NextGEN Gallery with Scott Wyden

The Conversation Scott, we have you here to tell us a bit about the NextGEN plugin by Imagely. You work for Imagely and you even have a podcast called WordPress for Photography Podcast. Tell us a little about you as a photographer and the company you work for. I’m a WordPress user, and I teach it at the university. Right now I have two classes so you could say I’m “all-in” on WordPress. Jeff, before we go any further, please tell the people listening what WordPress is and how it fits into our lives. Jeff: WordPress is something called a Content Management System. It is a tool that helps a person create a website without having to know the technology to build web pages like HTML and CSS. It is actually free software that you could download and run on your computer, but it isn’t really useful that way because the whole point is to build a website and that means you need to have it running on a computer that is always connected to the Internet. Instead, you pay a hosting provider to run the WordPress software for you and then login as an administartor to set things up how you want them to look. WordPress is especially useful for blogging. Lots of photographers write blog entries for every photo shoot as a way of sharing the service they provide with potential clients. WordPress works really well for writing text. It is not really made to do a great job of displaying your photos in a compelling and pleasing way. You can solve that problem by adding something called plugins that expand the capabilities of WordPress. Kind of like how adding an extension to a browser provides enhanced capabilities to the browser. Plugins spice things up and make it possible to make websites run on WordPress look more modern. Because WordPress is software so heavily used to design and run websites today, about 33% of all sites online are run on WordPress, there are hundreds of thousands of plugins available. Some are free, and of the free plugins very few are actually useful. The good ones you have to pay for and you really want to pay for. You know me, I am on a hobbyist budget and don’t will work really hard to not pay for things or find the least expensive way to get the job done. Paying for a plugin to get the functionality you want is a good thing with plugins because you know then that there is a person or a team behind the plugin keeping things updated and supported. Scott, the beauty of WordPress is that it seems that it’s endlessly customizable. But one thing that has eluded photographers for so long is facilitating image sales, in particular, print sales. But your NextGEN image plugin is fixing that. Tell us some of the features of your plugin that says “this is why you should buy this plugin” and then we’ll get to these print fulfillment ideas next.

Now let’s get to the print fulfillment. Walk us through this step by step.

* Automated Print fulfillment setup* Service is commission-free and white-labeled* First lab: WHCC with shipping to US and Canada, Other labs? International Shipping?* Shopping cart integration?* How are the files managed? Can I set up different unique files for each print size? Do I have control over which print sizes I can sell or is it just a provided list.* Does the plugin show the crop for the different print sizes? Does it allow the user to do a custom crop?* Anything else about the plugin?

Doodads:

Jeff: Logitech MX Master Wireless Mouse ($60).  I have recommended this mouse before and I love coming back to some of the things that have been work horses for me.  This has been my mouse for four years now and I still just love it. Really good for photographers. $60 may sound like a lot for a mouse, but trust me it is worth it!

Scott: SwitchPod ($99).