Worth1000

Worth1000 was an image manipulation and contest website. Worth1000 opened on January 1, 2002, and hosted over 340,000 unique images made in theme contests such as "Rejected Transformers", "Invisible World", and "Stupid Protests". In mid-2003, Worth1000 began hosting similar competitions for photography, creative writing, and multimedia. The service was shut down on 1 October 2013. In June 2014 the site was acquired by Sydney based crowdsourcing website DesignCrowd from Emerge Media.[1]

Aviary, Inc.
Company
IndustryWeb Based
Founded2002
FounderAvi Muchnick
HeadquartersNew York City, New York, United States
Key people
Avi Muchnick, Israel Derdik
ProductsPlime
Aviary
DesignCrowd
Worth1000
ParentAdobe Systems
Websitewww.worth1000.com

The website was designed by Avi Muchnick and Israel Derdik. Muchnick named it after the old saying "a picture is worth a thousand words".

The site had been featured in many different publications, TV shows and stations, and radio including PC Magazine, Popular Science, ABC's Good Morning America, BBC, CNN, New York Times, Weekly World News, Detroit Free Press, TechTV, USA Today, G4, Inside Edition, and many others.[2]

Worth1000 and its members have created three books on image manipulation: When Pancakes Go Bad,[3] I've Got a Human in My Throat,[4] and More Than One Way to Skin a Cat.[5]

Contests

Competition mostly took place in a series of themed contests. A subject title is given along with a sample photo manipulation from a previous or similar contest and a brief description of what contestants should try to do. Entries were then accepted for a fixed period of time, after which they are posted so that people can vote on them, and the results were then compiled. Examples of contests are:

  • Reality manga - Alter photos of real people (celebrities are popular) so that they look like Japanese anime drawings come to life.
  • Chimaera – Create a new animal by mating three or four other animals to one.
  • Invisible world - Take any object or person in an image and make it invisible using photoshop. No indication or outline of the object/animal/person should be seen, except through its function/interaction with other objects and/or people in the image. Some images, are based in the 1897 H.G. Wells science-fiction novella, The Invisible Man.
  • If Goths ruled – Show what the world would look like if Goths ruled it.

Others include mating animals with instruments or plants, zombifying or aging celebrities, combining several movies to one, and many others.

Even if the Photoshop contests were the main attraction of Worth1000, it also had a vast variety of contests for photography, writing, illustration, and a multimedia. Along with the regular contests, members of Worth1000 could challenge each other in head-to-head competitions as well.

Forums

The Worth1000 website had a large community as well as a large selection of forums. The forums were a place for general discussions and humor, and questions and answers regarding techniques for the various types of contests. Due to the many active Admins and a word-filter that monitored the forums, a high level of troll control existed.

Intramural competitors

Similar sites have competed in an intramural tournament with Worth1000.com, including:

Shutdown, Static Museum and Resurrection

On August 12, 2013, Worth1000's founder, Avi Muchnick, announced in the community forums that Worth1000 would be closed and converted into a static museum. The final contest was scheduled to end on the midnight changeover (Worth time) of September 29/30.[6]

Worth1000 was scheduled to close at midnight on 30 September 2013, but problems with the transfer of the site to the Static Museum status meant that it stayed open for a further 24 hours. However, once that period had passed users were greeted with a single page with the message that the site was now closed and would resurface within the next few days as a museum.

However, after a brief hiatus, Muchnick announced via a cryptic 1 Corinthians 15:4 message and an image from Worth's archives of the Turin Shroud. Posted to Worth's 'refugee' website communities on Google+ and Reddit, former users found that the site had been sold to Emerge Media and would re-open soon.

Worth1000 returned to the version of the site that existed in the week before the shutdown one week after the instigation of the museum. Over the following months, the new team transferred the site to new servers. However, ongoing technical issues and with declining popularity and an alienated user base, the new owners announced the intention to rebrand, redesign and invigorate the site. Contests were hosted to create logos for the new site, and admin level users were invited into discussions on the redesign.

In June 2014, graphic design crowdsourcing company DesignCrowd announced that it had acquired Worth1000 for an undisclosed amount.[7]

DesignCrowd announced its intent to port all user accounts and artistic content to DesignCrowd servers, while attempting to keep the user experience unchanged. The company announced the acquisition would help "create a bigger and better marketplace for freelance designers". [8] The transfer, however, was repeatedly delayed and by the end of 2015 had not been completed. Member frustration was exacerbated by the decision that Worth1000 members not wishing to become DesignCrowd members would have to “opt out” of the migration, rather than “opt in".

On February 26, 2016 the plug was finally pulled on Worth1000. Searches for the Worth1000 website are redirected to the DesignCrowd “community contest” page or to an article explaining where users can find tutorials, contests, galleries, and paid design jobs. The most popular tutorials from Worth1000 were republished on DesignCrowd.

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See also

References
  1. Clune, Bronwen (17 June 2014). "DesignCrowd acquires design and photo site Worth1000". Smart Company.
  2. Worth1000 media mentions
  3. ISBN 1-59200-524-1 Hardcover, 280 pages, Publisher Course Technology PTR; 1 edition (October 7, 2004)
  4. ISBN 1-59863-070-9 Paperback, 304 pages, Publisher Course Technology PTR; 1 edition (January 19, 2006)
  5. https://www.amazon.com/More-Than-One-Way-Skin/dp/1598634720
  6. "The future of Worth1000 - EVERYONE PLEASE READ". All Arenas \ Community \ General Stuff. worth1000.com. 12 August 2013. Retrieved 2013-09-29.
  7. Kennedy, Stuart (17 June 2014). "DesignCrowd reckons deal worth wait". The Australian. Retrieved 21 July 2014.
  8. Sabin, Jo (18 June 2014). "Worth1000 Joins the DesignCrowd Creative Community". DesignCrowd.
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