Art Blog - ArtId

Very soon you will be seeing Free Memberships on artists web sites disappearing. Actually, all manner of web sites. In order for a site to generate revenue, they must do one of two things, host paid advertisements or charge a membership fee. Advertising support is shrinking for a number of reasons leaving all websites looking for alternate revenue streams. Before too long you will be paying a subscription for online news as the newspapers scale back their print runs. Magazines are dropping their printed material and going completely online. Even with all their heavy-duty advertising, the printed magazines and newspapers weren’t free and their sites won’t be either.

Some previously free online artists sites are starting to charge membership fees, as their advertising revenue decreases, scrambling to offer more services and features touting them as “something new” when they announce {“new product/service for artists which (will) change the way that artists market and sell their art online.”} Free uploads, articles, no commissions, and other unnamed marketing “products”.

ArtId has been offering these same services and MORE for nine years and counting, thriving in a struggling economy. ArtId has always been membership based; only very recently have they accepted selected advertising from environmentally responsible companies that produce or distribute green art supplies. Many artists resist paying a membership fee, because they can get Free Memberships on other sites. Yet,even ArtId’s Free Membership has more features than any other free site out there. ArtId has never charged a commission on sales. ArtId has always let the artist, be in control of their own content, transactions and self-promotion. ArtId became a community-based site with individual blogs and artist interaction the minute the technology was available. They must be doing something right, ArtId’s membership has more than doubled in the past year. Artists are beginning to abandon their individual sites, finding them cumbersome to maintain and disappointing in terms of generating traffic, in favor of easier use and a more communal atmosphere.

ArtId has been gaining exposure for their member artists at an unprecedented rate and strives to provide artists with sales opportunities. ArtId began publishing articles that were tailored to artists and their self-promotion needs two years ago; providing valuable information from describing your art for the internet, to how to optimize your site, to product and book reviews. The ArtId Art History blog is unequalled in scope and content. An expert, with real time suggestions and advice, posts the blog written for Art Teachers. Member support is extraordinary in a time when such services are outsourced or gone. With all this in place ArtId now turns it’s focus to the buyer, with tools and information for the collector, the designer and the public.

Think about it. The artist gets a lot for their $9.95 a month membership. A cup of coffee every day adds up to more than that, cable TV, parking, a cell phone, the subway, a fast food lunch costs more than that. Like all these other services, it’s up to the consumer, how little or much they use them. Service, support, marketing tools, information, job postings, blogs and links, designed for the artist, are not new, they are ArtId.

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