I have noticed quite a decline in the activity on the site which I am very worried about and now I am looking for ideas from the people that use the site now as to how I can get it back off the ground.

If you have any ideas that could help then please leave a comment. Thank you

showthatportfolio will be changing over the next couple of months, it wont just be a portfolio host, below is an introduction to what features you will hopefully see very very soon.

Marketplace

showthatportfolio is designed with the intention to get the user contracts, however in some areas of art and design there is the option to sell pre designed work, for example in web design it is very common for web designers to create templates and sell them. This is what the marketplace will be designed towards, you will be able to advertise your work for sale and if people are interested then they can bid on the work and eventually buy it if you are happy with the bid.

Forum

The forum was originally going to be implemented into the site and I spent about a month previous to launch trying to integrate it into the site, after a month of coming up with error after error I decided to leave it out and launch the site as it was already delayed by a considerable amount of time. I am pleased to announce that I will still be adding a forum to the site, only I will not use a forum software that is already out there (phpBB etc.), I will completely write the forum from ground up.

Rating

Rating is important on a site like this, members and visitors will be able to rate portfolio’s and individual work and they will be able to leave testimonials about an artist/designers services.

These are just three features, there may be more so keep checking back.

I would also like to say another thank you to everyone who has sent bug reports, I have corrected all but one of them so far, so please rest assured if you send a report then I will try my best to fix the problem.

Thank you

Hello, firstly I would like to thank everybody who has signed up for an account and started to use showthatportfolio as well as the visitors to the site over the last 12 hours.

I am pleased with the first 12 hours, as I write I have 7 members, 5 of whom have submitted their portfolios. I have also noticed that there have been a few reviews of showthatportfolio on the internet so I thank the people who wrote these, the best one I think can be found here: http://www.killerstartups.com/Marketing/ShowThatPortfoliocom—Be-All-That-You-Ca-n-Be/

I would also like to say a big thank you to the users that have submitted bug reports to me, I have tried to sort as many of these bugs out in the past hours and I will sort the others out in the coming days.

So now onto how you can help:

• If you are reading this and haven’t signed up for an account yet then please do so.
• If you browse the site and like a piece of work then please leave a comment for the creator of the work to see.
• If you have a blog or a website then please say something about the site, review it and try and get people coming.
• If you have a portfolio then submit it onto the site and click on the Advertise portfolio link in your member area, this provides you with some images and code to add to your website/blog or on a forum to get people seeing your work. The more people you get to see your portfolio, the higher it goes on the listings.

So please do whatever you can to get people coming and using the site. I have spent a lot of time on creating the site (3 months of hard labour) so I really would like to see it succeed.

Thank you for your time and thank you to everyone who has and will participate in showthatportfolio.

It has been a very long 3 months from when I got the idea back in January to finally today releasing showthatportfolio.

I started the journey when I realised that there was no portfolio hosting site that was geared at getting clients, the closest thing to this was the very famous and fantastic deviantart. As a freelance web designer myself I found that the web design area was getting very overcrowded and it was hard to find a place where you could find all designers and clients, so showthatportfolio was born.

The idea behind the site is that a user will post a portfolio in one of the art and design categories we have to offer (more may come in the future) and potential clients, visitors and other artists/designers could come and have a look. If a potential client liked your work they could easily contact you without any hassle through the site and a relationship would be born. It is worth remembering that in order to get a client they normally ask to see your portfolio, with showthatportfolio, the client will see the portfolio before considering you for the job.

showthatportfolio is released in beta testing, you may sign up to the site and upload your work but please be aware that there may still be problems that need to be ironed out and it is likely that some things may change as new things are added. I predict good things for the site and with your help showthatportfolio could be the place to get you contracts.

I look forward to seeing you around and I hope that you enjoy using showthatportfolio.

Thank you for reading

Simon North
showthatportfolio