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Photo.com is a new site that will aim to combine an e-commerce solution with a social network for image-sharing and community building, while also offering a place for users to sell products as well. The site is not yet launched, and is collecting email addresses for announcing its public beta.
With Chicago-based photo.com you'll be able to purchase cameras and equipment for yourself, while also selling items CafePress-style: mugs and other products with which photos seem to work well. This all goes down within a social network. The purpose is to present users and consumers with an all-inclusive website that can be tailored for one's needs. Acting as a portfolio of sorts, as well as a place to create things like slide shows which ca be shared with the community or with outside friends and family, photo.com is taking an approach that we're seeing with a few photo-sharing networks, manifested in different ways.
If you're wondering how a start-up got such a "normal" URL, its founder, Mohanbir Sawhney, teamed up with the CEO of Calumet Photographic, David Drew, who has owned the domain for several years. Having never developed a website for the domain, Drew has since become a part-owner of Photo.com, and the resulting partnership has set out to launch in all-in-one network from the onset of its service.
There's no reason why a combined site such as photo.com cannot succeed in addressing these three aspects of online photo-sharing. PhotoWorks and Fotolia are two photo-sharing networks that have recently made moves to incorporate more commerce options for users.