dont think giving the store away will draw you new memberships...

I have to agree with a few posts that have urged the continuation of a limited quantity of images. I know plenty of friends who are tempted to be members because of the limited quantity (I was one of them), but if even a mid-res (1152x864) version of all was available, they wouldn't even consider paying.



One idea to add value to the members would be to allow us to vote which images go into the "free" gallery. The votes would get reset each week, for example, and the top 30, perhaps, would show publicly. Sure, you (Ryan) could mandate a few or your newest, but I'd like to be able to influence what people see. It would help showcase some older works, etc.



Releasing everything free (even in one res) /would/ lessen the value to me. I'd still renew, but would feel that I was getting less benefit. And 1152x864 should be the highest res available (IMO).



Thanks for taking our feedback,

Chris

I'm with everyone else here. don't give it away for free. we pay for this artwork, and i htink everyone else should too. IF IT AIN'T BROKE DON'T FIX IT. NO freebeeeeeeeeeeeessssssss! Don't offer the collection for free.

I'm sure that most of your members are digital artist themselves...Maybe a link where members can post their own artwork and images. Where you and the rest of us can rate and comment on...just a thought. But for your original questions, 1152 x 864 is an "art-tractive" offer. I signed up because I have a nice wide screen on my laptop and a dual screen set up as well, so it was more than worth it. But the main reason for my membership was, after I read your bio, I was impressed with your entrepreneurship and how you made a dream, a reality. I was proud to purchase a lifetime membership and help you keep DB alive. I don't believe that many members will have much animosity towards the new site and the free art since we know that you will continue to make more that only we will have complete access too, having said that I'm glad to see you expanding and adapting to the ever changing standards of our ".com" society. I feel that this will be great for DB and many more people will join...Good Luck.

P.S.- Thumbs up for disabling banner ads for members.;)

I would recommend only a 16:9 version for public download. Other screen sizes, multi-screen, and small form-factor versions should not be public, although you might consider an iPhone-format one.



As someone else said, this is your showroom. I see it as tasting menu, not a feast.

I am a member for 10 years now and pay every year for your artwork (no lifetime membership)







I don't think you should give your artwork away for free.







It is not expensive to have a membership so if people want to enjoy your artwork i think they should pay the few dollars you ask for a membership.

..don't fix it. I have never had any problems with the site layout, organization, what it offers. Everything has always served me just fine.



Before I joined, I grabbed whatever free wallpapers you offered, but I really wanted access to the enormous archive you've created and the new wallpapers were so great, I wanted access to those, too. $100 for a lifetime membership is a great deal. A lifetime of your art for $100. So, I cashed in because I wanted more. I was happy as a non-member, but knew I would be even happier as a member. I'd even pay more to lose the tag on the bottom corner, but I understand your position on it, and that's fine by me.



Unless you are having problems that I don't know about with how things are being done now, I'd leave everything the way it is. Members get it all, non-members get a variety of sizes of older wallpapers only, rotated once a month.



It is a dangerous temptation to mess with a good thing, and I think you've got one right now. If you're talking about a short-term experiment, do as you like, but I hope you're not planning on any sweeping permanent to semi-permanent changes. I just don't see a need for that.

The free gallery is your showroom, Ryan.



People will browse it and get interested from it and evolve from that to the "back room" so to speak and get a membership of some type.



The 1152x864 res is a good idea. But instead of offering everything at all times, maybe have a revolving grouping, pick random pieces from the whole year (or random from each category, ie night, space, etc), and keep the most recent 10, 25, or year's worth of wallpapers strictly for members only.



As an existing member, I don't mind if the "masses" get free access to a limiting amount, because the more they're tempted, the more members you gain, and the more wallpapers that can be made! :)



It's a nice little circle.

I agree that the system, as it is currently configured, is working as I think you intended...I used the free gallery for a year or so, then became an annual member, and just recently purchased a lifetime membership.



I wouldn't offer your entire collection for free, there would be no incentive to join.



You could add to / delete from the free gallery more often, or offer a few additional pictures 40 instead of 20 (or something like that). Whatever you decide to do, I will always look forward to your new art.

Ryan,



I paid for my lifetime membership to support your work. I'd hate to see you give away something that you really need to charge for.



It doesn't lessen the value of the site to me but I can see that giving away your images for free (albit one size) will take away from your registrations going forward.



I'd rather you not have any images available for free than to give way ones that will lessen your future income.



As a lifetime member, I've already paid my dues (if you will), but in my experience, there will be a lot of people who want everything for nothing, and won't pay unless they have no choice.



I'd limit the number of images that can be viewed per day (for non-paying member) to at least make it harder to empty your site at one time.



This is just my $.02.



Steve

It doesn't lessen the value of being a member much, but keeping the free gallery at only one single size as well as only having a limited number of images in the free gallery (and not having the latest works in there either), will be an incentive to become a member. That's my two cents, though.



Also, I just noticed that my current membership expires in a couple of weeks. The new format as suggested in the post won't deter me from renewing my membership for another few years.



In fact, I might as well just go ahead and do that right now. ;-)

I think if it were me, I'd give out a smaller size...say web book or maybe cell phone background. That would be valuable to a new visitor without "giving away the shop".



Maybe instead of a free gallery or free size you could do something like "Free Image of the Week" where you mark one image (maybe in just one size or a couple of sizes) free for a limited time. That way you aren't taking the image permanently out of the revenue stream, but you get the reason for people to revisit that you're looking for.



I think that your memberships are very reasonable and not a barrier to most people. Those who choose not to join at these prices are looking for what they can get for free and aren't likely to join at any price. Anyhow, thats my 2 cents :-)

I'm of a few minds about this... You can see I've been a member for years, and probably will continue to do so for many to come. One part of me is screaming "NO WAY! WHY SHOULD THEY GET THE SAME ACCESS AS PAYING CUSTOMERS? ZOMG RAGE!!!!!!!!"



On the other hand, you ARE trying to run a business, and I respect that you are asking your current members their opinions about what is (ultimately) up to you to decide. This only reinforces my opinion that I've made a good choice in continuing to provide you money for your work. :)



Now then, your question about wallpaper size...



1152x864 *might* be too small, but if you go much larger, you'll run the risk of people being able to stretch the wallpapers on 4:3 monitors with little to no distortion, at all. At most, I'd go up to 1280x1024, but not over that, really.



I like that widescreen (and presumably multi-monitor?) images will be members only, still? My monitors at home are both widescreen (1680x1050 and 1280x800 I think) and my monitors at work are dual screen. There's always that to keep me happy.

I purchased a lifetime membership because I like your work and wanted to support your continued work. I really don't mind what you give away for free vs what you charge for. I would have purchased the membership regardless because I think the work itself merits it.



That said, the average customer is likely to renew if there is something to be gained by renewing, so I would recommend not giving away everything. Giving away a reasonably sized image and not access to all of the phone sized and other sized images may be a good way to go.



I'm not really sure how it works currently since it's been so long since I visited the free gallery but you could also have a time limit. The newest images remain members only for say 90 days, and then a copy goes to the free gallery. That way members get a head start and get all the versions of the latest images with the free gallery eventually having everything, but a little slower and perhaps with only the resolution that you mentioned.



At any rate, do what you think works best. :) That's my $1.25.

I wouldn't offer up the whole collection in one size for free. Perhaps one size for limited times and changing weekly. But not the whole thing at once.

It's important to me that you not stop making wallpapers. This is why I give you money to keep doing it. I wouldn't care if you offered everything for free, I'd still want enough people to give you money so you could keep doing it, and I'd be one of those people.



So no, you can't lessen the value to me by offering free stuff, at any level.



You could offer the 1152 x 864 sizes for a while, and if membership drops off too much, reduce that to 1024x768 or something.

...but, I actually think you should lower the size a bit -- perhaps 800x600 or something that wouldn't scale right if enlarged. People steal your stuff all the time -- I see it from time to time myself. So, I do not think getting rid of the free gallery or blocking access to it by some authentication would really help.



The reason I have an account on your site is not because I need access to the size of the image, but rather because I like to support artists such as yourself who do this work. You, RyanB, are an icon in the computer world (which I hope you know, but if not -- there ya go). Your wallpapers are on all of the desktops of people I know and are coveted by those who do not have them. It is almost a status symbol to have an account on your site now. But, again -- this is not for the size, but the right to download and the support I donate.



I have been a long time supporter now -- not so much as some, but a long time to me. I hope the new site will bring about some good changes, but I also hope that you will keep the status quo for the most part. It is an amazingly simple website in design and usability and I hope you build on that, rather than change a lot. I think you and I are on the same page though -- reading your blog entry.



So, with that -- Good luck and again, thank you for all of your hard work and great artwork.

I'd still sign up, and will continue to sign up for the foreseeable future, the price is excellent and your artwork is top notch. Also, it provides an excellent gift for my friends online, and I've purchased a couple gift subscriptions, and intend to do more of that this Christmas :)



Where my problem comes in is at the 'bot' and size levels.



First, for sizes, I'd say 2 free versions at 800x600 and 1066x600 would be ideal. They are both useable by folks with 4:3 monitors and 16:9 monitors that way, but the resolution is low. These would be available, without image watermarks, for anyone to pull.



Next, with a free login, people can get 1024x768 and 1366x768 versions, without watermarks. This would allow you to know who's actually interested in your works, and have a base of folks to market to. I don't suggest spamming them, but they'd be the ones you'd offer a 'discount' or the chance at a free membership (as you do now with the random acts of kindness system).



Both these tiers would get to view advertising, of course.



Finally, paid for members would continue to have access to the full range, as well as the zip files, movies, etc.



Also, I'm going to bet you'd rather not see a bot crawling your site pulling your free versions; sucking bandwith without ads. Having some experience with wget myself, this can be mitigated through something free, such as reCAPTCHA.



To me, the biggest values I got from purchasing a membership were the artist's version of the images specifically for my screen size and resolution and the zip files that allowed me to 'catch up' and have a mountain of artwork instantly for my wallpaper switcher to page though.

I think that if it had been free like that from the start, I would certainly not have gotten an account when I did, I'd probably have gotten it in the end, though I don't know how much longer I'd have waited. That said, it doesn't change anything about how I feel about the subscription right *now*, and won't change my plans to renew when my account expires.

I've been a longtime member - way back when 1280x1024 was the "echelon" of screen sizes. It's amazing what happens in a few years.



I don't think 1152x864 would be "giving away the cow" as it were, and the vast majority of people I either build computers for or service are using 1024x768, or 1280x1024, so take that as it's worth.



Social Media does throw in an interesting promotional aspect, why worry about having free works when you can just tweet a new update and drive sales that way?



I like your current free gallery offering - I can show family/friends/clients who I go to for my desktops, and they get a chance to pick their favorites from the free selection. When they're tired of the "stale" they sign up, and have access to all of the great features I have had for many years.



Maybe the answer here is to do the 1152x864 resolution (which I think is slightly generous, 1024x768 is still used by a lot of people sadly), but stagger your offerings. Release your newest & greatest to your members, and then stagger out the old wallpapers to the free gallery in the limited resolution, and keep an active offering. Kind of like how AMD & Intel drove demand for their "enthusiast" processors by limiting quantity and like how you see coffee shops offering Eggnog Lattes around the holiday season. Line 'em up with free stuff, reel 'em in with the higher resolution goodies.



I'm not turned off by your free gallery in any way - I am willing to pay your "it would be a steal at twice the price" price every year, and reap the benefits of having some of the hottest desktop wallpapers for my computers. My average resolution at home is 1680x1050, with a laptop that can do 1920x1200.

I picked from the free gallery for about 6 months before I decided to sub and support the site, and about another year or so (?) before I went lifetime. That was mostly because I wanted you to be able to do this for a living, not because I felt like there were limited options! (Purely selfish, I want you to be creating pix full time! :) ) Not sure "everything free" is a super idea but maybe up the ratio a bit? (Not sure what it is now!) I do hate the watermark idea. Either give it away or don't - but don't "give it away" ruined. That's not free. That's whineware.

I totally agree with Max.



I think I wouldn't have become a member.



For me - it was an evolution:

*. I have spent quite some time using the Free gallery only.

*. After a while, when I looked at the thumbnails of the full gallery - I have decided to become a member because I have learned to appreciate your work.

*. Two years of "yearly membership" convinced me to pledge for life.



(I can also say that I have convinced at least two other persons to become members!)



I usually download the 1280x1024, so the 1152x864 is not that big of a difference, and I do feel that giving it away for free takes something out of my membership...



I say: go with the Water-mark suggestion. I think it is a GREAT idea!

Keep the Free Gallery going. Update it every now and again (as you do now) with older projects and have the entire collection available with Water-marks.



(Sorry if it sounds a little petty...)

I would have eventually signed up and paid because I like your work so much and I think it speaks for itself, but getting access to the full gallery was definitely a motivator, on the other hand I still would just to get the right resolutions. One of the things I like best about your selections is how many resolution choices you offer (even for every mobile device I've ever owned!).

I personally would not have become a member if I had access to all of the pics. It would not have mattered if I had to stretch it and distort it a little.



Personally, I would make them a thumbnail view and have a bigger view available but with a great big water mark though the middle of it (like "SAMPLE" going through diagonally) kinda like what zazzle does when previewing a poster.

I would continue to renew now. That being said, I probably would not have signed up originally if I had access to all of your work for free at something that would work on 1280 res. :)