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Question: What is the inspiration behind BluDomain? How did the concept come about?
Harald: Bludomain came about with Aundrea’s interest in photography and I dabbling in design and creating a flash website for her. We began as a conventional advertising operation but found that there was great benefit in pre-designing sites before selling them. Photography was a natural niche because they are fun to create for one, and photographers know how to manipulate images.
Question: What initial challenges did you face when you first introduced your product? What were the key elements you strived to set yourself apart from the competition?
Harald: Initially we were very primitive. I used to crop all the images and thumbnails myself and input them by hand – Aundrea did all the marketing and we started with just a few clients (who we still work for). We had a very humble start but it was always about design for us. As we progressed and acquired a few crack programmers it became about ease of use in conjunction with the design we initially developed. We are always striving to create fancy looking sites which are so easy to use that anyone can do it.
Question: Did BluDomain first target itself for the artistic market exclusively, or it naturally evolved into a popular delivery medium for the wedding photography industry? Did your branding and marketing focuses ever shift?
Harald: It began with photography from the beginning – we did not intend to stay exclusively in this industry but that is the way things appear to have gone. There are more and more crossover industries discovering our sites as well as we gain more exposure.
Question: What are some of the most demanding feature requests coming from the photography industry in the recent years? What new features you plan to offer in the near future?
Harald: Without revealing too much about what we intend to do, our goal will be to cover every need in the market we are in. The most demanding things are always with regards to the complex needs clients have for e-commerce. There are many different desires clients have with regards to shopping carts and it is difficult to meet all these demands and still keep things simple and easy to use.
Question: You offer a cookie-cutter approach to create digital online portfolios. Some argue the numerous disadvantages of such approach: such as the limitation of individuality and creative control. From a photographer or artist perspectives, what would you recommend to newcomers or veterans: what’s the balance between style, presentation, reliability, and cost when it comes to redesigning your portfolio site?
Harald: Although we do offer what could be dubbed as cookie cutter sites we now have so many options and even options within the site functionality itself that the ability to customize and make your site unique is quite extensive. Many sites are unrecognizable from their original counterpart. We are always pleasantly surprised to see which direction our clients take our designs. We always encourage our clients to inject a hefty dose of their personality and style into these sites. In the end it is not really about our sites as much as it is about the images which our sites provide the framework for.
Question: The days of browser Flash incompatibility issues are long gone. Is this the reason why you currently offer just two HTML conversion compatible sites? Or is this the result of lack of market demand?
Harald: There is a much stronger demand for flash these days. We did offer a selection of HTML sites some time ago but we sold much fewer and they are very limiting visually. This is a very visual industry and the best way to create a potent impact is through the use of flash with subtle animations. Images evoke emotion – we intend to use the best tools at our disposal to accomplish this.
Question: Search Engine Optimization or SEO has become the buzz in recent years. In addition to traditional marketing (which is often expensive), properly SEO optimized sites present many natural web exposure opportunities. More and more photographers are starting to become aware of this technology trend. What is BluDomain’s take on expanding more into this market awareness?
Harald: SEO is a very competitive field – though we offer tips and advice on this subject and also create the means to enter meta data and keywords into the sites it is not something we currently specialize in. We have seen clients pay large sums of money to external companies with only mixed results at best. It is a tricky nut to crack. Ultimately we believe there is no substitute for marketing your site and gaining exposure through high profile linking. Creating a strong portfolio and generating a buzz is always going to be the best way to do this.
Question: Could you provide some background and insights into Blu Social? How do you "recruit" Blu Concierges?
Harald: Blu Concierges are chosen from a long list of applicants. We chose people based on their diligence and personality. All our concierges are past clients who have good core knowledge of how the product works.
Question: With such talents on your design staff, do you plan to offer design, identity branding study and marketing services in the future?
Harald: We have a multitude of ideas on the horizon unfortunately we are growing extremely rapidly. Currently our focus is on managing this growth and ensuring our customer service is up to par. This can be challenging at times even with added support staff. We are striving to attain enough qualified representatives that we can fulfill a growing need in our field.
Question: On a lighter note, any interesting fun facts about your key staff you would like to share? What is the palette that makes up the BluDomain culture?
Harald: Bludomain is a rag tag bunch originating from all woks of life... Ranging from an ex Superbowl champion to a film school graduate. We always aim to keep things light and fun. Our face is our blog which is represented extremely well by our resident blog writer Kailee (we are only know by first names at BD). We try not to take things too seriously and always want to reach out into a community that has been so good to us by providing contests, parties, and resources that will bring exposure to all who deserve it and useful resources to all who want it.
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