DeviantArt: Creating Community Around Creativity

right I write them might from Indian Art thanks for having

incidences yield is developer at the dinner and kind of of project manager and work in this day and this is our 1st time here at the Labor conference so the lightning stand in a lot of great people and I think it's a sea talking what about different projects and software that you're working on and the walking talking a lot of potential energy and I think that sometimes you guys don't necessarily see that kinetic energy of the work they're putting in so I had just 1 of his start our presentation will be this is great but this'll slideshow our work from you all was created with different open source software but this is just a mess variation of stuff as creative open tools we observe that the 1st way but if the but but but but but but but but but but but but but but I had with but if I had was that the global with but if I had made with the hope that it with of course of the of the of the the fact that I have found the that if you if you if you if you if you if you have have a problem with the I have you you and you can see in the universe a the title I hope that do have to have have to do with the have with up to this is going to take the picked at the the In this case the In this was in a and I have this thing in the and in the home you the the 1st is the land and the usage of the of the of the electrons at the at the time of the the the the the the types of things the it it but the signal the bottom of the fact that the has here so but hopefully you guys can see lots of cool

users of the different open tools and it's being used in so many interesting greater ways and that's what I the not about exhibiting lots of interesting creative work so this curious how many of you guys have accounts how many was there the data and how many of you have heard of it but it's a it's a pretty familiar audience so I want that OK so you guys an that about background is different people no bits of information so we've been around since 2000 so world the older than 10 years old we've had the same infrastructure since the beginning we don't have any venture capital financing and like that we probable from operations so we basically do things that we feel are right for the arts community we interact with members of or always time and we do things that we feel are appropriate there is a look at the back and us this to probable so we use those are guiding principles for creating the site has over 17 million members now and 45 million monthly visitors from all over the world that number grows with about 10 thousand members every day we have over 200 million unique works of art and that's a number the growth of 100 thousand works every day which is kind of astounding and also as big as some other photo-sharing sites with the same number that is that everything on our site is an intentional upload unlike a photo dumping site like Picasso or flicker people post their vacation photos post birthday party particles up like that everything and even art was met with the specific intention right now we have around 20 400 different categories were work so everything from 3 work to use digital art to painting sculpture pumpkin carving needlework we really cover the whole gamut of creativity except for music because that's the most with this history of planets so we can say that but in terms of our company we have 75 people on staff and some people think we're a couple as there are some people think reviewed corporation but there is a 75 offices in Hollywood California most of those people are are actually developers or desires so why did offers a lot of different services and I think that we've been doing on stuff with the open source community but primarily what we do is we offer free hosting for all of your work you can upload a limited images used in any medium from many tools we model this double the self-imposed print we also offer free by professional all my portfolio sometimes so when presenting work for professional users when applying for a job pointer art school you don't necessarily want to have ads lots of community features and cation there are work so we'll a report photos for people to present their work we also have a free Web Press drawing tools like here which is a HTML 5 drawing tools we developed over last year's Cup of of attention which is very cool and that's going on usage which is 1 we also think it's important to let artists profit from their work so 1 of the things that we do is we have a big shopper people sell their work so essentially people upload a hinges feedback we can sell it on a number of different substrates from coffee mugs and puzzles Caldas all the way up to really nice framework canvases of logical but the most important thing that the is that it's a really large relevant audience peers if you work to Facebook or Flickr power-sharing of your friends people action on real life what's really interesting about the unit is that if you have a very specific interest for instance I really like pumping I really can't think of a HeLa places on the internet work and interact with a community of people were really into the problem of carving pumpkins I think that that's the best thing you you can find a community of like-minded people were give you accurate detailed critique under work and that is free and open the other thing that is really needed the data is

that the artist community really likes to share collaborate and we have a huge community of people who like to basically share resources and other stuff on our site and so if you browse around we have hundreds of thousands of scans tutorials actually Adobe said that we have more tutorials on how to use photoshop than they do it's funny in his evolved and submitted for prebiotic and it's not just how to use the software it's also the really advanced techniques of how to draw eyes shading do air how straw hair appropriately and added to modeling of draft animals and model 3 D figures this is work created by artists for artists in order to inspire education cooperation we also have filters plug-ins stock worker and you can see different level models other stuff here this is something that we find really important you know we think education as a huge part of the so the next thing a lot of is kind of doing your

work out of the you know is a place where you're gonna find lots of audience for the work I think and support us I'm not very popular press on the site whenever I submit images I get hundreds of users when you upload subsidy especially categorized correctly you get tons of audience for work there's also lots of ways to get your name out by participating contests of sponsored contests of different companies movie studios such that all 1 artists to collaborative participate and they don't necessarily Carol couple of years but they really like the idea of having people share and the created and finally summing released last year which is now growing popularity is given our groups can as of belong to groups and the topic so the groups are really cool because they're like little micro communities people who were interested in area specific things so these are examples of some of our popular open-source groups you can see the in hundreds and hundreds of members of impending skippers groups might be a group of an artist so these are places where people aggregate to have conversations about using these tools but I think it's really cool just because not only the sharing information about how to use the products they're sharing tutorials the sharing examples of work that done these tools it's a really great place for people to collaborate communicate about using open source software so the question is how do we kind of yeah the word of the lord more about articles 1st off 1 of things that we find important is to and attributions the difference so people used within the deviations of the octaves so if we can read from the eyes of information and image we post everything on Saturday but also attended does some guidelines you at the top of creating tools and this very developer-centric community but I I wanna talk about guidelines for promoting your tools to the outside artists who don't necessarily think in terms of programming they really just think about how to use really cool tools so it's important to build community around the tools so I think for you guys as leaders and in a community I think it's important to go out there and not results I think it's important to run groups to participate in groups I think it's important to engage people when ask questions participated and a lot of a lot of people talk about how they really like getting feedback from artists how people are using the tools and it even as a great platform because people are learning about how to use these tools are assigned learning about tools for the 1st time and is a great way to engage with the kind of the New York of but also in a debris post news article that updates software can run all sorts of old many contests I think if you inspire people to be creative they will be created and don't leave it open ended the assailant running scared contest said right part test you can say run you to be the national park of just like what kind of car would you like to drop and then you're going to get hundreds of hundreds of submissions are most popular contests like 10 thousand submissions which is crazy and you don't even have a big points having as long as the people the the prizes that this like sharing interacting and they're like seeing and lastly post tutorials and not just an habeas Opelika mentioned such and also talking about how creating is avatars and I could tell you just 1 person resp artists love watching that like seeing how other people create inspires them and they go off and create amazing work I think I'm a good to create avatar myself as and when but as part of that times the posting a final artwork I think it's important to also can share project and that's there that's that's 1 of the reasons over here is that we want to talk about a new up project we working on called statue which is an open submission API into the so basically you can put your programs have a direct export right worse operating all so basically artists can instantly share and get our work out there the world them and the little more about this so personal heroes who have very need to be locked into the process that we're giving early access to a running and running here that new idea has just been finished last week and the public maybe in a few weeks or a month but everybody in this room or a product in our C 2 of them were 1st reported working on can just log into the main article registered have count and with the address there were directed to the developer space which is made of list that this new job also hold ones that people produce no about for example uh we publish RSS feeds of pretty much everything on the site so we will always been open and letting artists and get out of that review are and that's where uh so for instance you could query that gets old the artwork from a specific person from specific side of our work and and read it in the north reader or sportswear and this new API is about simplifying the way people for their work online so it would try to make it as simple as possible for the developers as well using belong to which does most of the work which is an open standard currently being worked on news for many websites registration to work with us you also making a program ready to integrate with a lot of what so it should be pretty straightforward was programmers to it yeah that that can of the of protection from looking this is really interesting to me I was already about found 1 non-socialist China renders structure

now right now I can't loves a native creature found to featured articles sulfuric myself to

let the possible to see I should be shared by the energy back and let's say the period race so as all play that like it's World War objective of this idea with something that you have never seen a websites is that will always type the project file to the final render together if you want to lecture software at a problem with that part alongside the power render you can do that no ways that together and something else that's really properties with this API is as soon as you submit the artwork get a unique ID that ties the work besides about work gravity so for example you can make it so that when people modify their work on the computer and save it automatically it's published it's a bit of but you always keep the synchronization between your workflow on your desktop and the online version of consumers and common 0 yeah we think it's really powerful just for the purposes of education to let people essentially show the project files with the final render some programs of the generator PAG is the final under but if you're working give you the sort of project while which has all layers and actions in history which is the best educational tool you possibly ask for as a young artist along with the final image that's all in 1 works of people not to start digging around mobile places for that the talk I I have a question about the so if you're doing such thing where you're you're constantly updating a project and stuff like that yeah you handle are storing all provisions of files so suggest just about that because apparently it's very very simple just replace what's there that ultimately we could store the diversity as well as you know it's just the beginning forests where to mitigate the simplest possible and know what their needs are expressed will they to have a kind of Jerusalem possible from just signed area and if I programs programs or sites decided to use the same the the API and we get the amenable to allow for the sites to use a 2nd and uh because most the API tool was a good idea that improve programmers savings people can decided that it would be better for them to integrate the standard PPI than it would be for a specific thing that all its very core of the of application is part of this business so was that sort of standard the data itself is just 1 based the form groups you know you can't get more simple and that uh it's already started by accepting the disparity in books not being something custom obviously adjusted to standard emerges with Father image hosting or you know the websites that was further authentication portable bandwagon and and use whatever standard as well as usual and because we don't want that if you look at the figure very customer very different for the rest and we do want that way because we know that no it's is very powerful we part minutes you can hi both that estimates to the site that called for example if we sure short here and if we were provide as many languages as possible as examples so this is just what it takes form to send dissemination in our so we have much uh and most of it is just the building of the request that was the 1st time that we have a 2nd question about your branding and that I know as there are professional there's a certain and then I had died a means to write for that like the stigma attached to teach not about type and quality of work that's going to be there but it's usually like animator you know this this this whatever down pensions back whatever how do you guys look to compete with something like the Hans which is about sort of more of the design the professional side and then something with my Saatchi Online which is more a and they both have aspects of social networking as well they're just different this nite in terms of education the statement you just made about the API me mouth water because as an artist like that versioning system it a ginger Grefenstette earlier it's like final final final the final final to it distances to consolidate have is the tools is magnificent and then also 1 with all the layers to someone say that like from from a technical standpoint FIL respect how hard he looked to of increasing the usage of someone who's maybe 10 years into their career you know and then as soon as you said that URL it's like all the sudden snaps to that that silica this is 1 of the I think that the tools that we have and the interfaces that we build for displaying our work are significantly stronger than any other sites were faster I think that we display our work and the way that really most our work from center I think all those sites don't do the job the you know terms in the community elements in community make up the discussion of having younger artists and we clearly allow everybody some our work and we've actually try to do a good job of rebalancing the content inspection matter is that young artists have a lot of retirements and they're the ones that submitting modern and which is at the moment the most popular form work in world just that matter so the units showing representation of what's actually happening out there but so we're actually working on some cool new search technologies that moment that will help personalize their experience so the you not a year will actually probably look different than those that in the sense that it will be more tailored to the experience of person consuming content we can talk too much about the right now but were putting a lot of work into making content filtering much much much better like goal being that has a view on the feeling our only see work there were interested so you don't problem of being subjected to seeing what's most popular across the whole world you you would see what would your answer if I can tell you that there are tons and tons and tons of professional parts on the other hand is a this is 1st like that value

of this thing is it's a very long process

work changed attitudes trying the image in some circles not happen overnight but they wouldn't change everybody's mind about preconceptions about the user pays have you know from the time I had a vision of it for I work for know when when you spend more time exploring what's in there you find extremely talented people professionals when people work these new post their personal stuff from there and so it made of the fact people not being aware of that that's what we're going try and change the way in which 4 sites find that the so it there's a question about a year and services I was wondering if you could speak on the have job like John was like that like it's a reward system and were like a bonus points system with and you are right job yeah was LDA many allow me to get the alignment of concerns me in Spanish runs from but yeah so I was wondering if you could speak of 1 that comes from that that was something we were protesting and 1 was that just a part of our culture factors someone securitarianism because this is the parabola this staffing selection bias irrelevant whether they can't win for that so it's a something of part of our culture and complicated along so we were starting to build our badges what's in kind of our 1st test to see how many laws would give each other and it was millions and millions of Americans that greater than world to the the world map of lemmas and it was kind of ridiculous what kind of so have made it map of people

who given lovers uh this is from a lot of feature so you can see

some of the world millions and millions and around the area you can see that really cool like it is you it's just from future work just thinking was that there was no

girl no the purpose of the when we filtered other than the

fact that something from that's a what's funny is a long was only really necessary hi I'm just get back demographics for a 2nd and I'm wondering if you have any idea what you're ratio is on users and contributors and particular we're talking about like preconceptions and changing that about that you have changing people preconceptions about the not the slide show beginning had about 90 per cent L than women and my son so I was wondering like that that's something that we're looking at changing the book changing your audience is hard but I can tell you from I've looked at the data just assume numbers and I think we're have

slightly more males was a adequately 52 per cent males but it's actually pretty balanced groups like 52 per cent males 40 something or and we also have the small group she is not 1 of so it seems I say that quick question it sorry was

there something else on transcription the I got might that it's me and so an academy In the a shame thankful for it to to give you an odd because the 1st piece of the graphics software I wrote twist wouldn't by it the you're not person without asking my permission for which aims through the grateful to that you got and then it's came apartment anyway but vector being indicating became wondering if you consider adding an alternate brands of it's like you really begins think if I put in my CD that I have some art for software and parts uh the chair motion coming you for example jumped out of his chair when they use the word accurate to describe myself you know there will jump out of his chair again so could yes some sort of that it supported begin part which is not called the him part something like would have force to get promotion chairs we have of that

role something came like that this would booklet and you are in you can have it on your it doesn't show any given operating anywhere share of 18 nice when you can lead to something that's that's public natural private because it's kind of more published so it would be just the main port which actually sent exactly the same place which is you right but it is not doesn't come the regions where it's is so that that's 1 of our bigger challenges that were collected by terms of marketing and branding we are the word the way we use deviant water and is the effects of code that deviating from the norm and that's the way that the was branded and being different and they have a place for people can share freely and it was a safe place to explore ideas some people think of you as a a word so the more pure that we do for the community and what purely side of we are 1 of the 100 most visited sites on the Internet not every knows about us but we are very popular so the more brimming with in mainstream publications stigma what kind of where the parameters of our to right now but you a it's something of couple of what we for influence of the problem yeah yeah so about this this this is a way to submit itself and the way that traditionally you've been able to get and search for us has been to the or assess feeds and now we have all of that well if you want show yachts using our I see has traditionally use the RSS feeds in order to create programs that could has to get out from didn't I couldn't walk paper things could randomly pick will pay for every day and what assisted is as a quick too difficult to use with the search field you have to have to creates such fields and push the men and it's

not exactly programmatic it's just this British is

mostly we have document for and now we are going to start making our sustained some details here we will publish all year but yesterday there was a lot of game or mass me about searching for great Commons content of our solution and we have an option that there been up for and so that's the recommendation and knowing wouldn't go to diagnose and the right over here we have to have time for a quick and we can show you how that works you are just a demonstration of the technology wrote a Mac OSX and and I will this work is social offers the accessible for you the general so have opposing votes I said the that was on the analysis of energy that he thought of that where you interested in his work when the 1st insists

uploaded soda-lime like so it would make it very easy for people to share immediately uh and then if you wanted to be indexed upwards on search engine the primal information like problems with the the rest of idea is that as soon as it's uploaded shareable here staff and you get a favor link immediately you don't actually have to submit being is assurance with your friends and it's consistently public on the internet just copy that links and all and it's in this temporary space where you as a conduit and then once you go in and actually I think it's all of the conditions so it's worth going from this came from the set of literals can provide so the following 2 go on and publish pumpkin darkness to come up with that in mind options title and create complexes and also say changes and builds an index establish new articles that people's message and fact so this is a more questions responses will hold the state thank you