

Flag – Print ads on the back of people’s free photos - davidbarker
https://fl.ag/advertising

======
patmcc
Great idea; it's a bit unclear to me how to become a user (rather than
advertiser), there's reference to an app but I couldn't find anything. I
wouldn't mind getting photos printed for free with ads on the back. Still in
beta?

I'm also curious to see what the auction prices end up being - they may start
at $0.01, but I doubt you'll stay in business long printing+shipping at that
price.

I also wonder - if an advertiser bids for 1000 ads, are those spread among
1000 different people, or 50 people x 20 photos (or whatever)? As a user,
would I upload all the photos I want printed and then sit back and wait for a
bundle to come in the mail?

~~~
skuhn
The service hasn't actually launched yet, per their Kickstarter updates and
comments. It makes sense, you have to line up advertisers before you start
letting people print, but I think that could have been made vastly more clear
on the site.

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elijahbit
For all those that say it's a joke, I have 169,000 reasons otherwise...

[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1306413684/flag-the-
app...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1306413684/flag-the-app-that-
prints-and-mails-your-photos-for/description)

~~~
desireco42
It is crazy what people will throw money at. I can see how people might try
this, but can't see wanting to use it more after novelty wears off.

------
Animats
For years, I've been expecting someone to come out with free printers. Every
once in a while, they print an ad. Nobody seems to have done this. Instead,
there are plenty of free printer deals; all you have to pay for is the
overpriced ink.

~~~
uptown
They're called fax machines. Virtually free, and everyday you'll get a couple
random ads faxed to you whether you want 'em or not.

~~~
psykovsky
Spax?

------
jt2190
A fantastic idea with lots of opportunities to upsell. For consumers:

    
    
      * Pay an extra $n to receive the prints without ads.
      * Pay an extra $n to add an invitation/birthday greeting/etc. to the back of the photos.
      * Pay an extra $n to upload the mailing addresses of m contacts and we'll mail the photos to them.
      * Pay an extra $n and we'll send you a framed copy of the photo.
    

etc.

For advertisers, price can go up as:

    
    
      * the customer targeting gets more specific.
      * the size/quality of ad improves
    

etc.

Now they just need to get everybody using it...

(edit: formatting)

(edit: Killer quote about another business, Sincerely, that did something
similar and then was bought by Provide Commerce: "The Sincerely suite of
applications was approaching 3.5 million registered users at the time of the
acquisition, and had seen 6.5 million app downloads. It had also shipped
products to over 1% of American households (1.5 million unique households.
[http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/07/provide-commerce-
acquires-m...](http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/07/provide-commerce-acquires-
mobile-gifting-startup-sincerely-will-expand-into-new-categories-apps-
in-2014/) My point is that there is a market there.)

------
developer1
This has to be a joke. You cannot tell me a single person is actually
interested in allowing a business to print their advertising on their keep-
for-life pictures. If I opened my photo album from my childhood and found
advertising on the back of each photo... what a joke.

Photo printing is already cheap. If you can't afford to print photos, you
probably also can't afford to buy the camera or the memory card (or the film
and development for you old-schoolers).

This is a sad world we live in. Advertising in every place imaginable. You
want to know where I'd be okay with your visual spam? On toilet paper. Print
your advertising on my free toilet paper so I can wipe my ass with it.

------
joedevon
I can't believe this insane idea has made Hacker News most popular. I heard
the pitch in person a couple months ago and thought they were fantasizing.

So now it's trending. Either I'm the stupid one, or the upvoters are. Most
probably it's me. LOL.

Good for the founders.

~~~
wodenokoto
Care to elaborate what is stupid about it?

~~~
Danieru
The idea relies on magazine like ad rates. Yet these ads have neither the
tracking appeal of online ads nor the demographic targeting of print ads.

The hard part of this entire business model is getting advertisers, yet
they've left that as the last step to test.

~~~
jeanbebe
Pictures don't lack demographic targeting. You can make a lot of demographic
assumptions from the content inside of a picture.

Example: facial recognition says that this blob with eyes in the photo is a
child. Flag may have signed up Babies R Us as an advertiser. Based on the
notion that it's a baby on the front of the photo the back as should be for
formula, college funds, or diapers.

The tricky part is building up the tooling to automate that process. But hey,
most of that exists in the wild already.

------
uptown
"Unfortunately printing is so expensive, complicated and time consuming most
of us can’t be bothered to do it even though we know we should."

Not sure about anywhere else on the planet, but prints are pretty cheap at my
local 1 hour photo place.

------
jarnix
It's either a joke or a joke, made me laugh though :)

------
dsacco
I'm disappointed the Sandwich Video isn't there. It's a much better quick
introduction.

You can see it on the Kickstarter page:
[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1306413684/flag-the-
app...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1306413684/flag-the-app-that-
prints-and-mails-your-photos-for)

(I'm not affiliated with fl.ag at all.)

------
djhworld
"On July 1st 1885, the day the service was introduced, sending a first-class
letter cost 2¢. 129 years later Flag can print and deliver your ads by first
class mail, for just 1¢. That’s progress."

Progress in what? Advertising or postal delivery?

------
toasted
Total vaporware.. consumers vastly overestimate the value of their own
attention and assume it can fund expensive things like this. If it can be ad
supported why do you need to pay $10 for the "app" via kickstarter?

------
DLarsen
Will the users ability to print be limited by the demand for advertising? In
other words, can I print 1,000 photos as an individual? If you can only fill
100 of those ad slots, do I pay for the rest out of pocket?

~~~
laoba
Per their Kickstarter it says "Select 20 photos" so I guess there will be some
sort of limit

[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1306413684/flag-the-
app...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1306413684/flag-the-app-that-
prints-and-mails-your-photos-for/description)

------
_xander
I don't really see a difference between this and
[http://www.freeprintsapp.co.uk/](http://www.freeprintsapp.co.uk/) (which is
ad free)

------
amolgupta
A user can stick the picture on a wall or on a scrapebook or even add it to
his album and never look at the advertisement ever.

------
s_m
Is this a joke?

------
SamuelFlag
Hi all.

I'm the founder of Flag - Samuel Agboola.

There are tons of questions here. I'll do my best to provide some answers.

1\. No - Flag is not a joke.

2\. The visibility of the ad should be compared to a web ad or a piece of junk
mail. There's metadata on the back of each print. A caption you write, a
secondary photo and some Exif data. That's a reason to look at the back of
each photo. I have hundreds of photos taken by my parents during my childhood
which I know nothing about. Where were we? When was it? Who's in this photo?
Flag wants to make archiving images robust and simple. You'll be able to look
at your prints in a few decades and know something about them.

We also make it simple to send your free prints to family and friends. That
information allows you to explain each image to the person you're sharing it
with.

If you look at the metadata once it's already once more than you view the
majority of junk mail. If it's a picture you cherish and show to a friend when
they see the ad beside your caption we've already out-performed junk mail by
100%. The most effective pieces of print advertising, catalogues, last in
people's homes a year at best. People keep photos forever.

3\. You get a pack of 20 photos per month free with ads. More than 20 prints
in a month and you pay for them. This is both for reasons of cost but also for
convenience. Most people would be daunted by having to find 100 photos to
print. 20 keeps it simple and means advertisers know the prints people order
are things they actually care about. If we printed an unlimited number of
images free many people would simply dump their entire photo archive to paper
but never look at the prints, or ads, when they received them.

4\. Freeprintsapp.co.uk has never shipped a free print "Postage and packing
starts at £1.49, never more than £3.99!". Flag ships for free. No credit card,
no subscription, no shipping or handling.

5\. The Sandwich video is pretty awesome. So awesome in fact it's something we
should probably update...

6\. The reason for the Kickstarter was to fund development and to prove to
advertisers there's a demand for a free print product. Surprisingly you can't
just say "Of course people want free stuff" and expect advertisers and
investors to take your word for it. People paying for early access and special
service from a free product was fantastic proof of the concept.

7\. Beyond being free Flag's prints are laser-cut. That means we can deliver
WYSIWYG prints for the first time at no additional charge. Print an iPhone
photo with any other company–including Apple–and you have to crop it to 3:2,
5:7, 5:4 or 1:1. Flag can deliver 4:3 prints, 1:1, 16:9 and any other aspect
ratio in one pack with no additional fee. On top of that we can offer border
treatments and finishes which simply aren't available. We provide the same
flexibility for finishing that other apps offer for image manipulation.

8\. I'm not sure who "joedevon" is although I do remember one rough
conversation which could qualify for this "pitch".

There's nothing vague about our numbers but some people with little
established interest want to have complete and detailed conversations without
an NDA. We've spoken to many people outside an NDA but a decision always has
to be made about seriousness of intent. All the advantage lies with the person
receiving information and it's entirely possible they want details to share
with our competitors or to enable them to do something other than help us.

We know how we scale and we know our product cost to fractions of a penny.
Unlike many startups we deal in paper and postage. Out fixed costs per
customer are higher than Instagram or Facebook. That said our revenue per
customer blows them away too.

If joedevon wants to discuss things again I'd welcome a chance to correct the
record.

9\. We're not reliant on ads. We will also make revenue for regular print
services. The ad-free prints will be sold. Ad supported prints are something
entirely new and for the first time will be truly free.

10\. The ads on our prints are optional. If you want to pay for your prints
and have them ad free you can. Flag's prints are better than anything
currently in the market at any price. We use better printing technology which
offers more dynamic range and color depth than silver-halide lab prints. We
can print any aspect ratio or shape and deliver those prints in a single
package (normally printing squares means ordering a complete pack of square
prints, with Flag you can order a single square print, three panoramas and a
round one for no additional charge). We're using the best German photo paper
and using Korean UV laminates which give our prints much longer life than the
15-19 years of traditional prints.

11\. The difference between cheap and free is effectively infinite.

12\. Describing the ad purchase system is a challenge we're still working on.
It's not that complicated but we've as yet failed at expressing it as simply
as we need to.

The ad prices at auction will vary. Depending on whom you want to target they
could stay low or rise significantly. The average cost per bid for Google
Adwords is now $1.50. Flag works very well and generates significant profit at
less than half of that.

Unlike web advertising properties Flag has genuinely limited inventory. Google
can always put up another page. We can only deliver as many ads as we do
prints. Buying 1,000 ads means reaching 1,000 people unless you were to
specify otherwise. We wouldn't send duplicate ads to a single person, it
serves little purpose.

The app is launching very soon as an alpha (feature incomplete and running on
80% of our final infrastructure).

Thanks for the kind and insightful comments. Feel free to email me for more
information. sam@tryflag.com

Respectfully,

Sam.

