the pains of the (creatives) creators

[LiekeRoubroeks]

Dear creators, 

My name is Lieke and I am a 4th-year student of creative business. For the course advanced creative business I need to find the pain points of the creators that work with Zazzle. After contacting you, (and finding out your pain points) I need to come up with solutions for these pain points by using o.a. blockchain and decentralized models.  

I would love to hear from you and maybe my research and solutions could be helpful for Zazzle and you guys! If you can help me with providing this information I would be very grateful. 😊

Yours faithfully,

Lieke Roubroeks 

[waterart]

What are "pain points"?

[LiekeRoubroeks]

Good question! Examples are problems with payments, creators who don't get enough paid, poor quality of products, unfriendly user design, people who use the creations of others, and lack of being seen because of the use of algorithms. Things that do not work out in favor of the creator. 

[waterart]

The biggest challenge for me as an artist is getting my work seen, promoting and connecting with people are areas of difficulty for me. 

I'm sure Zazzle's algorithms are not in my favor because I don't get very many views, or it could be that my designs are not the kind that people are interested in  and so my designs would get bumped to the bottom of searches. Zazzle is in the business of making money for itself, I get that, I'm happy that I have an opportunity to make money with my art.

[Windy]

What is "o.a. blockchain" ?

[idraw]

See my posted reply to penguin power

[PenguinPower]

Are we to assume you are doing this in cooperation and with the permission of Zazzle?…

Personally, I’d say one of the biggest frustrations is that if one is not already seen, appearing in a standard Zazzle search, it can be next to impossible to break in… major weight at least appears to be given to a handful of long established storefronts who dominate the searches enough that smaller and newer producers are quickly pushed off the end (as the # of results are limited to 15, I seem to recall, pages worth). While items may appear briefly when results are ordered by newest, that exposure is generally extremely short lived.. especially when some designers will dump 10’s if not hundreds of products at once, often consisting of the same basic graphics with minor color variations. 

While I can see the logic of thinking that showing selling designs sells… who’s to say that non selling designs would necessarily still not sell, given the same amount of notice… some of it seems certain to be chicken vs egg…

[idraw]

@Zazzle forum mods —may seriously need to stop this thread and delete it because of this person’s clearly stated  use of blockchain….I hope the person who started this thread has not been able to capture and use the info (including our email and website) of those who have replied!!!

From my research, some info—-

A blockchain is a decentralized, distributed and public digital ledger that is used to record transactions across many computers so that the record cannot be altered retroactively without the alteration of all subsequent blocks and the consensus of the network

———

A blockchain is “a distributed database that maintains a continuously growing list of ordered records, called blocks.” These blocks “are linked using cryptography. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a timestamp, and transaction data. A blockchain is a decentralized, distributed and public digital ledger that is used to record transactions across many computers so that the record cannot be altered retroactively without the alteration of all subsequent blocks and the consensus of the network.”

As explained by Wikipedia, “Blockchain was invented by Satoshi Nakamoto”—the pseudonym of an unknown person or persons—“in 2008 to serve as the public transaction ledger of the cryptocurrency bitcoin…

[PenguinPower]

…. Not sure what you think she can get from a reply that she couldn’t just skim from any thread… my only question was really if Zazzle was ok with her coming in and asking, and they haven’t moderated her away yet..

That she’s a college student and learning about blockchain, honestly doesn’t worry me.. at its core, it’s just distributed computing. Even if it got it’s reputation from cryptocurrency, there are non financial uses for the technology… some that may even be quite useful. One thing it does well is authentication - if that could be harnessed to somehow prevent pirating of artwork how cool would that be…

[idraw]

Hi penguin power,
My concern was about this part of the person’s post “by using blockchain….

To your point saying ….’they (z mods) haven’t moderated her away yet.….’
On 10/12  you asked “Are we to assume you are doing this in cooperation and with the permission of Zazzle?” As of today 10/14 there has been no response to your question from  Z.

Zazzle  mods sometimes read posts much later than we respond to them.. They are the ones who need to verify how and why this person (or anyone else) btw we assume to be a she and states to be a college student) is gathering and using our personal data going forward with blockchain involved.  

The poster did not state that they were learning about blockchain, just using it.

Thanks for mentioning the interesting point about blockchain being used for “authentication”, this goes to the heart of my concern.

Why is this person involving blockchain in their research here?

I am aware that , as you said, …’anyone can skim info from our posts…’
anyone could also then possibly go further, gathering data from our bio and our websites. I would be interested in knowing how z protects our info when we as contributors post our bio, website info and just general info about our location and personal details etc.

You mentioned …’that it could be harnessed to somehow prevent pirating of artwork how cool would that be…’
I have been watching the horizon for over a quarter of a century hoping for an algorithm or a company to come up with a tool to prevent pirating of artwork. Still waiting, watching and hoping. Whoever the developer is, they will become an overnight billionaire.😁 Big G must be asleep at the switch.

[LiekeRoubroeks]

I get your concern! I am just a student learning about blockchain and how to use it! I wish I was an expert haha then I would pass this course finally! 

[LiekeRoubroeks]

Hi there! Lieke here! I am not a thread. I am just a student of 23 who is learning how you can use technology to make platforms even more efficient and usefull for the creative/creators on a platform. Just to let you know I am just a student following a school course. I used Zazzle as an example platform for my final assignment. So nothing to worry about. 

[Barbara]

I'm about to report this thread just in case no one else has done so.

[LiekeRoubroeks]

Hi there! Lieke here! I am not a thread. I am just a student of 23 who is learning how you can use technology to make platforms even more efficient and usefull for the creative/creators on a platform. Just to let you know I am just a student following a school course. I used Zazzle as an example platform for my final assignment. So nothing to worry about. 

[Mark]

Hi all,

It seems like this thread has gone off topic. We will be locking it for now.