When you are looking for models online, there are two major sites to find them: Model Mayhem and One Model Place. Both of these sites offer similar features. You can create your own portfolio of images, add some text explaining who you are and what you do. You can search for models – or photographers if you are a model – and message them to set up shoots.
This week I’m giving the pros and cons of the most popular of the two biggest sites….
I still think of MM as the new kid on the block. It hasn’t been around as long as OMP, but it seems to be dominant now. I know lots of photographers who used to spend all their time on OMP who don’t even have memberships there anymore. I know a few who won’t go near it because they consider it more immature – both technically and emotionally.
Pros
It’s a social network. MM is the myspace/facebook of models and photographers. You create a profile and then friend people, just like on MS and FB. You have a top 12 friends. You can tag/comment on a profile.
You know if your message gets read. Unlike OMP, MM is set up so in order to read a message sent to you, you must log in. When you do, and view the message, it is marked read. This means when I contact a model, I know if she read the message. And she knows when I read hers. This can be annoying, but is usually helpful.
Models to tell me some photographers get pissed and send another message if they didn’t get a response after seeing she read it. Don’t do this photogs, its poor form and ineffective.
Strong Community. MM seems to have a very strong community, possibly because of its social network features. The forums seem to be very active despite a horrible UI. There is lots of tagging and picture commenting as well.
It’s Big. The reason these two sites are the only ones I use is because it takes time to keep a profile up, and therefore you only want to use the ones that give you a return on that investment. MM seems to do that best. It seems to have more new members and more active ones.
Cons
It’s sslloowww. Not everything is sweetness and light in the world of Model Mayhem. MM has grown very fast and the management hasn’t been able to keep up. They occasionally move from server to server, and all of the images are now hosted off their servers, but is still very slow and occasionally just goes down.
When this happens you get to see the dark side of community with a bunch of bitching and moaning. In a way I understand it, but I also wonder what bitchers expect to accomplish.
Whiner: “I’ll never pay to be a VIP if the site goes down all the time”
Me, thinking: “You didn’t pay, so why do you expect them to listen to you? Maybe if you had they could have gotten better servers.”
No “what I shoot” in your profile. MM asks what kind of stuff you shoot, but they don’t display it in your profile. Recently they added “Will shoot nudes” to model portfolios, at least to those who say yes. I’d still like to search for model that shoot swimsuit for instance, which you can do on OMP but not MM.
Forum UI is horrible. They have their own home rolled forums and they just don’t work that well. They don’t remember you, so you can’t see new posts. They don’t notify you of replies to your posts. Navigation is weak and searching is nonexistent.
Customer service is weak at best. Volunteer moderators are OK, if they actually respond to you. They spend a lot of time censoring, but not much time helping. Have to say, though OMP isn’t much better. Customer service is the scourge of the internet anyway.
Conclusion
If you are doing model photography and looking for models on the internet, you have to join Model Mayhem. They have the most models and photographers. They do the best job of networking them together, despite technical challenges. They’re profile UI is clean and simple to learn.
Here’s my profile on MM.
What is your experience with MM? Do you use it? Did I miss pros or cons?
Next week I’ll talk about One Model Place, so make sure you come back Monday.
UPDATE: Just caught this on a Garage Glamour thread. Model Mayhem is under new owners and have some very interesting policies. Its in the middle of this thread.
UPDATE: If you are wondering how the whole moderation thing works on MM, you might want to listen to our interview with Model Willow, who is a moderator. I was actually impressed by the system.
