Tell us about phlow
Interview with CEO Carlo Nicora
One of my responsibilities within the marketing team at phlow is to help people understand the platform, what it is, what it does and how it is going to benefit you as a user.
I decided that doing this all in one article was going to be too much like hard work, for both you the reader and me the author.
So instead I sat down with Carlo Nicora, the “main man” behind phlow, and fired some questions at him.
As well as CEO and co-founder of phlow zone ltd, Carlo is an internationally renowned photographer, and one half of the successful London based husband and wife team Faby and Carlo (FabyandCarlo.com) specialising in personal portraiture and boudoir photography for women.
He describes himself as a geek with a gentle soul. Decisive and opinionated. It really wouldn’t be appropriate for me to comment ;) so instead let’s jump into the questions and answers…
In under 50 words, tell us what phlow is and why people should download it from the app store?
phlow is the best application available to experience the images that you love. It shows you the most relevant photographs for the themes you passionate about, without repetition.
It is the photo magazine we have all been waiting for.
(and in just 39 words)
What inspired you to start phlow?
I was inspired by a couple of problems I had. The first was that I was unable to find an application to find relevant photographs grouped by a specific, and sometimes complex, theme. Being a portrait photographer, I love to browse beautiful images, but I either had to skim through a sea of noise, or I just couldn’t find a place where photos of #portrait in #blackandwhite were grouped together.
Then, as a photographer, I always wanted a place where my images could have been seen and valued for their contents. You see, nowadays social media marketing for photographers is about who knows you already and it is difficult and time consuming to expand this circle.
I always wanted photographs to speak more than networkers. phlow achieve exactly this: it fosters compelling, interesting, photographs, not famous photographers.
You have stated several times that “phlow isn’t a social network”. Can you explain how it differs from the likes of Instagram or Twitter?
Social networks as they are today focus on the people you know and what they like to publish. To me it should be about you and what you like to see. You should be the centre of your own world.
phlow does not put your “friends” at the helm of what you are going to see; you don’t need to know someone to appreciate her art, because in phlow that is available to you.
What industries will phlow have the biggest impact on?
I believe phlow can have both short and long term impact.
In the short term those industries that heavily rely on imagery are going to benefit from what we can do. Imagine a fashion brand that releases its latest collection on our platform and can see how the various garments are trending, that is going to be massively beneficial to them. I can see the images from the catwalks starting to shape the production lines.
Of course photographers are also going to massively benefit from how phlow presents their images. You don’t need to create your social circle, expand it and foster it; you just need to post compelling photographs in the appropriate themes, and phlow will take care of placing them in front of people that are interested in them.
In the long term, though, I dream to see phlow changing the way photojournalism works. It is a long term impact and there are a lot of details which are not yet defined, but I would love to see phlow as the place where visual news… flows.
Why has phlow decided to focus on images, rather than video or more traditional “status updates” like Facebook?
Well, first and foremost I am a photographer, and I have a very visual approach to the world. I believe that images give a different angle to what you see. They can be consumed quickly, they are very appealing to our short attention span, and they haven’t gone through decisive evolution in the last years.
Instagram is the new Flickr, which was the new kid on the block 10 years ago.
As a photographer tell us what do you do when you take a picture, walk us through your process?
Oh, that’s complex. As a portrait photographer my goal is to capture the soul of my subject, therefore I like to have a personal relation with them. I believe that when a photographer can form a bond between him or herself and his or her subject, that’s when magic happens.
So, if I had to describe the perfect process to take a portrait, it would start from the personal relation with the subject. I would then focus on understanding the location I am in, to learn the light and how this affects my subject.
Last, but not least, I would just be ready to capture “the moment”, one of those glimpses of who a person really is, even in front of a camera.
phlow operates a virtual team setup, with professionals all over the world. What made you decide to go down this route, and what benefits does this bring to the company?
phlow is a so-called “distributed company”, which means that we do not have a physical office and we rely on technology to communicate effectively.
The idea of operating in this way came in two separate phases; In the beginning, my co-founder and I used to meet each other in various locations in London, not having a proper “office” for this was not an issue. Then I read “A year without pants” which is a book about distributed companies, and it made perfect sense to go down that route.
In terms of benefits, with the right people a distributed company gives you access to a much broader list of creatives. We work with people from all over the world, it really does not matter where you live.
The second huge benefit I see is that it completely kills office politics and helps you focus on results. Shorter meetings which are “to the point” and the ability to work without a strict 9-to-5 routine are amazing things to discover great people to work with.
What are you most excited about at the moment?
We are on the brink of going live, and everything is exciting. To be completely honest I really want to start using phlow myself. It is a product I would install and use immediately, and I can’t wait for it to be in the open.
phlow zone ltd is a small team of passionate individuals that want to change the way we spend our time online. We want to make it less about everyone else and more about you as an individual and your passions.
Our app is due for release soon, however you can request early access to it via our website today.
