# Fotokritik (? – 2017)

- URL: https://girisimcikafasi.com/en/startup-graveyard/fotokritik/
- Sector: Social media
- Country: Turkey
- Total funding: unknown
- Cause of closure: Lost to competitors

## What did it do?

Fotokritik was a community site where amateur and professional photographers uploaded their work, sorted it into categories and commented on each other's photos. It became one of the photography-focused platforms with the widest reach in Turkey. From 2006 it was part of the portfolio of Nokta, which also brought sites such as izlesene.com and blogcu.com under its roof.

## Why did it shut down?

According to Tümay Asena, CEO of Nokta, the main reason for the closure was that the habit of sharing photos had largely moved to social media. Asena said that working with a loyal core of users resistant to change had delayed the team in seeing shifting user habits and device preferences. He added that in vertical internet products a static outlook paves the way for the product's demise. According to an assessment by the photography blog TozluMercek, based on forum statistics, as the craze for taking photos faded, the audience for such sites dwindled, and as traffic fell, infrastructure costs became unsustainable. Nokta decided to retire the site in 2017.

## The story

In the mid-2000s Fotokritik was one of the busiest online communities in Turkey for amateurs and professionals interested in photography. Users uploaded their photos, sorted them into categories and critiqued each other's work. The site was the first product bought in 2006 by Nokta İnternet Teknolojileri, a company founded by a group of friends who met at Middle East Technical University (ODTÜ), as part of its push to grow in the Turkish market. According to a 2007 report in the Turkish daily Milliyet, Nokta had bought Fotokritik together with izlesene.com and blogcu.com for a total of USD 2 million.

As Nokta's CEO Tümay Asena told Capital, over eleven years Fotokritik was home to hundreds of thousands of registered users and more than a million photos. Over time, however, the habit of sharing photos largely moved to social media. A vertical community site that had grown up in the desktop era lost its old appeal in the face of users' new devices and sharing habits.

Asena attributes part of the problem to the site's own users. Working with a hard core of users resistant to change had delayed the team in seeing shifting habits and device preferences. In Asena's view, a static outlook in vertical internet products paves the way for the product's demise; constantly looking ahead and taking decisive steps is the nature of the business. Nokta decided to retire Fotokritik in 2017.

In a 2018 post titled "Why did Fotokritik close?", the photography blog TozluMercek described the same picture using its own forum statistics. According to the author, there had been a strong craze for taking photos in 2011 and before; as it faded, the audience for photography forums dwindled, and by early 2016 the user population had halved. As traffic fell, infrastructure costs became unsustainable, and large and medium-sized photography sites closed or shrank one by one.

Fotokritik's closure shows how one of the liveliest vertical communities of its era quietly passed into history as users moved to other platforms. It is also a reminder that the contentment of loyal users can mask change in the rest of the market.

## Lessons

- The voice of your loyal core users must not stop you hearing where the rest of the market is going.
- As users' device and sharing habits change, your product must change too.
- A vertical community that cannot clearly protect a value the general platforms do not offer will wither away.

## Sources

- [Experience that teaches](https://startup.capital.com.tr/arastirmalar/ogreten-deneyim.html)
- [Why did Fotokritik close? What is happening to photography forums?](https://web.archive.org/web/20190718093249/https://www.tozlumercek.com/fotokritik-neden-kapandi-fotograf-forumlarina-neler-oluyor/)
- [Six young ODTÜ graduates became millionaires by selling 'addresses'](https://www.milliyet.com.tr/ekonomi/odtulu-6-genc-adres-satarak-milyoner-oldu-204266)