Shop Talk: Image Revolver uses crowdsourcing to curate art

For West Center City-based Image Revolver, an online art retail store that sells prints of international artists, the problem wasn’t getting content. It was making sure it was providing its customers with quality art.
“Getting a ton of content doesnt always serve the end user,” Image Revolver co-founder Yis Tigay says. “You have to figure out how to currate it, so users aren’t browsing through two million things.”
So, Tigay and business partner and Web developer Benjamin Greenberg–who met while working for local software developer Neat Company–decided to borrow an idea. From people-rating hotbed HotOrNot.com.
Though ImageRevolver accepts art from anyone, it is using a “community curation” system that let’s people vote on work. Once an image receives a vote of 80 percent or better on Image Revolver, it becomes available for sale. It’s a new feature, one that Tigay says works. “People have good taste,” he says.

It’s a good model for the online art retail world, according to Image Revolver’s experience. “Artists want to sell their work and are looking for venues to sell it. They’re going to find you, but don’t always have the same level of quality that the buyers are looking for,” he says.
“[By crowdsourcing], we’re eseentially creating mini marketing studies for every image we get. If you poll enough people, you’ll come to a reasonable conclusion.”
Tisgay says that another unique distinction of Image Revolver is the size of its collection. Art retail Web sites are either too big, or too small, he says. Large sites offer millions of images and accept much of what’s submitted. Smaller sites with niche content offer a couple new prints per week, or a limited amount of content.
“What we found was that there wasn’t a middle ground that sold art to the general public, had mass appeal, but demanded a high level of quality,” he says.
The site includes work from talented artists (though, Technically Philly did not crowdsource that opinion), including Simon Oxley, creator of famous Twitter logo that depicts a bird perched on a branch.
Many artists are moving to the Web, Tisgay says, attracted to the idea of lowering the price of their art by selling prints instead of full-on original pieces. Image Revolver offers its artists a revenue split, essentially a 50/50 for exclusive images, or if the work is not exclusive, 35 percent is given to artists.
The retail site does not allow artists to markup work, citing a buyer focus. “A buyer could sit around for an hour trying to find something that’s decent, finally find something that’s good, and it’s three times as expensive as what you were expecting to buy.”
Traffic has been modest, something Tigay attributes to having just recently started promoting the site. Still, Image Revolver has 300 to 400 active artists, he says. The company would not disclose sales figures, but said that a conversation about its sales since launch is “nothing that would be exciting.”
And though it has an international focus, the company has been reaching out to Philadelphia-based artists. It has approached art schools in the region to alert students of the opportunity.
“We think there’s a tremendous amount of undiscovered talent,” Tisgay says.
Each week, Shop Talk gets in depth with organizations in Philadelphia’s technology community. Read more here.