World Illustrated

CT, CEO: It all started when I wanted to go see photo exhibits in Paris. The search results gave me a mess of badly organized, uninformative and poor quality sites. It was frustrating and got me thinking...At the time, I owned a content licensing business. In it's archives, were tens of millions of high quality professionally shot images covering a host of topics, most of which the public never got to see. That business - Avalon - is now owned by world illustrated.

It struck me that publishing content just wasn't enough - no matter how amazing it is. We needed some type of INNOVATION to make the site really sticky. Bingo! INTEGRATION. Add tools and functionality that enables the viewer to do lots of fun and useful things. The idea of world illustrated was born. We integrate quality content with social media functionality and licensing and merchandizing opportunities, creating a new and exciting type of social media platform. Our whole really is greater than the sum of our parts. This integration  enables us to increase our revenue streams beyond the traditional social media platform ones of advertising and sponsorship. No other platform does this.

At world illustrated, we believe that content is king. It is an important hook to attract users. We currently have access to over 250 million images. The pool is growing daily.

Our music collection, for example, dates back to the 50's and includes the great, the dead, the new, the one-hit wonders. We cover gigs every day. In fact, our ambitions are to present content on a wide variety of music genres, not just the mainstream. Imagine being able to see a comprehensive multi-media history of your favorite band and have it delivered to your social media account. Buy a poster. Get a screensaver. Buy a ticket to a performance. Download a track. Watch a video.

One of our most exciting features is how our My world social media account enables users to make money by posting their own content for licensing and merchandizing by the media and the public at large. That's on top of the thrill of it possibly being used in a national publication or TV show. Moreover, Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook don't offer their contributors these opportunities. We think our model will attract public and professional creators. 

The publishing and content licensing elements of our offering are pretty much ready to roll. We have invested over $250,000 in developing them. Our editors have produced wonderful content sets that are now being uploaded. We want your help to finish off the My world functionality. An important part of our offering. 

Our business model for content usage gives us a great advantage over other publishers who have to pay to publish content. We do not pay publication fees and, therefore, can publish huge amounts of material at no upfront cost. We share some of the advertising revenue with the copyright holder (professional contributors only) and give all contributors a commission on any licensing or merchandizing usage. 

Our live content feeds from some the world's leading agencies include news, sport, celebrity from all over the world...but our ambition to be our users' window to the world, covers topics like Hobbies. Stuff of real, day-to-day human interest. world illustrated also gives a voice to those producers of specialist content. There are lots of people who want to hear them, if only they can find them. 

Celebrity content is a big pull. We have that in spades. But in fact, we call our celebrity channel "Famous" and include content on people who were famous in history, in business, in politics, in art and culture. They too are a big pull for many users. 

We don't expect to need a huge marketing budget if  our contributors - and you -  act as our ambassadors by getting people to follow them on their My world social media accounts. Did you know that the most followed wildlife photographer on Instagram has 6.6 million followers?  The Our Planet channel has sub-channels that includes nature, travel and documentary content.

Unlike many businesses, we are truly scalable. We are not limited by geography or logistics. The world is our oyster. 

If - when - we get our audience, there is no reason why we can't be as big as the rest. Sometimes being a late adopter is a good thing. You can build something new and better. A great rule of business is to learn from and improve on your competitors. I always try to hire people smarter and better than me.

If you like Sports, we have an amazing live feed of events from all over the world. We also believe that that our other channels like Military and Community will be big pulls. Just think how many veterans there are in the world. How many people do service for their communities. We don't just present the obvious.

Our localization feature enables you to see content that is relevant to your location. You could be in Rome and want to find some attractions to visit or find a place to stay, We help you see what they are like and book them. We can also help you to shop. We have amazing fashion show coverage, for example. We can link an image of a dress directly to the designer's on-line store. This brings us additional revenue.

My colleagues are incredible. Colin - there is nothing he doesn't know about photography and content licensing. Lee - cool and organized. Lara - a perfectionist and a relentless driver. Me? Well, I dreamt it all up and put it together. I hope that you back us. 

We want you - not just for your money. By using the platform, you can be our ambassadors and bring in users by getting as many followers as you can on your My world account. This will help increase our revenues in an easy and practical way. Help us spread the word and grow your company into something valuable.

See, share and shop. Help us make world illustrated into everyone's "window to the world"

Thank you. 

Charles